#amyheckerling

There’s nothing that disappoints more than squandered potential. Vamps could have been a great supernatural comedy. Instead, it gets caught in the same pratfalls as every bad vampire film.

Stacy (Krysten Ritter) and Goody (Alicia Silverstone) are two socialite vampires living it up in New York City. They feed on rats and get soil from their homes shipped via post so they never have to worry about anything except keeping up with the latest technology and dodging mirrors. As Stacy forms a relationship with a college student named Joey (Dan Stevens), Goody begins reconnecting with an old flame by pretending to be her own daughter. If only their bloodthirsty vampire queen Ciccerus (Sigourney Weaver) wasn't so demanding.

There are many clever ideas here. To vampires, annoying but mundane tasks might threaten to expose or kill you. How can you be sure you look good enough to go out when you can’t see yourself in the mirror? If your coffin is delivered and the hinge gets stuck, who can you complain to? What happens when you get called for jury duty? Combined with two vampires who stick straws into rats so they can drink up without biting anyone and you have comedic gold! Or you should anyway.

Vamps makes every mistake a bad vampire film can. First, it plays fast and loose with vampire rules. Granted, vampires aren't real. Omitting the obsession with counting (arithmomania) and weakness to running bodies of water is excusable. However, you can’t just keep certain aspects of the characters, omit others, and expect the audience to know what's what without some clarifications.

Secondly, it name drops for no reason. If your story has some vampires in it and they need to have a boss, don’t come up with something original, just use Dracula! ... or don’t. Everyone who is writing a lazy vampire story references Bram Stoker’s book. In "Vamps", several names are taken from the Dracula novel. Be they descendants of Dr. Van Helsing or a gay best friend named Renfield. For what reason? For no reason except to give you a reason to say “Oh! I get that reference!”

Thirdly, it misunderstands the true ramifications of vampirism. I haven't stopped being a teenager for THAT long but find it difficult to stand them anymore. Can you imagine how unbearably dull they would be to someone that’s lived for decades? If you’re going to have a millennia-old vampire fall in love with a teen, do what Twilight did and find a magical reason for that matchup. Otherwise, it’s a hard pill to swallow. At one point, both Stacy and Goody find themselves pursuing someone much younger than they are. They're sexy. They're immortal. What do these fools have to offer? Why so eager to turn them into vampires that will stay with them FOREVER?

The final mistake doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it's unforgivable. Vamps breaks its own rules. It’s fine if you make up your own mythology but have them in mind from the beginning. Don't have them only apply once discovered.

By the end, our disbelief is stretched to the breaking point. Bloodthirsty Ciccerus has only ever turned 3 human beings into vampires. An eclipse can last over 2 hours. A couple of wrinkles and a flabby butt turns a 20-year-old into a 40-year-old. That's the tip of the iceberg. The film is fun but once the “epic plot” kicks in, Vamps turns to dust thanks to all sorts of head-scratching implications.

Vamps is a comedy that too often misses its mark, wastes the talent of its cast, and crumbles under scrutiny. It’s the kind of movie that drives you crazy just thinking about it. Some of the issues should've been obvious, like the unnecessary scenes that bring in bad special effects or the inconsistencies brought on by the end. If they had to be kept, the movie needed to be much funnier. Vamps starts off strong and then loses all steam. (On DVD, September 9, 2015)