The Movie Didn’t Suck

That’s what I thought about the 2009 vampire musical-comedy Suck. See, see what I did there with the title? But for reals, I haven’t laughed so hard at a vampire movie since I last watched my beloved The Lost Boys. Lestat, Edward, take a note–it can be really funny being a vampire. Why so serious?
Suck doesn’t take itself seriously, but it shows a hardcore love for not only vampire movies but for, my favorite music genre, rock and roll. The short version of the plot; Joey Winner is desperate for his band, The Winners, to succeed. Things start to pick up for them when their bassist, Jennifer, is turned into a vampire (By the hottie Dimitri Coates of Burning Brides!) The band starts to become famous but they may have bitten off more than they can chew. Heh.
I think that the first thing that everyone thinks about when they think of the movie Suck is the casting so lets just get that out of the way. There’s an insane amount of musician cameos in Suck, here are some of my favorites.

Alice Cooper is a bartender. He also appears to Joe at a crossroads with Robert Johnson’s music playing. Jebus, I love the attention to detail in this movie. (For those unfamiliar with the legend, Robert Johnson was a legendary blues musician who allegedly sold his soul to the devil at a crossroads in exchange for his l33t guitar prowess. The devil always appears at crossroads, btw.)

There’s Dimitri, playing the 300-year-old vampire Queeny.

Henry Rollins plays a sleazy radio d.j.

Iggy Pop is Victor, the owner of the recording studio that The Winners use.

And there’s Moby as the lead singer of the Secretaries of Steak. That’s what I like to believe is the inner Moby.
I have to give Rob Stefaniuk, the writer, director, and star of the movie, credit for his knowledge and playing with vampire movie tropes.
The movie opened with a flapping fake bat on a string.
The pretty bassist, Jennifer, becomes preternaturally beautiful and alluring once changed into a vampire. And she always has a wind machine with her.

Once Jen is changed, she attracts the attention of Eddie van Helsing, the learned vampire hunter, played by the eternally awesome Malcolm McDowell.

He looks like a demented Karl Lagerfeld!
Once Jennifer is turned into a vampire she needs a helper, so the French-Canadian roadie, Hugo, becomes the Renfield character.

Hugo is in charge of dismembering victims and eating flies.
And, finally, once the rest of the band is changed into vampires, they use their vamp-powers to turn into fog when Joe bothers them.
This movie wasn’t very scary–but was The Lost Boys really scary?–but it’s very funny and very, very fun. And it was very refreshing seeing a vampire movie where the vampires are having fun and being bad. This movie made me either want to become a vampire or join a band, I’m not sure which.
My favorite little bit of the movie is the stop-motion animations they used to illustrate where The Winners were going on their tour.

So, watch this movie for some fun. I wish I could send the creators of The Vampire Happening a copy to show them how vampire-comedies are done.