Quickcard Review
Vampires Suck
Directed by: Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer Cast: Jenn Proske, Matt Lanter, Diedrich Bader, Ken Jeong Running Time: 1 hr 40 mins Rating: PG-13 Release Date: August 18, 2010
PLOT: A spoof of the films Twilight and New Moon from The Twilight Saga.
WHO'S IT FOR? The Twilight saga has already made itself into an inside joke that has been learned by heart by millions and millions. (Even the “Aristocrats” joke welcomes a fan to imagine the scenario however they may want.) Vampires Suck comes from “guys who couldn’t sit through another vampire movie,” but it wholly plays into the fad, and to the audience that has Edward Cullen throw pillows, etc.
OVERALL
Oh, the embarrassment. Yes, I have seen Meet the Spartans, another movie from this diabolical directing duo that embrace all elements that are wrong with mainstream comedy. It shames me to say that Vampires Suck, their latest poorly written pop-culture pot shot is not their most disgraceful work yet, even with all of its predictabilities and oozing laziness. Yes, there’s been worse.
In this one rare moment where their ineptness has actually helped their “craft,” the script by these likely clown school rejects follows very closely to the “saga” of the two Twilight films. Oddly enough, Vampires Suck makes for a form of Sparknotes for the first two movies, as the storyline is practically the same as both Twilight and then New Moon, despite the movie’s decision to lean more towards Team Edward than Team Jacob.
While the story is basically the same (with a different “resolution”), jokes are inserted in the middle to sometimes tease the logical “cracks” of the Twilight saga. Why does Edward glow so much? It’s his bling. How does he run so fast? He’s actually using a segway. Ha ha ha, right? Try harder. Thankfully, this allegiance to recreating the two Twilight movies but with a “humorous” edge deletes a good chunk of the completely random pop culture crap that made Meet the Spartans one of the worst movies ever made, and instead lets the actual events of the Twilight story play victim, even if the weak humor cuts as much as a silver spoon. Vampires Suck is the type of “comedy” that can go full into extended slapstick sequences without registering even the thought of “laugh?” into its audience's brain-cells. It’s the type of Hollywood concoction that has only one naturally redeeming quality – a decent Kristen Stewart impersonation by Jenn Proske. Of all the unknowns who got suck-ered into this, at least she’ll be guaranteed work tossing her hair and looking angsty in front of Mann’s Chinese Theater for five more years, until Twilight becomes nothing but an embarrassing moment in pop culture.
Having a laugh from Vampires Suck is akin to spontaneously vomiting in public. The reaction comes from nowhere, you can feel it coming from bad taste, and then bam – it comes out of your mouth. You’ve made a fool of yourself, and everyone knows it. Thankfully, this entire experience, which fired out a grade-D joke out from nowhere as much as its IQ level could handle, only made me laugh/giggle two times.
A small glimmer of amusement in my dark time of this opening night experience came from listening to the self-enjoyed guffaws of a lone-wolf fan who sat in the corner of the theater by herself, and laughed like this was a screening of Dinner for Schmucks. I can’t prove whether this compulsive giggle was a Twilight fan or not, but her reaction, “Die!”, to a Stephanie Meyer abstinence joke, has me thinking this may be the case. Regardless, her hearty laughs at even the cheapest of Twilight digs made the experience all the more bearable, especially as an observation as to what actual fans of the saga might think of this tripe.
Woe, the embarrassment though, when the movie ended. When the lights came back on in the theater, and the ten people in the auditorium were able to read each other’s miserable faces, she blurted out, possibly trying to confuse herself, “Well, that was a piece of sh*t.” Woe, the embarrassment.
FINAL SCORE: 2/10