Vampires Suck (2010)

Directed by: Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer
Written by: Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer
Cast: Jenn Proske, Matt Lanter, Diedrich Bader, Chris Riggi, Arielle Kebbel

BEHOLD - the powers of a greatly lowered expectation.

I approached the old, scuzzy mega-mall AMC with all the enthusiasm of a prisoner on the Bataan Death March. I forced myself to make entry, found a seat, hung my head, and tried to ignore the fine aromas of old gym socks and urine that always seem to permeate old scuzzy mega-mall theaters such as this one. After the mild distraction of five introductory trailers came and fled the screen, my torturer did arrive; Vampires Suck, surely to be one of the worst films of the year, come to suck out my very soul with nitrate teeth honed like the sharpened edge of baseball bats.

I sat and watched like Mad Alex undergoing therapy, a thin line of drool hanging down my chin, until a revelation struck me twenty minutes into the feature. This wasn't the apocalyptic film of horrid old after all - my eyes were not weeping blood, nor were my brains oozing out of my ears. With my skin not sloughing off of my frame, and my genitals still soundly intact (I like to check every couple of minutes), I came to this conclusion; Vampires Suck doesn't have any real evil sorcerous power, no! It's just an every day bad movie! It's just a common, boring old bad movie! We're going to live! Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive!

The synopsis is one that everyone is familiar with unless they've been living in some dark sparkly-vampire free cave for the last five years or so. Becca loves Edward. She also thinks Jacob's kind of hot. Edward loves Becca. Oh, and Jacob loves Becca. Oh, and Becca's prone to being gassy while asleep. This isn't anything new and is veritably lifted right from the pages of Twilight, where Vampires Suck pulls 90% of its material.

The rest of the material of Vampires Suck comes from the same place that all of the parody spoofs spawned by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer come from; society at large. The film is bulging with topical references and jokes that will help to date the film in five to ten years. This doesn't mean all of the cultural references were fresh - some were surprisingly old and moldy. In my notes, I made a game of jotting down each cultural reference I spotted. Give yourself one point every time you see any reference to the following: Gossip Girl, Facebook, Crest White Strips, Abercrombie and Fitch, Jonas Brothers, Alice in Wonderland, Twitter, Canadians, Tampax, Chinese food, cougars (i.e., mature women who screw young men, and not the cat), George Clooney, the Kardashians, Buffy, Chris Brown, Segways, slurpees, Taylor Swift, lactose intolerance, Tabasco sauce, the Black Eyed Peas, Ben and Jerry's ice cream, Lady Gaga, Fox News, and lastly, the song "It's Raining Men" by the Weather Girls.

Spot one that I missed? Give yourself five bonus points and a cookie. By the way, the winner of this contest gets a punch to the groin; shoot me your score when you're done and I'll let you know where you stand.

So, is Vampires Suck funny? Well, occasionally. Keep in mind that this is from the creators of that long chain of * Movie, as in Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, Scary Movie, and so on, up to and including Meet the Spartans which doesn't include the magical 'Movie' word but sucks all the same. These films machine gun gags and jokes like a Vulcan cannon, and some are bound to make their mark by simple abundance. But for every bullet that strikes the target, there's at least three others that miss, ricochet, and cut down a small child, friendly old person, or a fluffy little kitten; acts that I'm sure are against the law.

That Vampires Suck sucks isn't really disputable - this is a bad film in pretty much every way of thinking. But it's also true that it is an everyday sort of bad film, and not one to make much a fuss over. It's forgettable, and it definitely will be forgotten, even if I have to drink the bad thing away after spiking my cup with flunitrazepam.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must acknowledge that I am not the target audience. Twilight, to me, is seriously empty nonsense, so why then would a parody about the film even be that effective? There were characters in Vampires Suck that were barely even introduced - I think they were really only understandable to fans of the original fiction. For example, who the hell is Daro? He must be somebody in the books, but he popped up in the film, along with his sidekicks, as if we might all already know who he is.

There was an interesting side effect to seeing this film at 6:15 PM in a scuzzy little mall theater; the showing and location had attracted a healthy population of common mall denizens, those being girls in the age range of 12-17. While I found this movie to be pretty bad, the gaggle of young girls all around me seemed to suffer from the desired reaction. The crowd was a little giggle house of young women, laughing at this film parody what I presume is a favorite for them. Based on the laughter alone, I have to admit they seemed to like it. This is not a scientifically accurate survey.

So, check what you are, and make your decision to see this film accordingly. Do you think your opinions might be anywhere near a 40-year-old male, who loves art house movies as well as exploitation films featuring boobs and blood? Then, don't see this movie. Might your opinions be closer to a Twilight adoring 14-year-old girl? In that case, give it a shot. It's your call. Have fun.

This is a Day Two Review.

Rating: (1.5 out of 5):