Vamps
BLU-RAY 
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Director:
Amy Heckerling Actors: Alicia Silverstone Krysten Ritter Sigourney Weaver Rating:
 Printer-Friendly version
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WHAT'S IT ABOUT?
Two ageless vampires (Silverstone, Ritter) find and rediscover love while living in New York City.
IS IT A GOOD MOVIE?
The titular vamps are roommates and “besties” Goody (Alicia Silverstone) and Stacy (Krysten Ritter). Goody knows a little makeup and lipstick can do a 170-year-old face good; Stacy can fit at least one beau into her coffin for a romp. They’re too kind to feast on humans. Instead, they jab straws into dead rats and suck out the blood for breakfast. At night, they attend support groups that include both young (like Stacy) and ancient (like Vlad the Impaler, played by Malcolm McDowell).
One day, Stacy hits it off with a handsome classmate named Joey (Dan Stevens). Turns out, his last name’s Van Helsing, which makes him a relative of the famed vampire hunter. On the other love front, Goody falls into the sight of a lover from the ‘60s (Richard Lewis). None of this will sit too well with Ciccerus (Sigourney Weaver), their “stem,” or parent.
If you can expect anything from Vamps judging by the posters (one shows the girls sitting on a sparkly logo; another with a fanged mouth applying lipstick) and taglines (“Dating bites” and “Nice girls suck”), it’s that it’s out to appeal to modern t(w)een girls. And it probably will. Vamps--written and directed by Amy Heckerling--has the script of a rejected young adult manuscript. At its worst, the juvenile sense of humor is host to irrelevant jabs at everything from the Internet, texting and spray tans to mom jeans, Times Sqaure and--that’s right--Adam Ant.
This means two things. One, Amy Heckerling never bothered to grow up, and the hip, apt humor she brought to Fast Times at Ridgemont High in the ‘80s and Clueless in the ‘90s is gone. Two, Vamps is more primed to be a sitcom, where the jokes might play better. Maybe it would be cute, even star Alicia Silverstone once she realizes she’ll never outgrow Cher and Krysten Ritter once Don’t Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 gets canned.
THE EXTRAS
None.
FINAL DIAGNOSIS
Vamps, starring Alicia Silverstone and Krysten Ritter, is out in time to cash in on the current vampire craze, but likely won’t appeal to True Blood fans. Amy Heckerling’s latest is strictly for the t(w)een demographic, with its edgy digs at the Internet, texting and spray tans.
