The Thompsons
The Thompsons
| 21 August 2012 (USA)
The Thompsons Trailers

On the run with the law on their trail, America's most anguished vampire family heads to England to find an ancient vampire clan. What they find instead could tear their family, and their throats, apart forever.

Reviews
Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.
Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.
Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.
Bessie Smyth Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.
GL84 Forced on the run, a vampire clan arrives in London looking for help and recuperation only to find their hosts have far more diabolical plans in mind when they're captured and forced into a breeding program to ensure survival, putting the two families against each other.Surprisingly, this turned out to be quite a decent enough vampire effort that does have some pretty enjoyable features about it. One of them is perhaps the most controversial of the film's changes, in how it deals with the vampires in here. Rather than being remorseless nocturnal bloodsuckers unsympathetic with humanity in the slightest, this one portrays two distinct differences that are rather unique: being a condition received at birth and thus being able to walk about in sunlight with no ill effects, and the second issue of having no real interest in humanity other than feeding time and being out and about without getting into the strange, rabid intensity around fresh meat. Here, they're given a little more of an ability to blend in with the rest of humanity and that's quite a fun option here as it goes against so much of what's known and given about the creatures in the folklore. While this change may not be for everyone, the fact that it's no excuse for how slow and uneventful the first half of this is really hard to take into account, which has the ever-familiar stamp of British class and restraint that makes nothing seem important to get worked up over and really drains this of its energy. That said, there's still some good parts here with some fine gore scenes from the multiple kills, a couple of outstanding action scenes coming from a multitude of brawls and gunfights, and a twisting, convoluted storyline that stays on-track throughout these twists and turns that keep this quite enjoyable though not entirely perfect.Rated R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence, Full Nudity and several sex scenes.
jaguiar313 After 6 years, The Butcher Brothers (Mitchell Altieri and Phil Flores) return to the dysfunctional vampire family last seen in their low budget chiller The Hamiltons, who, as per that film's finale, now go by the name of The Thompsons. When a stop at a roadside diner puts them in the middle of a robbery, youngest member Lenny (Ryan Hartwig) is seriously wounded. After slaughtering robber and patron alike, the fiendish family flees to Europe to find help from others like themselves and escape the police manhunt. In the small town of Ludlow, England they find their British equivalent, The Stuarts and it seems they have found help for Lenny in this kindred family. But, The Stuarts unveil their own sinister agenda and as Francis (Cory Knauf) falls in love with their beautiful daughter, Riley (Elizabeth Henstridge), a war of the vampire clans erupts and a blood soaked battle for supremacy begins. Where the first film was a creepy and twisted family drama, the sequel shows us what a Twilight movie would be like if they had any real fangs… and gallons of blood. And The Butcher's version of that neutered vampire saga is a lot more gory fun. Where the first movie kept their vampiric nature a secret till the end, this is a full blown vampire flick that explains a lot of about the character's condition that wasn't fully explored in The Hamiltons. There are barely any humans in the cast either and those that are, don't last long. It's all red eyes, bared fangs and spurting blood. The film moves quickly too, at barely over 80 minutes, so there is little time wasted on melodrama and what I really liked was how the Butchers turned the sick and blood thirsty Hamiltons/Thompsons into the victims this time round and thus the heroes. We find ourselves rooting for characters that creep-ed us out in the first movie and that was part of what made this sequel entertaining. If you are a fan of The Hamiltons you probably will enjoy this sequel especially as the original cast are all back, except for Hartwig as Lenny, and they are taken in a different direction. The budget is slightly larger but, not by a lot as the Butcher's style seems to be a good fit for low budget indie horrors. It's not perfect, there are some flaws, it's not as atmospheric or creepy like the first film, not that it lacks it's share of shocking moments, but, overall an enjoyably different follow-up to the disturbing original.
Tysoncarter The Thompsons is a 2012 horror film directed by the Butcher Brothers (Mitchell Altieri and Phil Flores) and is actually a sequel to the Butcher Brothers' previous film The Hamiltons.The family is on the run and have taken to the road first of all in sequences set in Texas and Paris before the bulk of the story brings Francis (Cory Knauf) to rural England in search of others of his kind, which leads to a hook-up with the more confident, callous and well- established vampire clan, the Stuarts, led by the local patriarch (Daniel O'Meara) and his wife (Selina Giles).Complications arise which involve the Stuarts' human-born daughter (Elizabeth Henstridge) and murderous twin sons (Sean Browne and Tom Holloway) which eventually bring in Francis's twin siblings, David (Samuel Child) and Darkene (Mackenzie Firgens), plus injured younger brother Lenny (Ryan Hartwig), whose role has changed radically since the first film.What I liked in the first film, but I can talk about more this time round since this is the sequel and people should know what to expect, is that whilst the family are basically vampires, they are certainly no ordinary strain of vampire as they have not been turned. In a world where vampires procreate, they were born with a disease which left them blood thirsty killers. Killers that can set foot in daylight but are also just as susceptible to pain and death as anyone else. I felt this was a cool way of integrating something different into the world, and it works well here.The film begins and continues in the same vein as the first, with the narration coming from Cory Knauf who was the highlight in the original film. He is even better here, and as well as being the main character in The Thompsons, he also had a hand in writing the screenplay. The narration works well, and I really enjoyed the 'time shifts' as we keep going back and forth via flashbacks which brings us up to date on what has happened in the 6 years since The Hamiltons was released.The Thompsons is far glossier than the original and it has to shift our attitudes towards the family to make the film work. This is definitely a positive, as aside from one they were distinctly unlikable in the original movie. It plays much more like a thriller here, unlike The Hamiltons which was light on blood and tension. This time round we have vampire battles, blood and guts a-plenty and a family we find ourselves rooting for rather than railing against. Definitely how a sequel should be, and this certainly was an improvement in every way.The Thompsons is a fast-paced, beautifully shot, fun and violent film with good performances from all the cast, including a star turn from Knauf, that relies more on the style than the substance. It's also nice to see everyone returning from the first movie, and whilst they have changed physically in the 6 years, character wise they are still the same but ultimately all pull together as families should. Whilst the dialogue at points is a little weak (and slightly stereotypical to how us people in Great Britain speak in a Dick Van Dyke movie) and the storyline is fairly simple, I was stunned by how good this film was considering it had been 6 years since the first film, and essentially it's a low-budget vampire film.I would love to see a part 3 to this story, and hopefully Knauf is involved with the writing again as this movie improved on the original in every way. I definitely recommend this if you like your films fun and bloody, and if you can look past a couple of weak story aspects and dodgy accents then The Thompsons comes highly recommended. Try and watch part 1 of this series The Hamiltons first if possible though!For more reviews please check out my site: http://headinavice.com/
Ratatosk73 Where to begin? This movie doesn't do anything right.The main character is a whining emo sun walking vampire. After slaughtering a bar full of people he and his too dumb to breath sister and brothers vampires manage to set themselves up in Europe somehow. There they meet up with a family of uber-vampires who have killed gazillions of normal people and vampires like them but who fail to kill a single one of these retards, they just like to push them and play with them. They do this while being, like, super-serious. The retards then kill them using vampire-skills against vampires who are as superior to them as they are to normal people. The end.Did I mention the 'lovestory'? Well, for no reason the youngest of the uber-vampires rescues the emo vampire and kills her brothers. Probably because he is so cool or something.It tries to hide the lack of story by jumping around in the time line every 5 minutes. OK, moron is in a box, how does he get out? No, how does he get in. No suspense. It's like watching a sad Monty Python killer bunny for 80 minutes without it trying to be funny.I have no idea what kind of audience will be entertained by this crap. Even stoned retarded goth kids in puppy love will vomit.