Beilight - Biss zum Abendbrot

I saw this movie at a Halloween Party. By no means is this movie great art, but those of us watching had a few good laughs at this skewering of the Twilight saga. Pretty good performances from the leads. I thought the actress playing Becca was particularly good. Great Bella Swan impersonation. The script and production values were definitely B movie level. As long as you're not expecting too much, this is a light, frothy movie to see with your friends on Halloween. It's a bit like reading a trashy novel at the beach.

Maybe it's just because my expectations were so low, but I didn't hate Vampires Suck. In fact, I found myself laughing more than I thought I would. Jenn Proske nails the awkward, mumbling performance of Kristen Stewart and the pot shots at the Twilight franchise feel absolutely justified. It's a completely stupid parody and only a fraction of the jokes land, but, as strange as it sounds, I liked this movie.

Really captures the aesthetic, production design and acting of the Twilight and New Moon, but unfortunately is let down by some really lame jokes. Perhaps, a few more smarter jokes poking fun at the tropes of twilight instead of stuffed rabid squirrels and silly slapstick humour.

It's not necessarily a good movie, but it's dumb fun and I could see it being more well-received in the near future, now that Twilight mania has settled down.

Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer are the single worst filmmakers currently working in the realm of mainstream cinema. This pair of writers/directors is responsible for single-handedly destroying the parody genre. I consider their third film, Meet the Spartans, to be the single worst movie of the last decade – one which gave us a dozen well known and lesser known treasures by Uwe Boll. But where Boll shows ambition and dare I say, "style", Friedberg and Seltzer exhibit laziness and a lack of purpose. These two hacks throw in dated pop culture references and steal the work of others, and seem to get away with calling it comedy.

It is funny to note then that their first movie in two years, Vampires Suck, is a parody riffing on the Twilight series. The duo gleefully crib from Twilight and New Moon, providing us with the tale of new girl Becca (Jenn Proske) who falls in love with the vampire Edward (Matt Lanter), and all the problems that come with their newfound romance.

My immediate question, before even beginning to try and discuss this waste of time, is why did Friedberg and Seltzer ever think it was a good idea to make a parody of the Twilight series? The films are unintentionally hilarious as it is. And True Blood has been on for three seasons now, and for all intents and purposes, it is merely a darkly satirical and much more adult version of Twilight. So right off the bat, these two brilliant minds are mining at something that has already been done. I guess it was money, but who would knowingly believe Twilight fans would rush out to see a movie bashing their beloved franchise much less the haters who would not be caught dead seeing the film as it is?

It just seems overly baffling to me, what could possibly have made anyone think this film is a good idea. It recycles the unintentional jokes from the series, and packages them in a way that either rips them off lightly or just come off as not being anywhere near as funny as they were before. I chuckled at a few parts here and there, but they were only mild chuckles. There is nothing inherently funny or stands out as being hilarious at any given point in the film. Perhaps Friedberg and Seltzer are laughing – but no one else is laughing with them. I had the good fortune of not having to see this movie in a theatre, but I can imagine the film's showings are silent enough that the filmgoers can hear the projector whirling more than they can hear anyone laughing.

I will give credit however in the fact that unlike their previous atrocities and crimes against cinema-goers all over the world, Vampires Suck does not deviate from its riffing of the Twilight. Characters still make dated pop culture references (is anyone in five years even going to remember The Kardashians? I barely know who they are now), but no one from other films is just thrown into the film at random. The film never stops to suddenly jump into making fun of another film or franchise (outside of a total throwaway blink-and-you-will-miss-it gag involving Alice from Alice in Wonderland). It stays consistent throughout, and to me, suggests a minor development of maturity on the parts of the filmmakers. Or of course, they realized there was nowhere they could possibly throw someone like Justin Bieber or Cobb from Inception, and not confuse the audience even more than they like already are.

But this consistency comes with a price. Instead of whipping by, the film runs at an incredibly slow pace. I fell asleep twice, and somehow barely missed anything. They do a fairly nifty job of condensing the first two films, but it seems like they did not do nearly enough editing and whittling down. The film easily could have felt a lot faster paced, but it stalls a bit too much in almost every scene. And for a film that runs less than eighty minutes, it speaks a lot for what these two filmmakers were trying to accomplish or even what they wanted to show. If they cannot answer that simple question to the filmgoing public, then what is the point of even making movies in the first place?

You will need to sift through the increasing amount of junk and waste in Vampires Suck, but Proske is actually fairly good in her role (her acting debut, sadly). She has the Kristen Stewart impression and mannerisms down perfectly, and she almost came off as a better Bella than Stewart ever has. She also has a commanding aura about her, which suggests she is in store for much greater work in the future. As long as she runs away from everyone involved here, I am sure she can prove this soon enough. Unlike her, no one else even remotely stands out or is even half decent in the cast (Ken Jeong and Diedrich Bader go to complete waste in supporting roles). They all just go through the motions, and are just as lazy and half-assed as everyone else. But then, why should they bother if the filmmakers do not even try?

Despite being a lot more balanced than any of their brethren, Vampires Suck is still an awful and truly unfunny film that only further proves the point that Friedberg and Seltzer need to stop making movies. Even with a great lead, they still manage to botch the making of this film and still suffer from many of the problems their earlier films were plagued by. Years from now, will anyone even remember these films? Better yet, will anyone want to remember these films?

2/10.

(This review also appeared on http://www.geekspeakmagazine.com).

Becca, an anxious, non-vampire teen, is torn between two boys. Before she can choose, Becca must get around her controlling father, who embarrasses Becca by treating her like a child. Meanwhile, Becca's friends contend with their own romantic issues – all of which collide at the prom.

VAMPIRES SUCK will surprise many people because it's an improvement over the previous spoof films directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer have been churning out for the past couple of years. However, that's like saying it's the better crap of all crap. The jokes still aren't funny and the filmmakers still don't realize the difference between satirizing and copying. But I would be lying to myself if I said I didn't find some good that came out of this film because there are some improvements.

First of all, the performances are great by the two leads. In her first film, Jenn Proske does a dead on impersonation of Kristen Stewart. However, it's sad to see her in this because I think she's better than this. Matt Lanter also does a great impersonation of Robert Pattinson in his "pain" look. I don't know what made Ken Jeong come aboard the film but he's basically playing the same character in THE HANGOVER. He's not in the film that much, though. Also, I think it's pretty great that Carmen Electra isn't in here and I'm sure others will agree.

The second obvious thing that stuck out to me was that the film focused on only the first two TWILIGHT films. The filmmakers finally learned that spoofing 600 movies is a bad thing. Saying that, the film still does have the many pop culture references, some too random to comment about. Fortunately, they really did tone it down quite a bit compared to the previous films where you get one every five seconds. You probably get one every five minutes here.

I also liked the fact that it looked like an actual film because if you saw MEET THE SPARTANS and DISASTER MOVIE, you'd know the films were filled with shoddy sets made up in ten minutes. In here, you might question if they stole the sets and locations from the TWILIGHT films. I don't know if this counts as something good but I really think the film manages to create a decent storyline from the first two TWILIGHT films.

Overall, the film is still bad because it's rarely funny, although I will admit I laughed at some bits that took a jab at the TWILIGHT series. If the story is better than the jokes itself, you know you got a bad comedy. It's an improvement from the last few spoof films, but that doesn't say much. I really don't recommend seeing it at all. If you must, just rent it on DVD that will inevitably come out a month after the film is released.