"Vamps" - - Legally Blood

When I'm watching a movie using my computer, it makes it a lot easier to review because I can take the screenshots right when I'm watching it. Usually, whether a movie is good or bad, I take maybe 6-8 screenshots and maybe post half of those.

While watching "Vamps" I took a record of 22 screenshots. The imagery in this movie goes from the unbelievable to the unbearable, but I think the best picture that sums up the whole movie is this one:

That is Sigourney Weaver's head on a skeleton's body. If you are looking at that picture and thinking: "Wow, those special effects look awful," trust me, they look ten times worse in motion. If this scene had been at the beginning of the film I would have wondered if I was having some sort of hallucination. But by the time this scene appeared the movie had already been so jaw-droppingly bad that I watched it with a laugh and a resigned shrug.

"Vamps" is the story of two vampires . . .I'm sorry, they prefer to be called "ELFs" as in Extended Life Forms (dear God) named Goody and Stacy who like to go to school and party. Goody is over 100 years old. "Things got a lot better in the 80's . . .oh, the 1880s that is!" (ugh) while Stacy is more modern and hip, coming from the actual 80's. Together they work as exterminators and eat rats while their Stem, Sigourney Weaver, eats pizza delivery guys.

What's a Stem, you ask? Well, it's another word for a stupid plot contrivance. See, only a Stem can turn someone into a vampire. Why? Who knows? The movie never explains it.

Also, about 10 minutes in we're told that if a Stem dies, the vampires will advance in age as if they had naturally gotten older. Hmm, I wonder how this movie is going to end?

*SPOILER ALE . . .oh wait, too late.

The movie's plot, which is a charitable word because nothing happens for nearly an hour, is Stacy falls in love with a fellow classmate named Joey. She has to take night classes because she is a vampire and because this is a movie, night school is filled with the same good-looking people that attend classes during the day. I've taken night classes, and trust me, they aren't.

"Want to join my study group?"

Anyways, Stacy starts falling for Joey when she finds out *gasp* his last name is Van Helsing! He's related to Hugh Jackman!  Sweet! Oh wait, no, the other, boring Van Helsing who hunts vampires while pretending to work for the cable company Time Warner because his real job with Homeland Security doesn't give him enough clearance to break down people's doors and kill them.

"Wait, you just can't come in my house and kill me! I'm not black!"
"You will be soon!"

Meanwhile, Goody is falling in love again with the same man she fell for back in the 1960's. Of course he got older while she didn't, so she has to say it was her mother that he dated. Also, this love story is a little less touching since her true love eventually got married and his wife is currently dying of cancer.

Richard Lewis Jokes: The leading cause of cancer behind Carrot-Topitis

So at this point, the plot technically begins, and then immediately goes sideways. We have Van Helsing trying to get his son to admit he's banging a vampire and Richard Lewis giving speeches about how awful the Patriot Act is. I can remember at least two scenes which contain nothing but anti-NSA rhetoric and too-many-to-count references to the government being out of control. Trust me, you're preaching to the choir, but when you have a scene where an ACLU lawyer advises 1000 year old vampires to throw away their cell phones and stop using Twitter and Facebook because they are government tools of control, even I had to refrain from throwing on some Toby Keith to balance out the rhetoric.

*That's vampire that are a thousand years old, not literally 1000 one year old vampires. Although that would have made for a WAY better movie. Baby Vampires copyrighted Jason Carpenter*

"Vamps" is not funny. It's not charming, or insightful, or fun to watch. "Vamps" is a chore. Each joke is worst that the last one and the visual jokes are even worse.

We get to see a spit take using rat blood . . .

And thus a new age of the bubonic plague fell upon the civilized world . . .

Vampires criticize modern clothing lines . . .

Goody licking up a cocaine-induced nose bleed . . .

And whatever the hell this is . . .

"Call me! My number is 666!"

In the end, the jokes don't work and the characters are all boring or one-note. Vlad Tepish (should be Tepes but whatever, this movie is bad enough to not have to drag his good name through the mud) stopped impaling people and now he knits! Isn't that hilarious people! OMG that is so witty! And Renfield, you remember, the guy who ate bugs in Dracula? Well . . .wait you don't remember him? Well, OK, well he ate bugs in Dracula but now he's a scene kid! Isn't that so funny!?

No.

No it is not.

"Vamps" does have one long theme that runs the course of this zig-zag of a plot and that is the idocy of youth. "Why does it say 'visit' a webpage," the hundred-plus Goody asks. "Visting is where you 'go' somewhere. When you turn the page of a book are you "visiting" another page?"

When she is told she is wearing "mom jeans" her reply is: "Jeans are jeans!"

And whoa, don't get her started on cell phones! Seriously, don't. Her tirades on modern technology was, like, 1/4 of all her dialogue in the movie.

When the movie was thankfully over and the credits began to roll I quickly discovered two things.

1) Goody is played Alicia Silverstone

I watched this entire movie and had no idea who this actresses was. Looking good there, Bat-Girl.

2) This movie was written and directed by Amy Heckerling. That's when it all made sense. This movie was about her. Her fear of growing older in a world dominated by youth culture. Heckerling was the writer and director of the seminal 80's film "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" AND the seminal 90's film "Clueless." She reinforced the ideals of youth and fun for two generations but now she is on the outside. She is the older generation, the establishment, and instead of celebrating youth as she did in her previous films, she now wags a finger out the silliness of it all. Why are you watching reality shows?! You should be watching black and white surrealist films and Groucho Marx re-runs! Get rid of your cell phones! Talk to me face to face! Ipads are for losers! Get off my lawn!

In the end, Stacy gets pregnant and after their Stem is killed, she turns 40. Alicia Silverstone grows old and turns to dust while some old timey music plays. It supposed to be a celebration of aging until you realize that Krysten Ritter, the brunette on the left side of that picture, is what Hollywood thinks a 40-year old woman looks like.

"Vamps" fails as a comedy and it fails as an inventive take on the vampire genre. It's boring and predictable. It does succeed, however, as a psychological insight into the mind of Amy Heckerling. Kids today are idiots, and youth is wasted on the young. Back in her day, people did things that mattered! Like protest! Now they just play video games and play with stupid gadgets instead of reading books and realizing the government is controlling everything you do.

Oh wait, who's running the government now? Oh yeah, that's right, people your age, Ms. Heckerling, but it's still the fault of the kids because of laws that were passed when they were in diapers because that is the beauty of nostalgia. Everything was always better back in the olden days. And using that logic, I would have to send this movie back to the Pleistocene era before it was even remotely better than the movie it is today.

*BONUS ROUND! I know you're all wondering about the cancer stricken wife. Did she get saved by a Stem vampire or did she also grow old gracefully and die like the movie says we all should . . .

Sexiest. Hospital Gown. Ever.