Vampires Suck
The pointlessness of mocking that which is already inherently funny, or which has already been parodied incessantly by others, is pretty much self-evident, but don't tell that to filmmakers Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, who've been ignoring that axiom rather lucratively for the better part of a decade. Their particular brand of generic, plain-wrap satire, seen in such films as Date Movie, Epic Movie, and Disaster Movie (I'm still waiting for them to parody themselves with Movie Movie, but that might be a bit too meta), still holds a firm foothold over the shrinking yet nonetheless significant segment of the movie-watching audience that lacks broadband access to the internet, where better parodies can be found in abundance on such sites as funnyordie.com or colleghumor.com, or even among the amateur offerings on YouTube.
Their latest effort, Vampires Suck, has them taking on the current vampire-obsessed zeitgeist, with a special emphasis placed on the Twilight franchise. Stephenie Meyers' teen vampire saga is the Jenna Jameson of parody targets, already ravaged every which way and from every angle, and yet always ripe for another impaling.
And so it's time for Friedberg and Seltzer's ride on Twilight's community bicycle, ragged and worn as its seat may be, and they predictably skewer its chaste melodrama with their trademark blend of lowbrow slapstick and obvious puns, many of which involve little more than the switching of a few letters in a word: Twilight's setting of Forks, Washington, is re-christened Sporks; its heroine Bella Swan becomes Becca Crane (newcomer Jenn Proske, impressively mimicing Kristen Stewart's famously twitchy demeanor); her vampiric boyfriend, Edward Cullen, becomes Edward Sullen (Matt Lanter), Jacob Black becomes Jacob White (Christopher N. Riggi), and the Volturi become the Zolturi. Scattered about are similarly uninspired pokes at other pop-culture phenomena, including Gossip Girl, The Jersey Shore, and Keeping Up With the Kardashians.
Vampires Suck's hit-to-miss joke ratio averages around one in five, just below the Mendoza Line but still better than the average re-run of King of Queens. Which, I fear, is more than enough for some lazy studio exec to greenlight still more stale Friedberg and Seltzer collaborations. I can only assume 3D Movie is already in the pipeline.
Hollywood.com rated this film 1/2 star.