If you are looking for a cheeky horror comedy, then the bizarre vampire story Der Upir with Rocko Schamoni and Fahri Yardım should make you very happy.
A comedy series about vampires? Is that really necessary? Yes! Because what multi-talented Rocko Schamoni and jerks. star Fahri Yardım, together with director and screenwriter Peter Meister, have created in the Joyn series Der Upir has neither the schmaltzy charm of the Twilight series nor the cult status of Nosferatu, but instead relies on amateurism and improvisation.
Based on a vampire story, the Upir transforms a horror scenario into a self-deprecating buddy comedy. While the plot drifts more and more into vampire cosmos and blood humor in eight short episodes, there is still a spark of realism. This means that vampire fans and people who don’t care much for the genre alike get their money’s worth. The absurdly funny series is available to stream on Joyn.
The Upir on Joyn: a bittersweet horror comedy about an expectant vampire
At the center of The Upir is Eddie (Fahri Yardım), a Berlin burger joint owner who is simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. When he visits a dilapidated villa that is offered for sale, first the real estate agent Ms. Solbach (Stephanie Petrowitz) disappears, then the vampire Igor (Rocko Schamoni), who was locked in the basement for decades, first sucks the real estate agent dry and later sucks on Eddie’s toe. Eddie is now an upir – a vampire on probation. Because after U(pir) follows the V(ampire). Eddie wants to avoid that at all costs.
He still has one chance: if he does a good job as a servant for 30 days and, among other things, disposes of corpses for Igor, he will receive the redeeming upir kiss and become human again. That’s why Eddie is sure that he won’t tell his girlfriend Julie (Aenne Schwarz). Of course Eddie will fail. And the policewoman (Lana Cooper) is also hot on his heels.
Anti-television at its best: the upir is a delight, with characters who are all idiots
The director pokes fun at the myth of the bloodsucker. Using Eddie as an example, he shows the undesirable side effects of being a vampire. It’s terribly impractical to suddenly float in the supermarket or to get bloodthirsty in your bathroom at home (the victim is a tampon). At least vampires have learned how to deal with the sun over the years and no longer burn to death from it.
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It’s anti-television at its best, because the main male characters are all caricatures and complete idiots. Igor is a bespectacled eccentric in a fur coat (a cross between Dickie Schubert from the mockumentary band Fraktus and Oscar Wilde) who counts his age by the toenails on his feet. He sleeps in a closet because he no longer has a coffin and organizes an orgy for the sake of his sex-obsessed cousin Thekla (Andrea Sawatzki, this time with a Swabian accent).
Eddie’s buddy Andi (David Scheid) not only turns up at the most inconvenient moments, but luckily he’s also pretty tough. His boss Uwe (Bernhard Schütz, who was already miscast as David Bowie in Das schwarze Quadrat) is just as stupid. He describes himself as a “certified sneak” and believes he’s smarter than Andi, but he’s just as stupid.
It’s fun to watch everyone fail and suffer with them, because Meister takes his characters seriously. The fact that they are neither children (The Little Vampire) nor young adults (Twilight, Love Sucks), but simply people in their 40s or older, makes the series all the more credible in its framework.
The trashy, taboo humor of jerks. is not only noticeable in the presence of Fahri Yardım, who plays Igor’s desperate obsessive boyfriend magnificently. It is precisely this amateurishness that makes the series so appealing. Yardim and Schamoni improvise at times, which makes the series more authentic in all its absurdity. The fact that Peter Meister relies on prominent anti-casting is a statement against age discrimination, stereotypical thinking and format television.
