Suck

Suck is a movie that doesn't really have any surprises, take one look at the fangs on the poster and read the corny title and you'll know pretty much what you are in store for. But that doesn't mean Suck isn't actually quite funny and weirdly appealing despite its low-budget origins.

The story focuses on the downbeat, struggling band called The Winners. After years of touring smaller and smaller gigs with equally dwindling audiences, the band are about beat. Band leader Joey (Rob Stefaniuk) is thinking of winding it up, and his relationship with the bass guitarist and sort-of girlfriend Jennifer is fizzling out. But when Jennifer (Jessica Paré) comes back from a night out transformed into a stunning-looking vampire, she delivers a jolt of energy into their lame-duck performances on stage.

Suddenly everyone is talking about The Winners and their hypnotic new shows, and, provided they can stop Jennifer eating people, the band seem set to end their tour on a high and with a new record deal. But, inevitably, both the dangers and temptations of vampirism begin to devour the band (and a few unfortunate groupies along the way). Joey struggles with the moral conundrum of seeing his dream of fame within reach - but at the cost of all their souls. Will their fame be all its cracked up to be?

The story of a mediocre rock band that's doomed to roadtrips to nowhere, selling their souls for fame before going out in hail of booze and drug abuse, has been done before, of course. But mashing the last-shot-at-fame concept with a vampire story works quite well and generates enough laughs, as both over-done genres get rightly skewered. Instead of throwing TVs out of hotel windows and indulging in wild cocaine trips in jaccuzzis, we have the vamped-up Winners chewing on groupies after their shows, or sucking the blood out of unlucky till clerks with straws as their hunger consumes them.

It all manages to be just funny enough to last 90 minutes, and the cast look like they are having a great time. Suck can also claim credit for somehow getting a trio of veteran rockers (four if you count Moby) to join in the vampire mayhem: Iggy Pop, Henry Rollins and a very scary looking Alice Cooper (who probably didn't need that much makeup compared to the other prosthetic-heavy vampire characters).