ICYMI. No matter how many silver stakes or cloves of garlic one breaks out, vampires never seem to stay down for long, so naturally, a vampire action-comedy is the perfect place for the latest stuntman-turned-director to jump into the game!
In this case, it’s J.J. “Loco” Perry making his directorial debut with the Netflix action-comedy “Day Shift”. The new trailer for the Jamie Foxx-led vampire hunter flick can be seen below, and while Scott Adkins’ is only seen in a blink-and-you’ll-miss moment, he’ll surely be springing into action a-plenty in the film itself!
In “Day Shift”, Foxx portrays Bud Jablonski, a pool-cleaner whose profession conceals his actual line of work, namely the hunting of Nosferatu.
Dave Franco also appears as Bud’s more sheepish new rookie partner Seth, with Snoop Dogg also on board as their fellow vampire hunter Big John Elliot.
With vampire hunting being a lucrative but cutthroat (no pun intended) business, Bud has a limited time to cash in $10,000 in vampire slaying fees before his wife and daughter leave him. Bud’s only hope is to go through the vampire hunting “Union” for the money he needs.
As you can see from the trailer and title, “Day Shift” is far more daylight-set than the average vampire movie, to include the “Blade” films, but that’s not the only element that jumps out about it.
As the trailer for “Day Shift” proudly (and deservedly) proclaims, the movie is brought to you by “The guys who taught John Wick to kick ass”, and those same lessons look quite well internalized by the vampire hunters of “Day Shift”.
J.J. Perry, a former competitive Taekwondo champion, has been steeped in the world of stunts and fight choreography for literally decades. Action fans can see J.J.’s work either as a stuntman or fight choreographer in such movies as “Best of the Best 2”, “Bloodsport III”, “Mortal Kombat”, “Blade”, “Undisputed 2: Last Man Standing”, “The Tournament” “Warrior”, “John Wick”, “John Wick: Chapter 2”, and countless others.
Clearly, there’s quite an influence of the last two at play here in “Day Shift”, and quite frankly, the style of action from “John Wick” conjunct a vampire story is a match made in heaven.
Add in the abundance of comedy on display, and “Day Shift” has got everything necessary for a vampire-slaying good time. Itchingly, as mentioned above, Scott Adkins is only glimpsed once in the trailer, so viewers will have to wait for “Day Shift” to land on Netflix to see what he brings to his entry into the vampire-hunting genre.
Until then, Scott’s interview with J.J. himself on his outstanding YouTube series “The Art of Action” can be seen above as a nice warm-up before clocking in with the Union next month!
