'Vamps' joins the herd of blood-sucking films

By Sarah Sluis

With two solid vampire hits, Twilight and "True Blood," dominating the entertainment industry, everyone's chasing the bandwagon. A promising addition to the slate is the forthcoming project being spearheaded by Amy Heckerling. The director of memorable movies like Clueless, Look Who's Talking and Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Heckerling had largely disappeared from the credits section on IMDB. She's had only three directorial outings since 1995, none of them hits. Now she's reuniting with her Clueless star Alicia Silverstone for Vamps, the story of two female bloodsuckers who ponder losing their immortality for a shot at true love.

Sigourney Weaver will play the queen vampire, who turned the women into undead souls. Krysten Ritter, who's made something of a career as the quirky sidekick friend in romantic comedies (she was a nice light spot in Confessions of a Shopaholic and 27 Dresses), will be the second banana (I would welcome seeing her in a larger role).

The Twilight-esque vampire hook may attract both younger audiences, despite its older-skewing stars and writer/director. The fantasy component is also a draw. One of the biggest tasks for writers of comedy-romances is devising a plausible reason for the couple to stay apart until the closing credits. It's hard to keep one step ahead of ever-more sophisticated audiences. Instead of rooting for the couple to get together, the audience is often simply bored and waiting for their inevitable union. Fantasy is one way around this problem. Twilight's famously chaste characters are kept apart by external forces and internally imposed obligations--not light, predictable obstacles like "the best friend that I never thought of in that way." Vamps would be able to replicate this believable obstacle within a humorous context.

Instead of Twilight, I see this comedy taking inspiration from 1992's Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In that movie, the lead character, Buffy, has a disbelieving, almost jocular attitude toward her obligations. She only wises up to the reality of her situation late in the story, which gives her character a dynamic arc. Perhaps these "Vamps" blithely attempt to circumvent the vampire rules before finding out that true love is much more complicated. With financing in place and a production start date of April 2010 in place, Vamps should head into theatres by next year. Good or bad, I'm ready to see Amy Heckerling flex her writing and directing muscles again.