Vampire Films Get the 'Scary Movie' Treatment

Cheesetastic, low-budget parodies of genre movies have been a staple of American multiplexes and direct-to-video releases since 2000, when the Wayans Brothers released Scary Movie on all of us. It was perhaps inevitable that a genre that was dedicated to pointing out the ridiculousness of American culture would succumb to that same absurdity: you can't take already goofy concepts and up the ante by juxtaposing them with other ridiculous concepts and maintain high levels of sophistication and good taste.

Such is the case with the latest iteration of the genre, Vampires Suck:

Maybe this one has a little more guts to it, if only because it takes a bit more courage to take on a wildly popular franchise that people take with dead seriousness than to make fun of movies that people go to see because they enjoy a jolt, a nervous laugh born out of momentary and easily dissectable fear. But it doesn't take a lot to make those juxtapositions, instead of to build something new, something cool, something profound, something lasting. These movies are the equivalent of poking a vampire gently in the shoulder with a stick, rather than staking it vigorously through the heart.