Vampires Suck (2010)
Certified: 14
Duration: 86 minutes
Directed by: Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer
Starring: Jenn Proske, Matt Lanter, Christopher N.Riggi, Ken Jeong, Annelisse van der Pol
KRS release

Nary a year goes by without a movie parody being released in cinemas. Vampires Suck is a spoof of the vampire genre and focuses mostly on the Twilight series with only sporadic jabs at some other films or celebrities. While these films have a sort of “hit and miss” quality to the jokes and gags, this one is mostly made up of scenes which are of the “miss” quality.

The plot of Vampires Suck is a cut and paste job from the first two Twilight movies and follows said movies faithfully in order to parody them. Becca Crane (Jean Proske) is a teenager who has just returned to live with her father. She is angry, sad and misunderstood. The town is called Sporks and her father, Frank (Diedich Baker) works as the sheriff. She soon makes friends with Jennifer (Anneliese Van Der Pol), a wannabe prom queen. Soon they discover that the town is full of either vampires – mainly the Sullens family and werewolves.

Soon two youths are contesting the love of Becca – the sad-looking and white as dough Edward Sullen (Matt Lantner) and Jacob White (Chris Riggi), a werewolf who looks more like an overgrown house pet. Meanwhile, there is a sort of civil war going on between the vampires, preparations are in full swing for the prom.

The film – written, produced and directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer – cost about $20 million and has already had cash takings of about $80 million, which is quite amazing.

However, these spoofmasters have quite a track record: their films, such as Meet The Spartans, Date Movie, Epic Movie and ­Disaster Movie have all been made on low budgets and have generated a handsome cash take.

However, I find that the duo are ruining the spoof genre and simply milking the source material ad nauseam.

At least in this film, they limit their focus on one franchise, making it more palatable.

At the centre of all the mess that this film is, there is Jen Proske who plays her role with a straight face even though she is given quite a few thankless moments.

Matt Lantner’s turn as a Robert Pattinson clone is spot on and I am sure that Pattinson fans will simply hate him for all the mud that he rakes on their beloved idol.

Overall, Vampires Suck is an improvement from the usual Friedberg and Seltzer movies but then these films were only ever meant to parody and would never have had a life of their own were it not for the original versions.

Anyone who wants to see Vampires Suck will obviously know that this is a spoof and will probably know what to expect. Thus this love triangle movie of a normal girl, a cold-blooded vamp and a werewolf in heat goes out of its way to be juvenile, gross, amateurish and all so trigger happy.