Wednesday, October 14, 2009

I Kissed a Vampire and Was Kinda Underwhelmed By It



From the second that I Kissed a Vampire, a rock musical webseries staring Lucas Grabeel and Drew "Emmy Nominated, No, Really" Seeley, was announced, it was clear I was going to have to watch it, right? I mean, that's just common sense. Apparently, Misters Grabeel and Seeley agreed, because they were kind enough to hold a free premier event in NY, which they both attended, where viewers were treated to all three episodes and a free t-shirt. So, naturally, I attended.

I'd be frank, but we know that's just not my style, right? To beat around the bush, it is totally worth it to purchase the series on iTunes, if your goal is to support Lucas and Drew (and Adrian Slade, I guess, though I have no emotional investment in her). And that is a noble, totally worthwhile goal! I would support you in doing so! But if you purchase I Kissed a Vampire, that should be your only goal. Because guys… It was bad.

Like, bad-bad.

I went into expecting something terrible but full of ludicrous fun. Instead, it was just terrible. I mean, there are nice things I can say about it! It was almost a half-hour total, and I wasn't bored! The cast members all have lovely singing voices! I enjoyed seeing boys in eyeliner! But… Yeah, that's about it.

There were a bunch of weaknesses. The series was amusing, but didn't go nearly far enough to be good parody. It wasn't parodying anything in particular, either, as far as I could tell; there was sort of a general sense of, "Oh, vampires are hot right now, so we'll do vampires, but kind of funny, I guess? And singing! No one has done singing vampires before!" Except that yes, they have, and so while there were a few amusing lines, the parody aspect fell flat.

To give credit where it's due, I'll acknowledge this: Drew was flat-out, show-stealing-ly hilarious. Every single line he delivered made me laugh; in fact, looking back, those are the only lines I can remember. And while the whole thing was campy, he was the one who really turned it up to 11 -- where it needed to be, frankly -- frolicking around, licking guitars, made up like (as my friend Jen put it) the bastard love child of Ryan Ross and Pete Wentz.

But, speaking of laugh lines, it turns out that Lucas Grabeel does have an Achilles heel as an actor: punchlines. I was surprised, too! You guys know how much I love him and think he is fantastically talented! But every punchline he delivered fell into a sort of awkward no-mans-land of humor; none of the ludicrousness was played up enough to keep pace with Drew "Another Cinderella Story, No, I Mean the One With Selena Gomez" Seeley, but it was consistently played with too much of a wink to the audience to be a straight man or to let the situation speak for itself. (Um. Adrian Slade was also there. The fact that there's not much to say about her is primarily the show's fault; she had one big number, and otherwise did not, in fact, do anything at all.)

As for the material the cast had to work with… Oy fucking vey.

There was no story, no plot, no nothing. Each episode was an intro monologue, a few lines of dialogue, a song, a few more lines, a song, and out. The songs didn't advance the plot or establish character, particularly, and there just wasn't enough dialogue to carry plot or characters, either. So… There was basically nothing to it. Which would have been okay if the songs had been stand-out phenomenal, but they weren't; again, while well performed, the best of they managed was instantly forgettable, with not a single tune stuck in my head after. The worst was flat out dreadful. I mean… Really, really atrociously bad.

And yet, the worst part? During the Q&A session after the screening, the people behind the production -- the writer and director, if memory serves, though one may have been the producer? -- essentially copped to… Well, not how bad it was, exactly, but how utterly unconcerned they were with making it good. Like, they said, in as many words, "Oh, we weren't trying to put together something where one scene really followed another," and "We don't really know that much about vampires," and "It wasn't about telling a story." When asked a question about internal consistency by a fan, they were obviously shocked that anyone actually did assume that the series was supposed to move logically from points A to B, or present us with characters were should care about, or tell us a story about, I don't know, a guy who was bitten by a vampire and can't quite come to terms with it.

Though the fact that no one tried to do that was pretty clear from watching it.

So, all in all? It was a big mess. But on the upside, these moments happened!



So I count the night as a win, frankly.

9 comments:

Tessa said...

Interesting. About what I expected, but of course I hoped I would be wrong. Still have to love Lucas and Drew, though.
Maybe one day Lucas will actually get to put his talent to good use.
Also: cute pics!

Anonymous said...

I'm glad somebody confirmed my suspicion that it was going to be really bad.

Win for meeting Lucas and Drew though :D

Jessica said...

I love the second picture. You look vaguely bored, and Lucas looks absolutely thrilled. It's like you're the celebrity. "Oh my God, you guys! I'm meeting Becky!"

Anonymous said...

You said: it is totally worth it to purchase the series on iTunes, if your goal is to support Lucas and Drew.

And I hate to say it, but I have to disagree with you on this. Lucas and Drew were actors for the miniseries, right? I mean, they didn't have any creative or financial input. If that's the case, then (I'm assuming, though I could be wrong) they've received their paycheck and the purchasing or not purchasing of these episodes won't affect them in the least.

Again, I could be totally off-base, but based on your review, there's no way I'm wasting even $6 on this.

Becky said...

I'm actually really curious about how the financial breakdown works for this, because it was clearly made for about ten bucks and change. (Something else the director was very upfront about). So were the actors working for cheap, working out of love of the (really, really bad) product, or was some other scheme worked out? I have no idea if that would be likely or not, but I am definitely be curious about it.

Jessica said...

Well, it's not just about financial support. It always helps an actor's profile if they can say "My web series made [large amount of money] on iTunes." Actors become desirable to producers because they star in hits.

Megan Stacey said...

I high fived Joe Jonas and Demi Lovato last night.

...let's call it a tie.

Oh, except I'm forever immortalized in a DCOM, which has kind of been my dream forever. So when you begrudgingly watch Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam next summer, I'll be sure to remind you to look out for the redhead in the green hoodie on the right side of the staircase in one of the final scenes.

Emily Hecht said...

Is it just me, or was Adrian Slade actively kind of really bad in this? Her lip syncing was consistently off, her delivery was stilted, and her reactions distracting. It's worth noting that she's the daughter of the executive producer, and that his other daughter is one of the vampiresses. She frustrated me throughout the whole thing, since Lucas and Drew were doing a great job with some pretty middling material.

Anonymous said...

i really think its a big joke. like a gag show... it has to be because it made me laugh so hard. they aren't seriously acting right?