Rating summary

Movie		1.0
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		1.0

Vampires Suck Blu-ray Movie Review

This movie blows.

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater December 1, 2010

Vampires were so 2008. As usual, writer/director duo Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer—the hacks responsible for Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans, and Disaster Movie, amongst other dross—show up with another brainless spoof of whatever the 13-to-21 demographic was into two years ago. In this case, it’s angsty, bloodsucking heartthrobs and their hapless, hormonal plain-Jane female admirers. Don’t get me wrong, Twilight fever is still in full effect for a certain subset of ‘tween Hot Topix shoppers, but the series—and vampire media, in general—has long since lapsed into self-parody, rendering any attempt at satire unnecessary. Besides, I wouldn’t ever call what Friedberg and Seltzer do satire. Their films are little more than a series of aborted SNL-style sketches glued sloppily together with stale pop culture references and groin-busting, face-punching slapstick. Vampires Suck is no exception. The film is extraordinarily stupid, but worse, it’s painfully, searingly unfunny—for about the first five minutes, anyway. After that, the pain fades away and you’re left with a cold, apathetic numbness and a vague sense that your soul has just been stolen.

Vampires Suck stinks.

Riffing inanely off the first two entries in the Twilight franchise, Vampires Suck follows insecure brunette Becca (Jenn Proske) as she moves to the Pacific Northwestern town of Sporks—Get it? In the book the town is Forks!—to live with her impressively mustachioed police officer father (Diedrich Bader). At her new school, she catches the eye of Edward Sullen (Matt Lanter), a doe-eyed, pompadoured pale-face who, as it turns out, is an immortal vampire. It would be love at first bite—hardy har har—but Edward is all about abstinence, resisting the urge to chug from a major artery and also refusing to take off his promise ring. (Cue the inevitable Jonas Brothers joke.)

Vying for Becca’s affections is Jacob (Christoper N. Riggi), a pubescent, hairy-chested werewolf who’s obsessed with chasing pussy—literally, he goes bounding off anytime he sees a cat—and who’s also contractually obliged to take off his shirt every ten minutes. Both supernatural studs have pledged to protect Becca from…wait for it…The Kardashians, a band of evil vamps who often get mistaken for The Black Eyed Peas. (As if the pop culture non-sequiturs couldn’t get any more who cares, at one point, the entire cast of Jersey Shore shows up in the school cafeteria.) The lovelorn melodrama all leads up the school prom, naturally, which is summarily crashed by the Zultari, a coven of vampires led by Ken Jeong.

Usually I relish the prospect of critically eviscerating a truly horrible film, but the effort here seems like wasted mental energy. You already know this movie is bad. You know it’s wholly unredeemable. And with due respect for the three people who enjoyed it, you know it’s made for and by idiots. With Leslie Nielsen passing away this week, now seems like an appropriate time to mourn the demise of the spoof movie. Friedberg and Seltzer have officially sucked all the lifeblood out of it, and their latest film might as well be the genre’s death knell.

Now, I have no problem with crass, gross-out humor or juvenile antics, but if you’re going to be immature, at least do it well. Vampires Suck is just lazy, a pre-fab commercial construction built from dumb, broad attempts at what could only generously be called humor. You’ll find a tired jab at Tiger Woods, a lame send-up of Lady Gaga, and a Segway-based gag that was funny when Arrested Development did it…in 2003. There are sluggish swipes at cut-rate cable shows like The Real Housewives of Atlanta, and Johnny-come-lately pokes at Taylor Swift and Chris Brown. Even when the film confines itself to mocking the already fading vamp obsession, the results are disastrous, as when two armies of homely tween-aged girls—wearing Team Edward and Team Jacob shirts, respectively—go at each other with shovels and baseball bats.

I actually feel sorry for the cast, most of whom show signs of actual talent and ought to be in better films than this. Jenn Proske, in particular, channels her doppelganger Kristen Stewart’s dyspeptic, teen-on-codeine disposition perfectly, fidgeting with her hair and talking in mopey, stop-and- start sentences. Diedrich Bader, as her filthy-minded, small town sheriff father, has a few wry moments that border on laugh-out-loud-worthy, and Ken Jeong, while underutilized, is good in his bit role as an ancient vampire who becomes Prom King. Unfortunately, they’re all stuck with material that’s about as funny and imaginative as the technical manual for a kitchen appliance.

Vampires Suck Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

In most regards, Vampires Suck looks great on Blu-ray, as Fox's 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer is sharp, clean, and vivid. The first thing you'll notice is how colorful the image is during the daytime scenes, especially the opening at the school prom, where the students are all wearing bright red cloaks. Primaries are strong throughout, the forest greens have satisfying depth, and black levels are adequately deep without crushing shadow detail. (Obviously, skin tones are intentionally pallid.) Some scenes are sharper than others, but overall there's plenty of fine detail on display, from the weft of Jacob's denim jeans and the individually defined hairs on his werewolf chest to Edward's powdery makeup, which makes his skin texture especially visible. While that's all well and good, the disc is unfortunately plagued with small but noticeable encode issues. There's aliasing all over this thing. You'll notice "jaggies" on the bridge when Becca is driving into Sporks, on the bricks of a building downtown, on the grill of a Porshe, and even on a box of Crest teeth whitening strips. These are only the most obvious examples; if you keep your eye out, you're bound to spot more minor infractions. As a final note, the film was shot on 35mm, and while the transfer looks naturally filmic, you will notice some spikes in grain during certain indoor and nighttime sequences, where it's clear that the director of photography changed film stocks.

Vampires Suck Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Vampires Suck is saddled with a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track that's about what you'd expect from this kind of film: a little wimpy and underwhelming, but adequate for the task at hand. It seems there was less thought put into the sound design than into the script, if that's possible. The rear channels are used sparsely and quietly, mostly for ambience—chatter in the school cafeteria, forest sounds, etc.—although you will hear the occasional cross-channel swoosh during some of the "action" sequences. None of the effects carry much weight. The score, along with an angsty selection of incidental music, is also bled into the rear speakers, and generally has more heft than the effects, with deep bass and dynamics that, if not quite punchy, are at least clear. Really, the best I can say about this track is that the dialogue is easily understood, although that's not necessarily a plus in this case.

Vampires Suck Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There's not much here to keep you occupied, but really, what did you expect?

• Deleted Scenes (1080p, 12:34): Includes nine excised sequences.
• Gag Reel (1080p, 3:51): About as funny as the film.
• Theatrical Trailer (1080p, 1:37)
• Sneak Peaks (1080p, 4:47): Includes trailers for Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and Cyrus.
• BD-Live Exclusive - Who Makes a Better Lover, Vampires or Werewolves? (720p, 2:31): A promo featuring clips from the film and interviews with Ken Leong, Matt Lanter, and Christopher N. Riggi.

Vampires Suck Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

In his four word review, Rolling Stone film critic Peter Travers said everything you need to know about Vampires Suck: "This movie sucks more." What else needs to be said? Unless you're some kind of glutton for cinematic self-punishment, there's no reason to ever, ever, ever subject yourself to such mindless, puerile trash. The Twilight saga does a good enough job parodying itself on its own.