'Vampires Vs. The Bronx' Trailer: Teens Go To War With The Undead

In 1995, Eddie Murphy played a vampire in Brooklyn in the not-so-classic film Vampire in Brooklyn. But twenty-five years later, the undead are moving into a different New York City borough in a new Netflix horror-comedy.

Check out the Vampires vs. The Bronx trailer below, which seems closer to something like Attack the Block than Eddie Murphy's ill-fated box office dud.

Oz Rodriguez (The Wire: The Musical) and Blaise Hemingway (Playmobil: The Movie) co-wrote the script for Vampires vs. The Bronx, and Rodriguez also served as the director. His previous directing credits include episodes of The Last Man on Earth, Shrill, A.P. Bio, and segments of Saturday Night Live – the latter of which may explain why SNL's Chris Redd pops up here in a seemingly small role. SNL guru Lorne Michaels is producing alongside Erin David (MacGruber).

Every generation has its "regular kids fight against dangerous outside forces" movie, with films like Monster Squad, Fright Night, and Attack the Block serving as strong examples of how things can go well with the right execution in that subgenre. It seems like Rodriguez isn't interested in just focusing on horror or comedy in his entry, but blending the two and throwing in a dash of social commentary.

And is it just me, or is there a tiny bit of a Do the Right Thing vibe here? The girl in the opening strikes me as a potential evolution of Samuel L. Jackson's Mister Señor Love Daddy DJ character, and Chris Redd and his pal may even end up being a version of Sweet Dick Willie and the rest of the guys posted up on the corner in Spike Lee's movie. I'm obviously not suggesting that a film called Vampires vs. The Bronx will be nearly as impactful as Do the Right Thing, which is one of the greatest American movies of the past 50 years – just wondering if Lee's masterpiece served as a loose inspiration for some of this film's character types.

In the meantime, take a look at a couple of Rodriguez's early videos with Funny or Die below:

Here's the new movie's official description:

Three gutsy kids from a rapidly gentrifying Bronx neighborhood stumble upon a sinister plot to suck all the life from their beloved community.

Jaden Michael, Gerald W. Jones III, Gregory Diaz IV, Sarah Gadon, Cliff "Method Man" Smith, Shea Whigham, Coco Jones, Joel "The Kid Mero" Martinez, Vladimir Caamaño, Jeremie Harris, Adam David Thompson, Judy Marte, Richard Bekins, and Zoe Saldana are all part of the ensemble cast.Vampires vs. The Bronx debuts on Netflix on October 2, 2020.