I don’t know about you, but I always feel a moment of trepidation when I see rock stars’ names attached to film projects – perhaps particularly so when at least one of the rock stars in question has now shuffled off the mortal coil. What would they have thought of the finished product? Did it receive their blessing? What’s the story? That’s very much the case in Sunset Society, a film which boasts an appearance by the legendary, and now sadly deceased Lemmy Kilmister, as well as roles for LA Guns musician Tracii Guns and former Guns ‘n’ Roses member Dizzy Reed. The largest share of Sunset Society seems to be as a meet-up for LA-based musicians and hangers-on who peaked before the 21st century came around, although admittedly that doesn’t really apply to the Motorhead frontman. Director/actress Phoebe Dollar – veteran of a whole host of low-budget horrors in her own right – isn’t an idiot, and Lemmy is accordingly plastered all over the film’s promotional material, because he is quite simply a failsafe currency as far as rock and metal fans are concerned. He’s also mentioned frequently in the script by other characters, though it’s worth pointing out that this is, really speaking, a cameo role, with only a few minutes of screen time for him.
Still, it’s Lemmy – or ‘Ace’, his character name, which is essentially the Lemmy we know and love but with sharper teeth, who introduces us to the film’s plot. This comes to us via one of the film’s first animated sequences, scenes which in a perfect world would really be live action, and a voiceover explaining the subjugated state of vampires and how they have to keep themselves hidden to avoid death at the hands of mortals. Not all vampires are really on-message with this low profile thing, though, such as two of the other characters we thereafter meet: a man called Charlie (Ben Stobber) who is partying with two women dressed in school uniform, until he’s interrupted by some other vamps keen to get hold of a documentary film which has been made all about their way of life, risking them getting found out. Charlie swears he doesn’t have it; his friend Sophia, though, confesses that she does and that it was her project all along. So, next we get to see the film itself…
As documentaries go, it’s not the savviest or most explicable, but in it we catch a glimpse of the ‘Sunset Society’ itself. Aside from a few minutes’ worth of exposition which goes on after the documentary has played out, this is our film. So what do we learn? It turns out that even Vampire Lemmy drinks more Jack Daniels than blood; this must have been shot before he swapped onto vodka for ‘health reasons’ or else he’s simply getting into role here, but when he’s not swilling bourbon, he’s explaining his ongoing concerns about the secrecy of the organisation. The Sunset Society itself is, quite simply, a small gathering of people who look like they pinball between the tattoo parlour and the local Goth night, but along the way we see a few issues. For instance, one of the vampires – Daggar – wants to become human again, and there’s some mischief surrounding accidentally making new vampires which jeopardises the society even more (a crowd is never good for a secret society it seems).
I really, really wish there was more to it than that. Lots of the screen time here seems to consist of only loosely-connected scenes, with little in the sense of a driving force behind the narrative. Sure, some of the aesthetics are pretty cool, some of the city nightscapes look effective and if you like seeing pretty goth girls on screen then you’ll find plenty to divert you, but it all feels more like a protracted music video than a coherent film. Adding to this, lots of the dialogue feels improvised (and some of it has blatantly been messed up, but left in anyway) or there are issues with the script whereby it frequently becomes thin or repetitive. Making a joke out of the repetitiveness itself is not enough to swing it, unfortunately, even if it’s stalwart Ron Jeremy making the attempt: his is another cameo role, with little screen time given. (Oh, and another, more inexplicable cameo? Steve-o from Jackass.) As for Lemmy himself, well as much as it’s good to see him again, his scenes aren’t all that great. He was never an actor by trade and towards the end of his life, he seems he’s struggling to enunciate the lines given to him. The cheap animated interludes hardly help matters.
So, unfortunately Sunset Society adds nothing new to the vampire genre: it’s thinly-plotted, amateurish and promises more than it’s ever in a position to deliver. Any film where the vampire dentures impede the speech of the actors has been done on way too much of a shoestring budget. Whilst Lemmy has some fun film cameos to his name, this isn’t amongst his best, frankly, and I can’t in all honesty recommend this as a swansong.