My Sucky Teen Romance

I caught a showing of My Sucky Teen Romance at a beautiful theater called The Paramount while attending SXSW 2011. There was a big crowd gathered pre-show so my expectations were high. I had also heard a bit about the director Emily Hagins who was supposed to be this young amazing filmmaker. I had seen a documentary about her making her first movie when she was 12 or 13 on the documentary channel. In short, my interest had been stoked. First let me say this movie is not bad - if taken in context. It was clearly a low budget indie and looked the part. It was obviously shot using minimal equipment, and with a couple of exceptions it was clear that the actors were not professionals. The feel of the story seemed too familiar to me. While the plot lines of My Sucky Teen Romance and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (movie version) are not the same - having a bunch of teens at a comic convention dealing with vampires reminded me a lot of having a bunch of teens at a prom dealing with vampires. If you keep in mind that this movie was made by a high-school student then it was pretty good for a high-school student film. Where it failed for me was that it played a major festival, when it clearly should not have. SXSW is a hometown festival for Austin, Texas and the director, Emily Hagins, is a hometown Austin girl. But my guess is, this is likely the last time she will be able to play the I'm-a-teen-movie-maker card and get away with it. In short, if you want to see a good high-school student film that was clearly made on a shoestring then you should definitely check it out. However, if you want to see a movie that stands on its own merits, without the gimmick of a child director, then you will probably want to pass and invest your time elsewhere.

Yeah - anyone who completes a movie should get credit for it, and for this to be completed by a high school kid is pretty impressive.

This does not make it a good movie.

Other reviewers cite the low budget, but that didn't detract from the movie; in some films, it adds to the charm of indie movies.

The dialog was the worst of it; stilted, awkward lines that nobody who was actually in a high school would believe came from human people. That many of the actors clearly didn't believe their lines didn't help any.

The idea was good; a vampire is running amok at a SF convention, and the only people who know about it are the teens who have to try to stop him. It's formula, but it's really tough to make a horror or teen comedy without it having been done before, and the twist of it being at a SF con, where vampire costumes are everywhere, gave it a chance to be fresh.

It would have helped if the SF Con was at all believable. I expect that the writer/director got some help from people who have actually gone to SF Cons, but didn't believe them; every degrading, negative stereotype was portrayed, few of which I've ever seen at a Con. "Your Tribbles and You"?? I've seen films that make fun of SF Fandom, and do it well; there's things to make fun of, but to do it well, it's important to know what you're making fun of, and Ms. Hagins clearly did not know her subject.

She clearly knows teenagers better; she got two decent characters into the script, and paired them with some passable acting skill. Her other teen characters were, sadly, such cardboard cutouts that the people portraying the characters could not connect with who they were supposed to portray; the audience has no chance of taking them seriously, either.

Pretty good, as a film school project, and the author/director shows some promise. But it's a school project, not something ready to release to the movie-going audience. It may look better as a double feature with something by Ewe Boll, but that still wouldn't make it something to recommend to others.

With all the vampire movies being released it is really hard to find one that feels new and worth your time. Director Emily Hagins burst onto the scene at 12 years old with her film Pathogen that won the Texas Filmmakers Production Fund grant from the Austin Film Society. Her latest My Sucky Teen Romance tackles the popular teenage vampire genre, but throws in a comedy twist in an attempt to create something new and fresh.

My Sucky Teen Romance follows a 17 year old girl and her friends as they attend a local sci-fi convention. There she is accidentally bit by a vampire and forced to not only come to terms with her transformation, but try and stop the other vampires before they go on a killing spree. Make no mistake, this is a low budget film and it shows on a lot of levels. That being said, if you watch it for what it is and just enjoy it, it is actually a pretty entertaining movie. It has the vibe of Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy on a much smaller scale in both budget and acting quality, but you can see everyone here is doing what they can to deliver a fun film. The story is pretty simple and while nothing all that original, Hagins adds just enough of a twist in the idea to make it still feel different than most of this genre. The acting is average at best, with a few of the performances a bit silly, but if you look at the budget and the fact that this is an unknown inexperienced cast, they actually did pretty well. There are some great jabs at the Twilight films as well as some other pop culture genres that will appeal to the convention audience.

This is actually a fun film if you can put aside the fact that it is on a lower budget scale. It looks like someone set out to make a fun vampire teen film and succeed with little to work with. If you are looking for something a bit different in this genre then give this film a chance. Worse case you can see the early works of Hagins who will probably surprise people once she is given a bigger budget and star power.

http://www.examiner.com/movie-in-dallas/bobby-blakey

After getting off work, a young woman decides to follow her friends to a local sci-fi convention being held in the area which introduces her to a vampire she falls for, but when she gets turned by the vampire must rely on her friends to help adapt to the situation and keep her human.

This was a fairly solid and somewhat likable indie feature with a lot to like. Among the better elements here is the strong storyline that manages to offer up the kind of lighthearted approach this type of subject matter feels quite at home with. Looking at the initial motivation to get them to the convention and get out into the floors of the meeting where this one can revel in its love for the kind of sci-fi, fantasy, and other genre fare that would normally be present in such a convention allows the meet-cute to have a semblance of heart to it. The shenanigans featured there, involving the costumes, the film screenings, the dance contests, and general revelry used here, means that there's a genuine admiration for this type of scene that helps to allow the rest of the interactions to have a charm to them aided along by a lot of comedic touches between everyone in here. That lets the film go through a wholly enjoyable and entertaining series of exploits with the group trying to ensure the vampire tendencies they believe she has won't come to the surface. With the initial discovery of the bite marks and how she's going around displaying some of the early warning signs of being turned into a vampire, there are some immensely fun moments to be had here treating the various symptoms as if they're items on a checklist which gives this some fun times. Also, once they know the full extent of their mission in tracking down the real vampire that turned her and use that to get her back to human while taking place in the middle of the convention, there's a slew of fun to be had here as this takes a bit more serious the various interactions and tactics used to get them together which gives the film a fun energy that is quite enjoyable overall. There are a few small issues to be had here. The main drawback to this one, which isn't even that much of a drawback anyway, is the film's lighter tone and approach makes the horror aspects here leave it pretty lacking in this area. While that's to be expected given the target audience for the characters which explains a lot of the interactions found here, the majority of this one keeps itself focused on getting an understanding of what she's going through and the friends trying to help her. This is a fun time but leaves the horror confrontations few and far between so it's got a generally light setup that could put some off rather easily, and with the film's obvious low-budget limitations that pop up are the issues with this one.

Rated Unrated/R: Violence and Language.

I wasn't expecting much and found myself captivated...give it a chance. It's a group of young people poking fun at the whole vampire craze going on right now....very tongue in cheek. It's a fun little jaunt through the more intelligent teenager's perspective. The director is young, modest and hopeful. The cast is engaging and very likable. Think an independent version of scary movie, but a lot smarter and more subtle. The director has a raw, organic talent that eschews the traditional training from film school. I'm really looking forward to seeing more of her work as she matures. Some day, those who've worked with her will be look back on the experience fondly.