The streetwise British film of the Eighties collides head-on with the pop video, and the result is a musical about a cockney snooker superstar who takes on a world champion whose vampiric aspect must surely be based on Ray Reardon! The music sounds great, the singers are good and the staging imaginative within an obviously limited budget. What a pity the orchestral backing is so deafening that you can't hear too many of the words in the songs - so vital in a film like this where the songs not only tell practically the whole story, but provide the atmosphere as well. Phil Daniels (as the kid), Alun Armstrong (as the vampire), Bruce Payne (as the kid's manager) and Louise Gold (the muppeteer, here as the girl reporting the title clash) give it mega- effort. The whole thing would probably look terrific on stage - apart from the snooker effects which are purely cinematic, although both Daniels and Armstrong demonstrate some mighty potting power which must have taken a lot of practice.

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