VAMPIRE DIARIES PART 1: THICKER THAN WATER (screener review)

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Two for Tuesday :D Today I decided to finally put up the review for the screener I got for The Vampire Diaries Part I: Thicker Than Water. A somewhat entertaining, but immensely flawed vampire film that's believability is barely a step up from Twatlight. Before I get into the nitty-gritty of the film, I of course will say that this review MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS and I'm gonna slap up a synopsis for ya'll.

The story tells of two sisters-gothic Lara and her sweet as cupcakes twin sister Helen. Lara is truly the Jan to Helen's Marsha and envies popularity, her looks and most of all, her mother's pride and affection. One day, after their 16th Birthday party, Lara does some "do it yourself Wicca" ritual front of her Anne Rice alter involving a Barbie doll and calf’s heart. The next morning Helen awakens with a severe nosebleed that looks like something Sam Raimi thought of and then prissy thing dies. The family is desperately grief stricken. That is until Raymond, the gay neuro-scientist brother, discovers a strange virus in Helen's blood: one that feeds on red blood cells. Helen shows up still in her body bag a-la NOES. Turns out, she's a vampire and needs blood to survive. So the family is given the awful decision whether or not to let their daughter suffer, or to kill/kidnap others to keep their precious baby alive. Sounds a little bit like Little Shop to me....

So first, I'll start off with the stuff I LIKED:
1) There is a history lesson that keeps popping up throughout the film with a narration and some pretty sweet pictures. The guy has a god-awful Mr. Moviephone voice but I really liked its connection with the end. At first I was weirded out why I kept getting the damn history lesson, but once its necessity is revealed I really dug it.

2) The comedy aspect of it was pretty awesome. A goth with a shrine to Anne Rice and the vocabulary of Lydia Deetz, Mormons wearing K-Mart bicycle helmets, the janked up family, the neurotic homo brother...all were dead on and hilarious.

3) Best Line: "You think I like sharing a birthday with everyone's favorite candidate for prom queen? I'd rather be gay in Texas" AWESOME.

4) The makeup is phenomenal. The woman playing the mother is seriously gorgeous and they made her look like HELL. That takes some skill. The vampire makeup, dead makeup, and the transitions in between were all really really well done.

5) The girl playing Helen has the most intense body morphing actions I've ever seen. Straight out of the exorcist.

Okay, so the things I DO NOT like...

1) The Mr. Moviephone voice. Is absolutely dreadful. Words do not even describe how badly this guy sucks at doing voice-overs. A deaf-mute could have done better. I'd have picked Stuttering Stanley over this guy.

2) The mother character isn't nearly as developed as she could be. So we have a former Bulgarian Figure Skater with a limp from her injury and some excessive Jesus humping. She was the most drawing of the entire film and was the least developed. I was left with so many questions as to WHY and never got an answer. Her performance was the most convincing and yet she seemed to be just skimmed over. It was a real let down. Not by the part of the actress, but by the part of the writer.

3) It doesn't have a genre. In some cases, the lack of genre is a good thing. In this case, it screwed it over. It starts off as just another whiny teen angst film that makes me irritated and then WHAM, its a dark comedy?! What the tits?! Pick one and stick with it. Dark comedies are great, but the reason they're great is because from start to finish it's chock full of sarcasm. The whole tone of the film shifted at one point and it was all too much to handle. It was chaos and annoying.

4) It's shot pretty awful. It's college direction 101 at best. You can tell that certain camera angles were used JUST to be edgy. It's so annoying. It's as if they made this film to try to be sarcastic and edgy, well I hate to break it to you....BUT YOU HAVE TO EARN THAT ABILITY. If you've seriously got nothing good on your list of credibility and then you're trying to poke fun at a genre by making a shitty film but expect people to see it as sarcastic....you're flirting with death.

5) There's a scene where I swear to you the only lighting is by a laptop. It's disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. The film had really awful lighting throughout but that's just damn lazy. You don't light something with a laptop to make a point, you do it because you're lazy.

6) There's a vampire that looks like Lestat's gaylord doppleganger with an atrocious red wig. Who shows up literally 3 minutes after they talk about "You need to watch out for other vampires". If that was supposed to be funny....no one got the joke.

Ultimately, it wasn't absolutely dreadful. I will say however, it has been getting nothing but rave reviews, and I have no friggen clue why. It's racked up a ton of awards too, and I just don't agree with it. I don't like it. I'll probably keep it as one of those films to watch on a rainy day, but this is nothing to be hopping around in glee about. It's amatuer, uninspiring, and cliche.
Gross.

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