Vampires Suck (2010)

Vampires Suck arrives in the historical record as a 2010 Friedberg and Seltzer production, which is to say it arrives as a business decision wearing the costume of a comedy. Its target is the Twilight franchise, and its method is the blunt instrument: a joke about a name, a kick to the groin, a pop culture reference offered without comment. The film opened at number one domestically, grossed roughly eighty million dollars worldwide, and collected four Golden Raspberry nominations. Critics were unanimous in a way critics rarely are. Peter Travers gave it zero stars and four words. The ship, as Mark Kermode observed, had not merely sailed but struck an iceberg and been retrofitted for 3D.

On the matter of social consciousness, the film is a clean slate, and not in the flattering sense. Its cast is predominantly white, with Ken Jeong and a handful of others deployed for incidental gags that carry no progressive intent. There are no queer characters, no engagement with race as a subject, no environmental theme, no critique of wealth, no body-positive message, no neurodivergence-affirming framework, and no revisionist reading of history, since the film has no interest in history at all. Becca's anxiety is a punchline, not a portrait. As for sermonizing, the film has nothing to preach. It is too busy falling down.

The film remains a curiosity for the archive. A comedy can be crude, stupid, and reviled without registering a single point on the cultural ledger, and this one manages the trick. Jenn Proske's mimicry of Kristen Stewart's hair-tugging agitation drew the only genuine praise the film received, and it is deserved. She is doing precise work inside a production that rewards nothing precise. The rest is noise. We file it under zero, not as a verdict on quality (that verdict is separately and thoroughly settled) but as a factual observation. The film aspires to offend nobody and succeeds at nothing. The meter stays dark.