Review for Vamps

Goody and Stacy are two best friends. They live in an apartment, sleep during the day, but when they go out they let their hair down, sleep with guys and generally live their lives like they will never grow old. Which is true. Because they are vampires.

Goody has been around since 1840 and Stacy has been 20 since the 1990s, yet they are the same age and look to have fun. In this new digital age they have apps on their phone to tell them when the sunset is, they take night classes and this is where Stacy meets Joey. They begin to date and she is then introduced to his father Dr. Van Helsing who is deeply suspicious about this young girl.

Goody and Stacy soon discover something miraculous and must decide whether to stay young forever as vampires or reverse the curse and live like normal people.

I remember when I saw Mel Brook's Dracula Dead and Loving It I enjoyed it. Sure, it was awful, but it had Leslie Nielsen in it and that's all I needed. After watching Vamps, Brooks' film is like a Five Star classic. There is simply nothing worse than a bad comedy and that is exactly what this is. It tried so hard to make jokes and because of that it failed so much.

Amy Heckerling has truly been riding the wave of her hit Clueless for the past twenty years, but really with this truly awful film she should never be allowed to Write and Direct again. I cringed at every moment of this film. It was like someone had seen Twilight and Underworld and thought 'Hey I can make some jokes about the internet, IPads and Van Helsing and just jam them into a pointless female buddy film'.

The film has no real plot, other than two vampires suffering the vampire equivalent of 'first world problems' which results in lots of 'oh I can't see in the mirror to apply my makeup' jokes and stupid sight gags with them sticking straws into rats to drink the blood. The revelation that the boyfriend's family are related to the Van Helsing line is so hamfisted as to not be funny. One joke about eating Chinese people is such a stupid and obvious line that I predicted it would be said and then I groaned as it was.

I cannot believe that a film like this was made and can only assume that Alicia Silverstone did it as a favour to her Clueless Director. Even more so is the fact that people like Sigourney Weaver, Wallace Shawn (Probably the only highlight of the film), Richard Lewis and Malcolm McDowell are starring in it too.

Her co-star Krysten Ritter who many will know from her role as Jane from Breaking Bad almost makes the film watchable simply by how hot she is. But as the film goes on, it's simply not enough. I watched waiting for something to happen to make me enjoy it, but nothing does. As a Buffy and Angel fan I worry that others may watch this thinking it is in the same vein... trust me it's not.

What's worse is that the effects look like if you asked me to guess when this film was made I would have have said maybe at a push 1999, not 2012!! The effects are so bad that when they decided to splice in scenes from Murau's classic Nosferatu, the effects look so much better. Maybe this is where all the budget went on securing the rights to use it and not on actually making the effects and makeup look good. Remember Nosferatu is NINETY YEARS OLDER than this film??

There are no extra features and I'm not sure whether this is a good thing or not. This seems like a film destined for a Blooper reel and that might have at least been funny to watch. But we get nothing. No commentary explaining or apologising for what you just watched, no making ofs or
features about the stella makeup and effects. For this, I am thankful.

Vamps is one of the worst films I have seen in a very long time. I actually can't remember the last time I watched a film which had so much potential and so many plus points and simply just flushed it all away. If someone approaches you with this film, break out the stakes, holy water and garlic and send the thing back to hell!