Tuesday 15 February 2011

VAMPIRES SUCK DVD review

For some godforsaken reason I subjected my eyes to this monstrosity.
If you dare, check out the trailer and read my review, next...





Taking its cues from the Twilight Saga, this latest attempt at parody from Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer tells the story of how Becca Crane (Jenn Proske) falls in love with Edward Sullen (Matt Lanter), only to then realise that he's a Vampire. Lifting scene after scene from the franchise, Becca gets comforted by shirtless Werewolf Jacob (Christopher N. Riggi) and mopes around a lot. And I mean A LOT.


If Friedberg and Seltzer have given us anything, it's the chance to find new ways of slagging off their films without repeating ourselves. Generally I'm against watching a film with any pretense as to how appalling, soul degrading or outright shit it may be, but Friedberg and Seltzer hold a special place in my gut alongside "Cinematic Hitler" Uwe Boll that just knows they've got nothing to offer me in terms of entertainment value.


I'll be honest that I'm not overly familiar with the Twilight franchise (it looks like Romeo and Juliet with more angst and less bloodletting), but I'm well aware of its extraordinary popularity among moody teenagers with a desire to kill themselves. By no coincidence, this is also the market Friedberg and Seltzer movies are aimed at, meaning it was only a matter of time before they spotted this chance to exploit a passing fad.




Passed through their satire-o-matic, the Twilight Saga's Edward, Jacob and Bella become Edward, Jacob and Becca. Zing! They also replace the surnames Cullen with Sullen, Swan with Crane and Black with White. Seriously, where do they come up with this stuff?! You might notice on the poster that they've quite wittily crossed out the word 'Rule' and replaced it with 'Suck'. Well, I've got a whole bunch of four letter words for them to use that would also fit nicely.

It's the laziest kind of spoof that thinks all it has to do is replay the original scenes, but with a poorly executed send-up of a flavour of the month celebrity thrown in there too as an attempt to generate laughs. It's juvenile, puerile stuff, and an insult to the great spoof films that have come before it. Masters of the genre Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker had their A material, their B material and their C material, meaning if something was deemed to be only minorly amusing it would be relegated to background filler; an okay throwaway gag that you might spot, but it didn't affect your enjoyment of the film if you didn't.

Unfortunately though, Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer aren't too hot on their alphabet (despite their names seemingly including every letter), meaning they've got a whole bunch of Z material that's the focus of the film. I can't say that I laughed at a single one of the gags here, and it's ridiculous that they're allowed to keep making films. Yes, they are clearly cheap to make and people will watch anything out of curiosity, but it's too much of a blight on our cinema screens, as well as society.


If there's one redeeming element to the film (and that's pushing it), it's that lead actress Jenn Proske does a pretty accurate Kristen Stewart impression. She's awkward and pathetic in all the ways K-Stew is, and is equally as annoyingly navel-gazing as her parodied counterpart. Despite her valiant effort, it's not enough to stop this film from being a turgid pile of lowest common denominator prat falls and sight gags, delivered with all the nuance of a dim-witted sex pest who's just been handed a new stick of butter.


This is one for Twilight super fans and extreme narcissists only.


Verdict

No comments:

Post a Comment