I hate Friedberg and Seltzer’s films because they are so utterly moronic in nature. In fact, I refuse to pay money to people who can get major cinematic releases by being self-satisfied and thinking they are clever solely because they can quote other people films and snidely jeer at celebrities. This is why I have taken the step in the case of both Disaster Movie and Vampires Suck of downloading their films rather than paying for them. I do not wish to come out as blanketly advocating download piracy, but equally if Hollywood will treat me as a moron and expect to pay for the privilege, then I fully intend to give the finger to them for doing so. If anyone else has a desire to see this piece of garbage posing as a film then show your contempt and pirate this film instead of paying for it by going to the following link (Z-Movie). Turn Vampires Suck into a box-office flop and hopefully drive Friedberg and Seltzer to the unemployment line.

There is a rich legacy of vampire movies that is well overdue a decent parody – Mel Brooks strained somewhat more comprehensively than Vampires Suck does in the mostly lame Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995). However, rather than parodying any of the long line of vampire films, Vampires Suck is, with Friedberg and Seltzer’s typical focus that lazily never goes beyond the latest pop headlines, a parody of the enormously successful Twilight series. The entire film becomes nothing more than a condensed run through that slavishly follows the plots for Twilight (2008) and New Moon (2009) but with the addition of gags. The gags are, as always, dumb and obvious – Jacob Black is constantly displaying canine tendencies such as scratching his ear with his foot, pissing on a fire hydrant and being distracted to chase cats. There are the inevitable gag about him taking his shirt off – “My contract says I have to every ten minutes” – and about Robert Pattinson’s good looks and perfect dress sense. There are lame gags about getting information from Stephenie Meyer’s Twitter page or having Jenn Proske and Anneliese van der Pol exit from a screening of Breaking Dawn and giving away the spoiler about the vampire baby.

Friedberg and Seltzer’s humour is persistently lowest common denominator and in frequent poor taste. Within the first few minutes of Jenn Proske meeting Chris Riggi’s Jacob Black, he says “I grew up on the reservation,” to which she tosses off “Must be great to be able to drink and gamble all day,” while in the background her father and Jacob’s father bash each other with the latter’s wheelchair. The film replays the scene where Robert Pattinson stops the vehicle from skidding into Kristen Stewart but in this case he shoves Jun Hee Lee in the way instead. There are some incredibly unfunny routines with Jenn Proske sleepwalking, or a scene where Diedrich Bader tries to educate her in self-defence and she maces him, kicks him in the nuts and rips off his mustache. Matt Lanter stands over Jenn Proske as she sleeps and romantically sighs, “Just you breathing is the greatest gift in the world to me,” whereupon she gives a loud fart and so on.

Friedberg and Seltzer are constantly throwing in gags that make fun of celebrities of the moment. In the opening scenes, Jenn Proske’s voiceover states her reasons for going to stay with her father: “My mom is always on the road doing some pro-sports star,” whereupon we see her reading a magazine with a picture of Tiger Woods on the cover. Matt Lanter makes Jenn Proske pledge: “Promise me you won’t do anything reckless,” to which she replies, “Ok, I promise I won’t date Chris Brown.” She gets a bloody nose whereupon she tosses off a line about “I guess I shouldn’t have gone partying with Lindsay Lohan last night.” Her voiceover is intruded by the one from Gossip Girl (2007– ), while there are jokes about the Kardashians and Lady Gaga. For some reason, there is a shot where they accidentally shoot and knock an equivalent of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (2010) down the rabbit hole. To be fair, Vampires Suck keeps tightly to the plot of the first two Twilight films and never keeps piling on random gags from almost any other film of last five minutes vintage as Friedberg and Seltzer’s other films are constantly doing.

On the grudging plus side, you have to admit that the actors chosen resemble their Twilight counterparts with an often uncanny likeness. In particular, Jenn Proske does a perfect job of mimicking Kristen Stewart’s shy plainness. There is the odd vaguely amusing gag – especially some of the parodying of Twilight’s chastity nonsense with Jenn Proske wondering if Matt Lanter’s being well dressed and not liking sex makes him a Jonas Brother and later gags about her tearing off his chastity pledge ring. It is an obvious target but at least it hits the nail on the head in terms of spearing the moralistic silliness of Stephenie Meyer’s writing.

(Winner in this site’s Worst Films of 2010 list).