Every few years, a film comes along that makes you wonder if the British film industry is running a money-laundering scheme disguised as cinema. Dead Cert (2010) is one of those films — a supernatural gangster flick so confused about what it wants to be that it ends up as a Guy Ritchie knockoff awkwardly making out with a Hammer Horror reject. Imagine Snatch spliced with Blade, only neither half knows what the other is doing and both look like they were filmed inside a pub toilet.
⚰️ The Setup: The Undead Meet the Unconvincing
The movie stars Craig Fairbrass, that perennially scowling slab of granite known from every straight-to-DVD British crime film since the dawn of Betamax. Here, he plays Freddy “Dead Cert” Frankham — a retired boxer turned nightclub owner who has “left the gangster life behind,” which in cinematic terms always means he’ll be knee-deep in corpses by the 45-minute mark. Freddy’s club is the usual sort: red lights, cheap booze, and women whose job title might as well be “background object.”
Freddy’s world is shaken when a group of Romanian mobsters rolls into London, led by Dante Livienko (Billy Murray, chewing every line like it owes him money). These Romanians aren’t your usual drug-dealing Eastern European stereotypes — no, they’re vampires. Because apparently, when you’ve already exhausted every British crime cliché, the only place left to go is the supernatural bargain bin.
It’s a crossover nobody asked for: Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Coffins.
🩸 A Plot That’s All Teeth, No Bite
The story can be summed up in one sentence: aging gangster meets Dracula’s cousins, and everyone dies in Cockney accents. But let’s pad that out, because the movie sure did.
Freddy, craving one last score (as all retired tough guys do), makes a shady deal with the Romanians to expand his club empire. Unbeknownst to him, Dante and his pale-faced crew are less interested in bottle service and more in blood service. Soon, Freddy’s employees start disappearing, his strippers are drained of more than just self-respect, and his nightclub starts resembling a goth convention gone horribly wrong.
The rest of the runtime consists of people yelling “What the f— is going on, mate?” while walking around dimly lit hallways. It’s as if the script was written on a napkin in a Wetherspoons after closing time.
And when the film finally reveals that the Romanians are vampires? It’s treated with all the gravity of someone finding out their kebab’s gone cold. Freddy doesn’t even blink — he just reloads his gun and mutters something like, “Right then, let’s ‘ave it.”
🧛♂️ The Vampires: Bloodsuckers with Bad Haircuts
Let’s be honest — these vampires are about as scary as a damp crumpet. You’d think a film about London mobsters battling undead monsters would have some bite, but the vampires here look like members of a failed 2003 boy band. They wear leather, hiss a lot, and somehow manage to make immortality seem profoundly boring.
Dante, the head vampire, delivers his lines with the gusto of a man ordering tea. He’s supposed to be ancient and powerful, but he mostly just stands around smirking like he’s waiting for someone to bring him his script.
The special effects are… special. When someone gets bitten, the blood looks like watered-down ketchup, and the fangs seem to be rented from a seasonal Halloween shop. There’s even a transformation scene so clunky it makes early PlayStation cutscenes look like Avatar.
By the time the final battle arrives — a chaotic brawl in the nightclub involving guns, axes, and enough fake blood to make Tarantino sigh — you’ll find yourself rooting for the fire alarm to go off just to end the misery.
🔫 The Cockney Menagerie
It wouldn’t be a British crime film without an ensemble of blokes named things like “Chelsea Steve,” “Magoo,” and “Eddie Christian.” You know the type — all leather jackets, bad haircuts, and dialogue consisting entirely of insults and exposition.
Danny Dyer even shows up (because of course he does) in a cameo so brief it feels like he wandered onto set by mistake. His character’s sole purpose is to remind you that this could’ve been fun if it leaned into its ridiculousness. Instead, Dead Cert plays it straight — which is precisely why it’s dead on arrival.
Steven Berkoff appears as a crusty old vampire expert — because when you need someone to deliver overwrought nonsense with Shakespearean seriousness, you call Steven Berkoff. Every line he speaks sounds like it should end with, “Now go fetch me another cigar.”
Even the women in this film, including Janet Montgomery and Lisa McAllister, are given precisely two things to do: look terrified or take off their tops. The movie treats gender equality with all the finesse of a brick through a window.
🕯️ Atmosphere, or the Lack Thereof
The cinematography deserves a special mention — not because it’s good, but because it’s impressively dim. Every scene looks like it was lit by a single candle held by a drunk man. The nightclub itself seems perpetually foggy, as if London’s famous smog decided to audition for a supporting role.
Director Steven Lawson tries hard to create grit and tension but mostly succeeds in creating the visual equivalent of staring into a used ashtray. Even the fight scenes are edited with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for assembling IKEA furniture — jittery, uneven, and accompanied by music that sounds like rejected Prodigy tracks.
And then there’s the dialogue. Gems include:
“You don’t f— with family, Dante!”
“I’ve seen evil, mate, but this… this is proper f—ed.”
“They ain’t dealers, Freddy — they’re monsters!”
Oscar Wilde, it is not.
🩸 A Missed Opportunity (Buried and Staked)
On paper, the idea of Cockney gangsters versus vampires has potential. It’s absurd, pulpy, and tailor-made for B-movie greatness. Done right, it could’ve been a cult gem in the vein of Dog Soldiers or From Dusk Till Dawn. But Dead Certdoesn’t have the wit, the budget, or the self-awareness to pull it off.
Instead, it plays everything painfully straight, as if it genuinely believes it’s delivering a gritty crime epic rather than a supernatural soap opera with fangs. There’s no humor, no real tension, and certainly no sense of fun. The only thing this film takes seriously is its own mediocrity.
Even the ending — where Freddy, bloodied and grim, goes toe-to-tooth with Dante — feels like the cinematic equivalent of a shrug. There’s some shouting, a few necks snap, and then… nothing. Roll credits, fade to gray, and please, dear God, fade from memory.
⚰️ Final Verdict: “You’re Having a Bite, Mate?”
Dead Cert is a film that tries to blend gangsters and horror but ends up sucking at both. It’s not frightening, it’s not thrilling, and it’s only unintentionally funny. Watching it feels like being trapped in a pub argument between two drunk guys who think they’ve just invented cinema.
It’s a dead cert all right — a dead cert to waste your evening.
Rating: 1.5 out of 5 pints of fake blood.
Come for the vampires, stay for the confusion — and remember, if you ever find yourself in a British nightclub run by ex-gangsters with Romanian investors, maybe just go home early.
