Cinematic Disasters - Vampires Suck

 

FINALLY! Finally! I'm finally at the last Friedberg & Seltzer parody movie! Let's do this!

Vampires Suck is a parody movie spoofing the why was that ever a popular thing franchise known as Twilight. Production was done by Regency Enterprises & 3 in the Box, with distribution handled by 20th Century Fox. Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer both wrote and directed.

The story is, Becca Crane has moved to a brand new town and tries to start a new life with her dad. Soon she meets a boy named Edward Sullen and the two quickly fall in love. But as they spend more time together as couple, their world takes a lot of bizarre turns. Hopefully they can handled that.

My Thoughts

So the movie starts off with Becca in an attempt to stop Edward from exposing himself. And in typically Friedberg & Seltzer fashion there's a lot of unfunny jokes but, and I can't believe I'm saying this, there is a pretty funny bit where the Team Edward fangirls go to war with the Team Jacob fangirls. If any of you were like me and sadly grew up with the Twilight craze and for SOME REASON asked Team Edward? or Team Jacob?, you'd understand just how ridiculous that debate was.

Afterwards we flashback to the very beginning of how Becca came to her new town. We learn that her and her father moved because her mother was having an affair with Tiger Woods. For anybody that's confused, back in 2009 pro golfer Tiger Woods was cheating on his wife with numerous women. It was a huge because Tiger was the face of golfing and was seemingly an innocent man with a perfect image. I bring this up because like I said it happened in 2009, first reported in Nov 2009 after doing some research. And this movie came out on August 18, 2010. By that time the scandal wasn't a big deal anymore and the jokes pretty ran their course. Once again, Friedberg & Seltzer are not very good being on time with their "jokes". Although, the scene does have a funny moment where Becca listens to her iPod (remember those?) and one of her mixes is titled "Teen Angst Mix". What's going on here? Friedberg & Seltzer are now two for two?!?

So they finally make it to their town where we see so visual gags related to vampires and Becca just can't put her finger on it on why she thinks her town is odd? Okay, that was also kind of funny. What the hell? Now Friedberg & Seltzer are three for three?!? They're not suppose to be doing this! They are not suppose to be kind of funny! Especially since the scenes are almost back to back. And just freak me out even more there's actually some good jokes about Becca's old room, including a dark one about her old pet hamster. Okay now Friedberg & Seltzer are four for four. Are they actually putting in effort this time around or they just getting lucky?!?

Later Becca meets Jacob and it's just some unfunny moments. Phew! Unfunny scenes in a Friedberg & Seltzer flick, I was worried for a moment that I miscategorized this movie. But anyways, after that Becca goes to her new school, and it's jokes you saw coming a mile away. And one of those unfunny moments is how a fellow student is describing that Becca is anti-social loner type, but she corrects him in saying she's more humorless and etc. This is annoying because yes, we get it! Bella from Twilight was one of the most generic and one-dimensional teenage angst characters ever written and anybody could've wrote her character. We know this, you talking about it doesn't make it any funnier. Also once again, phew!

Then our next scene is just pop culture joke after pop culture joke. First it's a joke aimed at the cast from MTV's Jersey Shore. And I'm by no means a fan of that show or the people in it but jeez. Friedberg & Seltzer weren't even trying with the lookalikes. Then we get a joke about the movie Dear John. It's unfunny but hey, at least this time around Friedberg & Seltzer are making fun of a movie that was still relevant by time this one came out. The main thing to take away from this scene is Becca & Edward are immediately in love with each other despite not even sharing a sentence together. Again, these jokes were already done to death. We've been there, done that, and got the t-shirt. I know I said "phew" earlier but what's happening? Earlier we were on a pretty good streak.

Afterwards we get a scene with the parody version of that one trio of vampires from the first Twilight movie. Yeah I'm gonna be honest, I didn't do that much research on the Twilight franchise so if I'm not saying anybody's name it's because I barely want anything to do with this series. I hated it back when it was for some reason a big cultural phenomena and I hate it now. The point is were introduced to these characters, we get a product placement for Cheetos, a joke about how the trio is mistaken for the Black Eyed Peas, unfunny beatdown scene, and then they kill a guy.

Then to my shock we get a funny moment where Edward saves Becca by using another student as a shield. Alright, we might be back on the saddle. Now it's five for five.

Becca would later return to her house...and we get a joke about Gossip Girl and Jacob making it obvious that he's also in love with Becca, but Becca saying she views him as her "gay little brother" and another joke with Jacob about him having dog features, because get it? He's actually a werewolf. And a joke about the Kardashians being the killers even though it's obviously vampires. Then later Edward visiting Becca's room when she's sleeping, which in return leads to unfunny gags and a product placement for Crest whitestrips. Damn. I spoke too soon, now we're off the saddle again.

Fast forward a bit where we now get into that scene in Twilight where Bella tells Edward she knows he's a vampire, but this a the spoof version so what do we get? Becca instead says that Edward is...a Jonas brother before being corrected, along with a product placement for Count Chocula, probably joke #678 about Twilight vampires sparkling when it sunlight, and a joke related to Tim Burton's remake of Alice in Wonderland. That last one was just as unfunny as the rest, but hey, I gotta give Friedberg & Seltzer credit, they went a whole thirty minutes and forty-nine seconds without referencing another movie. That's a record for them.

Once again I'm fast forwarding a bit, all you need to know is there was unfunny scene of Edward & Becca wanting to have sex, but decide not to, and an alright joke about a big picture. So that picture joke now puts Friedberg & Seltzer points at six. The really part of the story is after an unfunny scene where Edward's family try to eat Becca, this leads to their break-up which is sprinkled with some horribly written unfunny dialogue. Which also leads us to Becca getting attacked by the trio from earlier but Edward arrives to kill one of them and saves Becca from the poison that's in her body.

Then we're given yet more unfunny moments about how Becca is all broken up about not having Edward in her life. One moment was confusing because Becca along with her friend [Jennifer] go see a movie and it's Twilight: Breaking Dawn? So wait, does that mean in this universe Twilight is a film franchise some what based on Becca & Edward's real life? I guess it's just meant to be a joke but it's still confusing. Later on Becca is attacked by another male member of the trio, but before he can kill her Jacob arrives to save her and instead of turning into a werewolf, he turns into a chihuahua, I know you totally didn't see that coming. Because Jacob knows he doesn't stand a chance you calls for his pack...where this happens.

Yeah it's not one bit funny and it's just here to once again pad out the runtime, but hey! We didn't get an unnecessary dance number until we were fifty-seven minutes and forty-seven seconds into the movie. Once again, that's a record for Friedberg & Seltzer.

We then later cut back to Edward and how he's broken up about not being with Becca. It's also revealed that he's moved onto to someone else, that being Lady Gaga. I know I know, that's dumb but just roll with it, we're almost at the finish line. He's told by one of his family members that they had a vision and that Becca might be dead, so Edward wants to find out for himself. He calls Becca but Jacob answers and makes a huge misunderstanding happen. Because of that and his sister being too late to tell him her new vision shows Becca's alive, Edward sets out to kill himself.

We cut back to Becca where she meets up with Edward's sister and she tells her all about how Edward plans to kill himself. So now it's a race to get there before Edward's plan works, which leads us back to the beginning of the movie and thankfully even Friedberg & Seltzer knew it was a good idea fast forward from this part. Sadly this leads to a joke about how the day quickly changing from twilight, to new moon and then to eclipse. Get it? Because those were the title of the books. Can't you just hear that funny rimshot playing in the background? Anyhow, to make a long ending short, yeah they're really milking the runtime yet again, after a fight with the leader of some sort of cult (I don't care enough to know what their actually names are) and making a deal to turn Becca into a vampire, he agrees but only if Becca marries him, so he bites her and then gets hit in the head with a baseball with nails in it by a Team Jacob fangirl. And no, that's not how the movie ends. Just to make this a tiny bit longer, we've got a credit scene. All it does it show vampire Becca kill the fangirl. Thankfully, the end.

What Happened to Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer?

Before I get into my final thought and rating I do want to bring this up.

After it was released to the surprise of nobody this received negative reviews, but did make money at the box office. Again, not surprising since like their previous movies they made this with a cheap budget. But was weird is for something reason this was the movie where Hollywood just seemed to drop these two.

Now I jumped the gun saying this is their final movie, what I should've said was this was the final movie I'm reviewing from them. But now back on topic, what I said previously was it seemed like Hollywood dropped them. From 2013 to 2015 they released three more movies. Those being The Starving Games, Best Night Ever (their first ever non-spoof comedy), and Superfast. Sure they were made and released but they paled in comparison to their previous releases. Those last three only got limited theatrical releases then what felt like one snap of a finger later they were on video-on-demand. Hell, I didn't know those existed until years afterwards.

In May 2014, the duo announced a parody of Taken called Who the F#@k Took My Daughter?, but nothing became of that. Then in Feb of 2017, they announced a parody of the newest Star Wars films with the stupidly long title of Star Worlds Episode XXXIVE=MC2: The Force Awakens The Last Jedi Who Went Rogue, with filming scheduled for late 2017, but nothing happened.

So what happened to them? It seemed Hollywood never wanted to let them go, so why haven't they been working since 2015? Well some say internet meme culture and such put a nail in the coffin for spoofs, so these two just went on their merry way. But I don't know, if that was the case then studios might as well not make comedies at all regardless if it's a parody or not. And just to further prove that we are getting Scary Movie 6 next year. Maybe these two just decided to quietly retire?

Whatever the case, while I do absolutely hate their films, I'm hoping they're doing okay. Sure they made shitty movies but I don't think that means you should have a shitty life.

So now for my final thought. While there are some funny moments, Vampires Suck is just another terrible parody movie brought to us by Friedberg and Seltzer.

My final rating is, Awful.

That's all for now. Sadly things aren't gonna get any better because on Thursday, Feb 13th, I'll return to the Road to Karate Kid: Legends with my review of The Karate Kid Part III. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.