Movie Review: Vamps (2012)
Synopsis: Goody and Stacy are a pair of vampires who refuse to feed off humans and live their lives, at night, trying to keep up with trends so they can continue to pass for women in their 20s. Their lives become more complicated when Stacy falls in love with the son of a vampire hunter and Goody runs into a past love.
Who's in it? The movie stars Alicia Silverstone, Krysten Ritter, Wallace Shawn, Malcolm McDowell, Dan Stevens, Sigourney Weaver and Richard Lewis.
Review: I forgot to pre-select a morning movie last night and, needing something to watch, I picked out Vamps solely because it had been in my movie library for some time. While I would still stop a bit short of saying it was a good movie, it did turn out to be better than I was expecting.
I think the thing I liked best about this film is it does a good job imagining the problems modern-day vampires might have. In the case of Goody (Silverstone), Stacy (Ritter) and their other vampire friends, it included everything from choosing clothes and doing makeup without the benefit of seeing their reflection, trying to keep up with modern technologies, finding jobs that paid decent and let them work at night and living in fear of Homeland Security because they were undocumented.
Their maker, Ciccerus (Weaver) was a nice addition to their other problems, refusing to give up the old ways and drawing attention to the other vampires in the process. She kept the movie from being too predictable because, if they were to kill her, it would result in them losing their youthful appearance and, in Goody's case, that showing a real age that was more than 100.
I wasn't sure about their relationships at first, but they did turn out to be more intriguing than expected. The twist with Stacy getting pregnant could have gone a number of ways while Goody's continued feelings for a now married Danny (Lewis) also added some interesting complications - would she pursue him or would she use her vampire powers to cure his sick and dying spouse?
My biggest problem with this movie, ironically, was the decision to make it a comedy. As I said, the movie brought up some unique and interesting concepts and questions but doesn't fully explore any of them because it is too focused on the jokes. I'm not saying it wasn't funny at times, helped a lot by a surprisingly talented and well-known cast. I just think the film would have been more memorable as a drama or even a horror movie.
Final Opinion: I liked it a lot more than I thought I would but, because of the decision to make it a comedy, a movie that could have been a groundbreaking vampire film was just a little better than average.
My Grade: C+
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Here are some reviews of other vampire comedies:
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