If youve never seen a film written and directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer (Date Movie, Meet The Spartans, etc), consider the Austin Chronicles opinion of the duo: Theyre a plague on our cinematic landscape, a danger to our culture, a typhoon-sized natural disaster disguised as a filmmaking team, a Hollywood monster wreaking havoc on the minds of Americas youth and setting civilization back a thousand years. The pair make pop culture parodies that arent meant to be viewed by anyone out of their late teens which, given the level of wit on display, is just as well. Vampires Suck is an alleged parody of the Twilight franchise, but most of the gags involve seeing the characters impersonated by mugging actors. Friedberg and Seltzer dont actually satirize anything, they just reward their MTV-saturated, junk food-munching demographic for their pop culture knowledge. The real shame is that some of the supporting players Ken Jeong, Diedrich Bader and Dave Foley are funny elsewhere, but here theyre just wasted.
Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'
