It's Just Movies

— by MARIUSZ ZUBROWSKI —

There are four major parties concerning the wildly-popular “Twilight” series: the beloved fans which would endure hailstorms in order to get their regular dosage of the hunky Jacob or the glistening Edward; the haters who, although never having seen a single film or reading at least part of one of the novels, insist that the series is the work of Lucifer; of course, there are people who could care less about the genius/horror of the “Twilight” saga and who have slept through and/or shoved the countless Facebook arguments about whether Jacob or Edward is the superior man for Bella under the rug; and lastly, there’s “Team Mariusz,” which has seen and will see every “Twilight” installment on opening weekend, but also finds the acting, execution and overall premise of the cinematic series to be laughable. I guess we’re the team of masochists.

Now, directors (and I use the term loosely) Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer (which I believe hold the key to hell itself) definitely had a challenge when concocting “Vampires Suck,” their latest in a long line of cinematic horrors which includes “Epic Movie,” “Disaster Movie,” “Meet the Spartans,” and of course, “Date Movie.” Their main obstacle, however, was finding a target demographic that is both willing and stupid enough to pay $10 a ticket to see recycled, Youtube-quality slapstick and pop culture references … and, sadly, capturing the mind of heart of the oblivious (and borderline brain damaged) members of Team Mariusz was Friedberg and Seltzer’s main objective. Is it too late to switch sides?

“Vampires Suck” — the double entendre of a title is the only thing that semi-works — is both directed and written by the Friedberg/Seltzer team, which flourishes in hiring no-name actors and actresses, throwing in references to big cultural hits, which this time around includes “True Blood,” “Dear John,” the Tiger Woods sex scandal and “Jersey Shore,” and have said performers run around with mediocre direction and a horrid script all in the name of “comedy.” But this time, the two have outdone themselves as they not only mention pop-culture phenomenas – they revolve the entire plot around one.

The film stars Jenn Proske as Becca Crane, who serves as a carbon copy as Bella from the “Twilight” series with the name changed for copyright reasons. Of course, Becca moves into a town called Sporks, which, of course, is a play on the original title of Forks, but at least you can see where the comedy is headed. Following the same formula as the series it harpoons, “Vampires Suck” has Becca torn between the glamorous Edward Sullen (Matt Lanter) and the masculine Jacob White (Chris Riggi). Of course, every comedy needs an idiot father and Diedrich Bader, who plays Frank Crane, is the solution.

Words simply cannot explain the emotions that stirred within me during my screening of the film. Perhaps it’s best to describe viewing “Vampires Suck” as a real-life “Saw” torture device. With every mention of the name Jacob “White” or Edward “Sullen,” something just cut my soul into tiny pieces. The inexplicable feeling of self-loathing and pure agony is just too scary to describe. On top of that, there was nobody else in the theater, which of course means that I was the only idiot who paid money to see a film whose quality can easily be compared to regurgitated vomit. But to add onto the immense suffering that I went through, I had the words of the employee who sold me the ticket in the first place echo and they were, “Man, are you serious?”

The tagline for the film is “From the guys who couldn’t sit through another vampire movie!” However, the tagline for this review should be “From the guy who will never subject himself to another Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer movie!”

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Follow Mariusz Zubrowski on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ItsJustMariusz.