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Vampires Suck: Extreme Bite Me Edition
R1 - America - Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Ethan Stevenson (28th March 2011). |
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The Film
 I ask, is a parody still funny if the material that’s being spoofed is already a joke? It’s a question that I think needs answering, and if we use “Vampires Suck” – the Seltzer-Friedberg helmed attack on Stephanie Meyer’s atrocious “Twilight” franchise – as a test case, I would have to say that the resounding answer is a big fat N-O. Believe it or not there was a time, many years before the names Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg meant anything, when the spoof genre was actually funny. A time when masters of the craft like Mel Brooks produced generally funny films that rightfully and skillfully lampooned a genre – for example, Westerns – while making keen social commentary about the then-current state of racial affairs in the US, as was the case of “Blazing Saddles” (1974). But, as even Brooks failed to remain on his feet in his later working years (giving way to some of his most depressingly bad films, i.e. “Dracula: Dead and Loving It” (1996), which coincidently was also about some god-awful vampires), in the past decade this particular sub-genre of comedy went down the toilet rather fast. And it was lead there gleefully by Seltzer and Friedberg, the guys who gave such insipidly stupid films as “Date Movie” (2006), “Epic Movie” (2007) and “Meet the Spartans” (2008). In their latest venture, dubbed “Vampires Suck”, Seltzer and Friedberg (who share co-writing and directing credit) take on the mighty “Twilight” franchise. I concede, someone parodying the utter insanity of sparkly vampires seems like a good idea. For as awful as most parody films are these days – the occasional fit of brilliance from Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, being the exception, of course (then again, their films are more loving homage than straight up spoof) – Meyer’s bit of Mormonistic propaganda is in such dire need of being attacked for what it is. In plain English, her massively popular franchise is putrid, rotten, garbage; its stench wafts across Cineplex’s and bookstores ever few months it seems, or whenever a new entry into the canon of the gazillion-dollar moneymaker comes out. “Twlight” needs to be torn to shreds in a parody. Seltzer and Friedberg are just so not the guys for that job. And then again, they’re not really the guys for any job in the movie industry (someone please stop funding their “films”.) The plot of “Vampires Suck” – if were going to argue that “Suck” really has a plot in the first place – is essentially that of the first two “Twlight” films. Becca Crane (Jenn Proske) has recently moved to Sporks, Washington to live with her dad (Diedrich Bader), who’s also the local sheriff. At school she meets a pale-faced boy named Edward Sullen (Matt Lanter). The vampy Sullen falls for her, and takes to watching Ms. Crane from the bushes and the dark shadows of her bedroom while she sleeps. Becca also meets Jacob (Chris Riggi), a teenage werewolf, contractually obligated to be shirtless in most of his scenes. Becca gets caught in the middle of a battle between the vampire and the puppy-love-sick werewolf, as each vie for her love. There’s some stupid subplot involving a trio of “bad” vampires who are up to… something. And it all culminates in a climactic school dance taking place under an “Eclipse”…. er, “New Moon”… or whatever. Seltzer and Friedberg attempt (and even, I admit, temporarily succeed at times) in making astute observations about the sad state of vampire literature (and cinema). They broach the subject of the creepily stalkish nature of Sullen, the oddly incestuous nature of his family, the lack of logic that pervades the entire filmic franchise, and a handful of other topics that really need to be examined by people actually versed in satire. The duo of Seltzer and Friedberg just so completely fail in actually doing ANYTHING with the concept. Jenn Proske plays Becca straight, without realizing that she could have a field day in attacking Kristen Stewart’s dead-eyed Bella. Likewise, there isn’t a trace of irony in Lanter’s smolder-y Sullen; the equally empty Robert Pattinson might as well fill the part. And the same can be said for most of the other actors and their respective roles as well. The problem with “Vampires Suck” is that most of the film is just straight-up reenactments of scenes from the original source material; and there’s nothing funny about that. You could watch the real “Twilight” or this piece of crap that supposed parodies it; makes no difference really. They’re both bad for the same reasons. But “Vampires Suck” isn’t supposed to be. After all, it ought to be a self-aware comedy, even if it just isn’t. Is the film a comedic failure because of the actors or the writer-directors? Both probably. The diabolically disingenuous “Twilight” series is widely popular for some reason – particularly with pre-teen girls (and their bored moms). That’s a terrible, horrible truth that we just have to live with. I can’t express just how much I’d like to see someone rip the series apart on screen with more nerd-tastic ferocity than Harry S. Plinkett – only without the overly dry analysis and less puzzle-basement torture (hooray for painfully obscure references!). But, as I’ve already stated Seltzer and Friedberg just aren’t the guys for the job. Their humor is just too base and their references too “easy”. “Vampires Suck” includes – on top of the too-obvious jabs at the weaker elements of the “Twilight” books and films – riffs on the Kardashians, Tiger Woods’ infidelities, and stupid, awful jokes about high school stereotypes that as interchangeable as they are forgettable. “Vampires Sucks” just flat out sucks. Its unfunny comedy at it’s worst. And not even a Ken Jeong cameo can save it.
Video
“Vampires Suck” arrives on a dual layered DVD-9 with an anamorphic widescreen transfer. Slight letterboxing on the top and bottom of the frame preserve the films original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. Both versions of the film are seamlessly branched onto one disc. Noise, compression artifacts, and softness are all within tolerable levels for a standard definition DVD (the resolution and compression deficiencies of the lesser format can’t be completely overcome, so I let them slide as long as these issues aren’t aggressive or distracting). Haloing and noise reduction don’t seem to be too big of an issue either, and there’s even a tiny bit of film grain present in some of the more detailed shots. At times the film exhibits such astounding texture – be it in pasty-white-faced close ups or wide, detailed helicopter shots of the densely packed forests and hillsides that surround the fictional Sporks – that it could be mistaken for genuine high definition. Colors, aping the look of the original “Twilight”, are cold and desaturated, while contrast is solid and depth is also quite impressive. The black level is just about perfect too. And yet, this is a terribly inconsistent disc. Sprinkled throughout the runtime are an unfortunate number of foul-ups. The opening shots of bright red-costumed vampires display color fringing and shifting. Later, as a biker gang harasses Becca, the brick-walled backdrop exhibits terrible shimmering; other instances of serious moiré, terrible banding, and other distracting defects crop up occasionally – totally destroying any illusion of HD-ness. Worst of all, the entire transfer exhibits massive aliasing. “Vampires Suck” is a tough transfer to grade. When the film looks good, it looks really, really good. But, at its worst, there are some really big failures with this transfer. On the scale of standard def DVD (which is different in my book than the scale for high-def Blu-ray), “Vampires Suck” rates a very mild “C+”
Audio
The audio is more consistent than the troubled video, and pretty impressive in its own right. The default English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround offering (with Dolby Digital 2.0 surround dubs in French and Spanish) is neither here-nor-there. It’s light for an action film, but lively for a comedy, and not-too-shabby for lossy audio in general. TV and video game scorer Christopher Lennertz does a decent job at mimicking the epic themes and tunes of too-good-for-the-franchise composers like Carter Burwell and Alexandre Desplat. Surrounds remain active, effects and music well balanced, LFE surprisingly taught, and overall precision quite controlled. Atrocious dialogue, terrible puns, and god-awful pratfalls be damned this is a robust and resilient mix. Optional subtitles are available in English, Spanish and French.
Extras
Upon loading, the DVD prompts a static menu that offers viewers the choice between two versions of the film – "Theatrical" (1 hour 22 minutes 10 seconds) or "Unrated" (1 hour 23 minutes 56 seconds). The differences between the two cuts are minor, with the slightly longer version being less PG-13 – although still not “Hard R” by any means. (A complete list of alternate takes, dialogue and other differences can be found here.) Both versions of the film are awful so the choice is yours – note that the "Unrated" has at least one funny in it that actually got a laugh from me so the extras section gets a half-point for that. Most of the video-based extras are presented in 16x9-enhanced widescreen unless otherwise noted. “Deleted Scenes” (6 minutes 54 seconds) includes 2 extended scenes, 1 deleted scene, and 2 alternate scenes. Not a single one of these is any better (or, admittedly, worse) than what appears in the final film so there really isn’t much too see here. For what it’s worth, the scenes are: - Becca’s teen angst [Extended]. Becca listens to the “Teen Angst Mix” on her iPod. - …Crappy old truck parking only. Becca finds increasingly specific parking signage. - Active in bed [Extended]. Becca sleepwalks, talks in her sleep, and has night terrors while Edward watches her from the dark corners of her room. - Love letter from John [Alternate]. Seltzer/Friedberg attack another easy target – the works of Nicholas Sparks. - Mexican Vampires (Alternate]. The sheriff Crane blames the Mexicans – Mexican Vampires, specifically – for the recent string of problems in Sporks. Surprise: the gag reel (3 minutes 51 seconds) gag reel for “Vampires Suck” sucks as much as the film does! The film's theatrical trailer (1 minute 38 seconds) is also included. At the bottom of this pile is the usual collection of pre-menu and “Sneak Peek” bonus trailers for other Fox discs. A “Simple. Fast. Portable.” (48 seconds) Digital Copy promo, plus DVD and Blu-ray trailers for “Machete” (1 minute 55 seconds), “The A-Team” (2 minutes 24 seconds), “Wild Target” (2 minutes 28 seconds) and “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” (2 minutes 26 seconds) play before the menu. “Sneak Peeks” in the extras menu features additional bonus trailers for: “Cyrus” (2 minutes 19 seconds), “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: A Very Sunny Christmas” (18 seconds), “Family Guy: Volume 8 with Partial Terms of Endearment” (4x3, 51 seconds), “American Dad: Volume 5” (4x3, 18 seconds) and “The Cleveland Show: Season One” (4x3, 38 seconds).
Packaging
“Vampires Suck” is billed as an “Extended Bite Me Edition” (har-har). A dual layered DVD-9 contains both the "Theatrical" and "Unrated" versions of the film on a single-sided disc thanks to seamless branching. The disc is housed in an Amaray eco-box.
Overall
“Vampires Sucks” sucks. Sorry to not get more creative, but why should I put actual thought into my insults when the unfunny duo behind this dreck can’t do the same for their jokes? Astute as their observations about the sparkly-vampire franchise may be, Seltzer and Friedberg have made an especially bad spoof on the “Twilight” saga. I hate Stephanie Meyer, her books, and the films based on said books as much as any one really should – which is a lot – but that doesn’t mean I should be any kinder to a film that poorly attacks such an easy target. The DVD has an at-times-surprising transfer that suffers from some nasty aliasing and other issues, above average audio and shitty extras. Proceed accordingly – to the trash bin.
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