Review: VAMPIRES SUCK

I laughed out loud exactly one time in VAMPIRES SUCK, in a scene where the vampire Edward is hovering over his sleeping love Becca and she farts loudly in his face. I’m not proud to have found that funny but at least I can report that VAMPIRES SUCK is not a completely laugh-free comedy. VAMPIRES SUCK is from Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, the same hacks who unleashed DISASTER MOVIE, DATE MOVIE and MEET THE SPARTANS, a trio of spoofs so witless and lame that if they had one laugh-out-loud moment between the three of them, I missed it. This time they’ve set their sites on the TWILIGHT trilogy, a series I haven’t seen so not only were my expectations low in terms of laughs, but I fully expected many of the gags to go over my head. The best thing I can say about VAMPIRES SUCK is that it wasn’t any worse than I anticipated, but since my expectations were in the gutter, that’s faint praise. It’s a crude, desperate comedy that tries hard to be hilarious but goes for interminable stretches with its gags-to-laughs batting average hovering right around zero.
Set in the town of Sporks, Washington,VAMPIRES SUCK focuses on the romance of Becca Crane (Jenn Proske), the beautiful but surly daughter of the local sheriff (Dietrich Bader), and Edward Sullen (Matt Lanter), the hunky but surly red-eyed boy she falls for. He’s a vampire who soon finds himself challenged for her affection by Jacob White (Chris Riggi), a muscular werewolf who tries to seduce Becca when he’s not chasing cats, scratching his ear with his foot, or taking his shirt off (which he claims he’s contractually obligated to do every ten minutes).

Anyone familiar with the earlier efforts by Friedberg and Seltzer will know what to expect here. VAMPIRES SUCK is full of gags about the expected timely pop culture figures (Tigers Woods, The Black-Eyed Peas, Chris Brown, the Kardashian sisters) but they make the same jokes late-night comics have beat them to by months and the whole affair has a hasty quality to it. It’s also a tempered PG-13 so it never tests the limits of what can be funny the way the first SCARY MOVIE did. VAMPIRES SUCK parodies the first TWILIGHT film scene by scene (or so I’ve been told) so I guess the filmmakers should get points for focus and avoiding piling on random gags from other recent films like their earlier works did. The TWILIGHT films may be a great target for satire but what we have here is another classic example of a decent idea corrupted by lazy writing and VAMPIRES SUCK is so dumbed down it’s forgotten long before it ends. If it wanted to impress the TWILIGHT fans that I assume are its target audience, it should have been way sharper in its satire.

On the plus side, the very the charming Jenn Proske as Becca is most appealing and certainly doesn’t display any less charisma than the actress she’s spoofing. I’ll look forward to seeing her in other films. Comic actor Ken Jeong (THE HANGOVER) is always a welcome, goofy presence but he’s underused here as vampire royalty. VAMPIRES SUCK sort of breezes by at a harmless 80 minutes and I’m sure there are worse ways to spend one’s time. I did smile a few times and laughed aloud at the fart joke, hence the single star. There’s something to be said for low expectations.

One out of Five Stars