Tired of never achieving any success with her band The Winners, bass player Jennifer (Jessica Pare) approaches a vampire named Queeny, quickly becoming one of his minions. When Jennifer reappears with fangs and a paler complexion, the band start to gain a following, much to the annoyance of lead singer Joey. It should just be about the music, man. Jennifer wastes no time in converting the rest of her band mates into demons of the night, all the while being hunted down by Eddie Van Helsing (Malcolm McDowell).
I'm not really with the current trend for vampire films (I'm all about the zombies), and especially not when they're trying to be comedies. My hopes weren't high for Suck, the trailer of which made it look like a sequel to Jennifer's Body. And well, it's even worse than that crapfest. It appears to have been released this week to get confused with Vampires Suck, and you know you're in for a bad ride when a film attempts to tie itself in with a Friedberg and Seltzer movie.
We're introduced early on to a vampire named Queeny. He's a ridiculously attired individual who, despite wanting to look like Marc Bolan, looks more like the lead singer from Toploader. If you're using him in an attempt to sell a vampire lifestyle to me, you've failed. I will concede that the film can by look stylish at times and is nicely lit, but it lacks the requisite jokes to make it a successful comedy.Joey, the lead singer of The Winners is such a wet blanket that you want him to turn to vampirism, just to add some excitement to his dull existence. In turns out that the actor playing Joey (Rob Stefaniuk) is also the director of the film, but perhaps he should find himself some work in music videos as he's delivered a film that is definitely style over substance.
On a technical level, there's some cleverly integrated footage of Malcolm McDowell as a young man, used to explain his character's back story. It's actually seamless editing that was the only thing that remotely wowed me about the film. Also his character's called Eddie Van Helsing, like Eddie Van Halen and Van Helsing, geddit?Yes, yes, it's a play on the old stereotype of band members falling into addiction and in turn having a musical epiphany, but the music and performances are generally poor. It's a slightly bizarre move to feature a bunch of real rock stars and the only one who performs anything on stage is Moby. Perhaps, the funniest thing about this film is its attempt to sell rock as a gateway to eternal youth, then having Iggy Pop and Alice Cooper walk on screen looking like haggard old rock relics. I'm sure it's only the drugs that are keeping them alive at this point.
It's a gothic emo 'comedy' that's completely devoid of jokes or scares. It does have some genuine rock royalty in the cast, but since when were they actors? To my knowledge Alice Cooper's most high profile role is in Wayne's World...playing himself. Moby gives his role some gusto, and it's nice to see Iggy Pop and Henry Rollins, but they're hardly comedians are they?It's the kind of film that unashamedly attempts to appeal to a cult audience, and maybe there's some sub sections of society that will like its gothic rock meanderings, but it certainly wasn't for me. It's an obvious statement that's about as funny as anything in this film, but Suck sucks.
Verdict
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