European politics, werewolves, vampires and Lindsay Lohan. We have the makings of an epic here, an epic train wreck that is. Among The Shadows does not disappoint, writer Mark Morgan and director Tiago Mesquita serve up a cocktail of incomprehensible plotting and awful dialogue. Meanwhile Lohan moves into the Bela Lugosi phase of her career, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

It’s 2022, the exit of not just the UK but France has brought down the European Union. What we have now is the European Federation and it’s gearing up for elections. The campaign manager for the incumbent is murdered by a fellow werewolf. This not only throws the campaign into turmoil, it pisses off hard-boiled private investigator Kristy Wolfe (Charlotte Beckett) since he was her favorite uncle. When first lady Patricia (Lindsay Lohan Freaky Friday, I Know Who Killed Me), who happens to be a vampire, hires her to look into an attempt on her husband’s life she quickly accepts. Forming an uneasy alliance with Lieutenant McGregor (Gianni Capaldi Astro, Clown Fear) she tries to make the connection between the plot and her uncle’s death.

What we have here is a bad Underworld sequel with current politics added in to try to make it relevant. They don’t help. But, I doubt anything could have helped this film.

Let’s start with the basics, this is a film about werewolves and vampires. We expect some people transforming into wolf-like creatures, right? Wrong. The werewolves here have glowing eyes and fangs and shard claws on their hands. That’s it, no American Werewolf In London style transformations here. There’s not even any old school Paul Naschy style transformations.

This might be understandable in a low budget feature, but Among The Shadows claims to have had a twelve million dollar budget. Bonehill Road delivered multiple Howling style transformations on a five-figure budget. This disaster can’t even do a decent green screen shot. The money must have gone to feed Lohan’s nose.

And that brings up back to Bela Lohan, err Lindsay Lugosi. She’s top-billed but, unsurprisingly has a fairly small role. What is surprising is how much of it involves her being badly processed into shots and/or being replaced by a double that neither looks nor sounds like her. To top it off, her double is actually more convincing than she is. I don’t know the story behind this, but I’m fairly confident a trip to rehab was somehow involved.

The concept of centuries-old supernatural battles laying behind modern day politics could make a compelling film. But that would take extremely talented filmmakers to pull off. Among The Shadows didn’t even have competent ones. The Car: Road To Revenge now has competition for worst film of the year

Among The Shadows is available on VOD.