While Neil Jones has clearly done his research, the tremendous debt The Reverend owes to its forebears only serves to highlight the ultimate failures of this Dracula-goes-to-Ambridge sub-par horror. This is never more aptly highlighted than when Brennan’s character, fuelled by a burning desire to drink the blood of a local pensioner, laps gore from the worktop of his kitchen. A clear attempt to recreate a near identical scene from Guillermo del Toro’s Cronos (1993), The Reverend repeatedly trades unnerving artistry for home counties' tedium. In addition to this, the film manages to condense Timur Bekmambetov’s Night Watch (2004) and Day Watch (2006) into a ten minute epilogue of immediate irrelevance. While the Russian’s films could never be seen as sophisticated, the preliminary act of The Reverend only serves to borrow a number of ‘weighty’ symbols from Bekmambetov’s vision. These are never returned to and thus become startlingly inappropriate.
Even more unsettling, Jones’s film espouses an uncomfortable vision of class. The village is continuously plagued by the problems of a nearby housing estate, which is posed as the source of all the world’s ills. The working class are shown as a thieving and violent bunch. Beyond redemption, The Reverend suggests that murder is the only way that civilised members of society can rid themselves of this ‘menace’. If one is to attempt to maintain the idea’s of the long forgotten introduction, are we to believe that the world’s poor are in fact agents of Hell? Wealth and the possession of a country house are shown to be invitations into paradise, owned only by the brave and kind.
With actors stuttering to deliver awkward phrases, Jones does little to support them with his camera. Often using infuriatingly slapdash or by the numbers direction, The Reverend retains the feel of a weekly soap opera. While Jones occasionally remembers to use a neat voice over that harks back to the film’s comic book roots, The Reverend holds no redeeming features. Times must be tough for Rutger Hauer if he needs to maintain his career with this malicious guff. Recalling his glory days in Blade Runner (1982), my tears were lost in rain.
