I love The Night Watchmen so much. This is a movie that I watched before I started doing this blog and it was a movie that I decided to watch on a whim one night as I had trouble sleeping. I was a fan of the movie as soon as it really got going. It was just as enjoyable the second time around. The mix of comedy and horror in the movie is something that I always enjoy especially when its done well. The style of comedy in The Night Watchmen might not be for everyone but when it goes for horror it does that incredibly well.
The Night Watchmen was directed by Mitchell Altieri. It was written by Ken Arnold, Dan De Luca, and Jamie Nash. The plot of the movie hits the ground running. The characters get a little bit of time to endear themselves to the audience. We also get to see the interplay between everyone else in the office before the shit hits the fan, which helps endear the right characters to the audience. Part of the reason it all works so well is because script was written by people that knew what would work.
That’s helped along by the performances. Ken Arnold, Max Gray Wilbur, Dan De Luca, Kevin Jiggetts, Kara Luiz, Tiffany Shepis, and James Remar do an amazing job. The five leads have such amazing chemistry that you can’t help but enjoy whenever they’re on screen. Remar is almost completely unrecognizable with him doing a much different voice than usual. Luiz and Arnold have a fun chemistry together that plays into their characters’ relationship. That’s not mentioning the chemistry that Arnold and Jiggetts share, which does some of the comedic heavy lifting in the early parts of the movie.
The effects for the vampires are fantastic. The effects for Blimpo, the lead vampire, make the clown absolutely terrifying. All of the clowns are pretty terrifying, but Blimpo is the most terrifying of them. I feel like the effects were planned around the clown makeup to make them that much more terrifying, especially if you have coulrophobia. The non-clown vampires look unique. The music from Kevin Kerrigan is fantastic. It adds the right emotions and tones to the moments to help punctuate the scenes.
The Night Watchmen is a fun horror comedy that has a fun take on vampires. With this rewatch I think this is gonna be one of the movies that I show people to see if we have similar sense of humor. There are so many movies in that list now. You can stream this on Amazon Prime Video, Paramount +, and several other services. I give The Night Watchmen 9.5 clown noses out of 10.