Reginald the Vampire e101: “Dead Weight”

Somewhere, there’s a good show lurking within the general premise of Reginald the Vampire. The horror-comedy riff on vampire tropes subverts expectations by casting against sexy type (think: Anne Rice’s too-pretty-for-their-own-good vampiric archetypes) by instead choosing Jacob Batalon (Marvel’s Spider-Man trilogy) as the lead. When vampires are all vain, sexy supermodels, what happens when a rotund doofus with a heart of gold is sired made a vampire?

Somewhere in Reginald the Vampire, there’s a decent story about body positivity. Somewhere, there’s a (stereotypical) story about the shlubby outsider prevailing over the preps and jocks and other assorted bullies. Somewhere, there’s a compelling story and jokes that are actually funny and characters who are written as more than broad stereotypes. Alas, Reginald is far, far less than the sum of its parts.

None of this is the actors’ fault, though. Most of them are doing the best they can with cut-rate material. Batalon is more or less the same affable sidekick he portrays in the trio of MCU Spider-Man movies, which is fine – but as much as I like Ned, would I want a whole show about him? No. Ned is the sidekick. He’s the comedic relief. He’s not leading man material – and sadly, although Batalon tries to wring some pathos out of Reginald, there just isn’t enough there to make a convincing case for him as a lead. Instead, viewers are forced to suffer through yet another overweight outsider with a heart of gold and lack of self-confidence, who could get the girl if he just believed in himself enough! It’s been done. It’s tackey, hackneyed, and cliched in every way. Batalon’s charm is enough to keep him from being completely uncompelling, but since he’s relegated to a thanklessly-written role, he’s stuck in “hey it’s the guy who plays Ned” mode.

Mandela Van Peebles fares better as Maurice the vampire, Reginald’s maker/vampire coach. He’s cool and detached without being cloying, mysterious without being annoying, and has a strong enough screen presence that halfway through the episode, I found myself wishing the show was about him instead of Reginald. Van Peebles, the latest scion of the storied Van Peebles legacy in Hollywood that stretches back to the origination of Blaxploitation film, is a born leading man, and it shows. Check him out in Mayor of Kingstown or Wu-Tang: An American Saga for proof. As Maurice, he’s confident and immediately steals any scene he’s in. What’s curious, though, is that he’s not necessarily doing anything major to win the scenes – he’s just being himself, more or less, and that’s enough. Nothing flashy, just a confident actor holding the camera.

Unfortunately, Van Peebles stands out as the series’ sole high point. Other characters, such as Emily Haine’s Sarah or Aren Bucholtz’s painfully over-the-top-asshole boss – are either underwritten to the point of banality or just broad stereotypes – the vampire antagonists almost laughably so. Remember the first season of Buffy, when the vampires were all written like one-dimensional religious sycophant cult members, without any personality of their own? And they were boring AF? These vampires are like that, but in Lestat-parody mode. They have fussy, bougee attitudes that might have come out of MAD Magazine. They’re meant to be threatening, but just come off as lazily-written, as if episode (and novel series) writer Harley Peyton couldn’t think of anything new to bring to the genre so instead he just wrung the classics for all they were worth and then called it a day. If a hero is only as good as their villain, Reginald is a very weak hero indeed. There’s the germ of an idea at work here – the super-suave vampire elite versus the rotund outsider, who naturally will triumph and thus prove the value of body positivity for everybody – but Reginald doesn’t seem all that interested in mining that story beat for anything beyond surface-level aesthetics.

Speaking of Buffy, it’s a bit shocking that Reginald the Vampire‘s special effects are noticeably worse than that show’s were twenty-plus years ago. I realize Reginald is a low-budget SyFy outing, but the vampire dustings (performed by Van Peebles with a sharpened hair pick because of course it was) look every bit as cheap as the first couple of seasons’ on Buffy. There’s also a half-assed “vampires run really fast” effect that looks about as convincing as John Wesley Shipp’s running did back on 1990’s Flash show. Worse, the poor effects extend to the makeup. There’s a scene toward the end of the episode where Reginald is supposed to be crying blood. (Subtle, right?) Except whoever did the makeup didn’t even bother to have the blood flowing from the tear ducts; it instead seeps from the middle of his eyelids. That’s just bad.

I could go on, but really, what’s the point? Reginald the Vampire is a misfire on just about all levels, and when it gets to the “twist reveal” at the end of the episode, it’s so painfully obvious that my 11-year-old called it. The jokes don’t land, the horror is cribbed from countless other (better) vampire stories, and any message it might have had about body positivity is utterly lost behind its “fat vampire” marketing and lazy, uninspired writing. Reginald the Vampire has the parts to craft a unique and fun spin on vampire tales, but in the final analysis, doesn’t know what to do with them. SyFy currently has this first season slated for ten episodes; I don’t foresee any beyond that. These actors – and viewers – deserve better. Instead, if you want serious vampires on TV, watch the lush Interview With the Vampire. If you want funny vamps, watch What We Do in the Shadows. And if you want both, just go back and watch Buffy. Your time will be better spent with any of them.