This Yugoslavian film, which translates to Vampires are Among Us, is a buddy cop comedy and the second of the Hi Inspector series. It was released in 1989 and directed by Zoran Calic.
It follows small town cops Boki (Velimir 'Bata' Zivojinovic) and Pajko (Boro Stjepanovic) who are bored in their sleepy beat. It starts with Pajko sleeping on the job and being snuck up on by Boki (wearing a baloklave) and a fight ensuing (think Clouseau and Kato on a smaller scale). It ends with Pajko going through a window and landing in the trash.
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| grave robbers |
Anyway, after seeing the cops admiring a foreign woman, the following day, who is attending the hotel that is hosting an international symposium on organ transplantation, we cut to night and see a couple of men retrieving a coffin from a graveyard and putting it into a hearse. They then stop the hearse in town and the foreign woman retrieves it, whilst they leave in her car.
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| Pajko and Boki |
The next day a local man comes to report the theft of his grandfather, who had been buried the day before. There is general misunderstanding and dialogue set for comedic effect. The upshot is that at least three corpses have been stolen – though this is the first the cops or their boss (Zarko Radic) have heard of it. There is some blame placed, with it said that it is being perpetrated by vampires… Note that the thought is not that the corpses are rising as vampires but vampires are stealing them. There is no reason given as to why they would.
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| dressed as a vampire |
There are a couple of pieces of lore – One man has taken to carrying garlic, which is communicated as being fine for foreign vampires but it doesn’t impact domestic ones, apparently. Boki tries to catch the vampires at it and fights with the two grave robbers before running away. He sends Pajko the next day dressed as a vampire – which involves wearing a white suit and sheet – I assume it was meant to look shroud-like. Anyway, he is caught and beaten up by locals doing their own stake out.
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| coded as Nazis |
The whole vampire storyline is quickly abandoned, however, and the actual scheme is being run by a doctor (Nikola Simic), though given the organ transplant symposium you’d be forgiven for thinking he had organ harvesting in mind. On the contrary, he wants the corpses for Frankenstinean experiments to raise the dead (he only really wants young corpses as they will have more energy and health when revived). His plan is to use them to infiltrate the world and take over, he is coded as a Nazi (with henchmen in brown shirts and the use of Roman salutes).
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| grave robbery |
The comedy in this did little for me, I think some of it had aged poorly but other bits needed a play on language in the original Serbian that translation didn’t really do justice. There were logical leaps that defied gravity and holes that you could drive a hearse through. The title is also somewhat (deliberately) misleading from the primary plot of body snatching but there is a belief in vampires displayed for a portion of the film, along with Pajko acting (or dressing) like a vampire. I should also mention that we see the film Vamp on the TV at one point.
The imdb page is here.
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