‘Twilight Sucks’ Blows
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Parody specialists Jason
Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer
have found their formula and
are sticking with it despite
what any of the rest of
us might think,
REUTERS.COM
reports August 19th,
2010.
The duo,
responsible for such stinkers
as “Date Movie,” “Epic Movie”
and “Disaster Movie,”
now have turned their puny
sights on the rabid pop culture
phenomenon of sexy vampires.
Or rather,
just the “Twilight” series,
as “Vampires Suck” would be more
accurately titled “Twilight Sucks.”
Ignoring such contemporary
bloodsucker-themed hits as HBO’s
“True Blood” and the CW’s
“The Vampire Diaries,”
not to mention stalwarts like
Dracula or the works of Anne Rice,
this witless Fox spoof instead merely
provides an unfunny scene-by-scene
retread of the first two movies in
the hugely successful franchise.
Thus,
it dutifully trots out slightly
renamed versions of the iconic
“Twilight” characters,
including the romantically torn Becca
(Jenn Proske) and her dueling suitors:
the taciturn vampire Edward Sullen
(Matt Lanter) and hunky werewolf
Jacob White (Chris Riggi).
If you think Jacob peeing on a tree
or Becca farting in Edward’s face
when he attempts to climb into bed
with her are the height of comic wit,
then you’re clearly of the adolescent
mind-set to which these films cater.
The director-screenwriters,
clearly aware of their target
audiences’ lack of sophistication,
are not even ashamed to trot out
such hoary gags as when a horde
of vampires hungrily devour Chinese
food and Edward observes that they’ll
be hungry again in a half-hour.
As they’ve done with all their efforts,
they also inject an endless amount
of current pop-culture references
as possible,
in this case with gags devoted to
“Jersey Shore,”
the Kardashians,
Lindsay Lohan.
Tiger Woods,
Chris Brown and Tim Burton’s
“Alice in Wonderland.”
(To their credit,
they also bite the hand that feeds them,
in the form of a dig directed at Fox News).
There’s a joke or broad sight
gag every 15 seconds or so,
but the ratio of hits to misses
is nearly nonexistent.
The sole truly funny bit,
riffing on the homoerotic subtext
of the werewolves’ penchant for
constantly exposing their chiseled
torsos,
features Jacob and his fellow
lycanthropes bursting into an
exuberant dance routine
to the song “It’s Raining Men.”
The main performers do
a reasonably good job of
parodying the “Twilight” leads,
with Proske particularly effective
in subtly lampooning Kristen
Stewart‘s moody mannerisms.
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