Fangs vs Spurs is screening during the 2022 Shockfest Film Festival in its horror comedy line-up. Directed, written, and produced by Patrick Love, Fangs vs Spurs is a low budget horror with a high amount of comedy, set in the rough and tumble cowboy days of America. Fangs vs Spurs proved to be one of Shockfest 2022’s more campy selections, putting comedy before all else, including character development and story comprehension.

If you’re going to have another movie about cowboys versus something, it might as well be vampires. Fangs vs Spurs does well in playing up and depicting the cowboy characters, who delivered kitchy one-liners with fine-tuned comedic timing. I was somewhat impressed with the practical special effects for vampire melting, however those scenes proved to be funnier than horrifying, due to the over the top acting from the cast of comedic characters.

I sincerely wanted to understand what the drunken cowboys were saying, however I found that the sound mixing did not allow for clear distinction of dialogue. Thankfully, the story was straightforward enough to comprehend and follow without hearing every word. The majority of the movie was silliness in it’s highest form, but the film brings it home in its last 10 minutes. The final scene feels cut from an anime, where somehow everyone is suddenly using katana swords even though they have fangs. It is a rather jarring contrast to the erstwhile wild wild west setting of the preceding scenes, but I must admit that I loved the ending of Fangs vs Spurs, and did not even mind the obvious setup for a sequel.

Was Fangs vs Spurs a so-bad-it’s-good  kind of movie on purpose, or, by accident? Only writer, director, and producer Patrick Love really knows, but what I do know is that this movie will find a place among slapstick comedy lovers with its plethora of funny zingers and one liners. Fangs vs Spurs is the kind of movie that looks homemade but has a lot of heart, coming off as a movie where a bunch of friends just got together to make themselves laugh. Its premise of vampires versus cowboys is, at first glance, awesome sounding, but by the end of the film, the story turns into something else entirely. As it loses itself it finds style and a glimmer of hope in a sequel, one where it appears the plan is to be yet more over the top than a cowboys vs vampires premise.