The Winners are a struggling rock and roll band on the verge of breaking up. Vocalist Joey is convinced that should their next tour flop, it will spell the end and lead to a life of boredom and complacency. After a gig, their bassist Jennifer runs off with a mysterious stranger, promising to return in the morning for their trip to the next city of their itinerary. While she does indeed live up to her promise, she comes back looking a little paler and hungrier than before, and the band slowly discovers that their bass player has become one of the undead. Much to their surprise, this proves to be anything but a detriment, instead leading to previously-unseen interest in their uncluttered tunes.
Back in February and/or March, I had plans to do a small mini-marathon entitled "The Blockbuster Bunch," which would have focused on a myriad of titles that my cheap self picked up from the now-defunct video rental chain. The bad news is that thanks to laziness, this never fully materialized (though it may later if time is on my side this holiday season). The good news is that quite a few of these flicks have made their way onto this year's list, including The Midnight Meat Train, Dead Sushi, and Overtime. Today, I'm taking a chance on another one of these random picks, writer/director Rob Stefaniuk's rock and roll vampire-comedy Suck.
And boy am I glad that I did. For the past few days, I had been suffering through some real dreck, proving to my friends that I may in fact be a masochist (that or just willing to watch what nobody else will). When a movie as fun as Suck comes along, it's the type of experience that makes you forget the pains of those previous entries. For starters, everyone just looks like they're having a good time filming and starring in this picture, and thankfully don't forsake keeping the audience entertained as well. Suck's cast is surprisingly large too considering that it wasn't filmed with the highest of budgets (travel montages are made of claymation sequences). From the realm of music, we get Henry Rollins as a loudmouthed DJ, Alex Lifeson of Rush as a Canadian border guard, Alice Cooper as a bartender, and Burning Brides/Off! guitarist Dimitri Coats (looking like a combination of Jack White and Johnny Depp's portrayal of the Mad Hatter) as the vampiric musician who turns Jennifer into a bloodsucker. There are quite a few more to look out for, but for the sake of this review, I won't say who shows up and where. Malcolm McDowell also turns up as a vampire hunter with a connection to Coats' character (and spouts possibly the best line in the movie). In a cool little trick, they use and edit footage from 1973's O Lucky Man! for flashback sequences, wherein McDowell himself was a young man in his 30s.
Not letting the cameos make up most of the praise, the band and their crew (particularly their VERY French-Canadian roadie Hugo) provide some entertaining and purposely comedic moments as well. As I've done once before so far during this year's countdown, I'll have to let my primal male instincts out for once: Jessica Pare's Jennifer, bassist for the band and frontman Joey's ex-girlfriend, is stupidly, undeniably attractive, and probably the best-looking female vampire that I've seen in at least a decade. Don't let the looks fool you though, since Suck reminds you that while vampires may be "cool" in this day and age thanks to mainstream successes like Twilight and similar ilk, they are still horrifying monsters with an appetite for death and murder. As of the time of this writing, I'm not certain as to whether the band themselves were playing their own tunes, but I sure hope that was the case. In this universe, the Winners might be viewed as a band whose tunes as less-than-spectacular and impassioned, but damn are some of them catchy. The aforementioned Burning Brides also contribute two songs to the picture, including the pretty great and gloomy "Flesh and Bone," whose video you can view down below.
All of that fellating aside, and as much as I thought that the build to the inevitable was very pleasing, it does make for a somewhat rushed climax. Suck also boasts quite a few moments of over-the-top content, and while that kind of goes hand in hand with rock and roll, it may turn some people off. Me though? I've sat through men getting their penises ripped off by cheap-looking bigfoot costumes in this year's iteration, and I've also had to watch a Leprechaun movie without a real god damn leprechaun, so I didn't have a problem whatsoever.
So, you see kids? There IS such a thing as a great blind buy in this day and age. Suck might sport one of the simpler, and debatably stupider titles in recent memory (which could be one of the reasons as to why most pass it over in favor of other films), but it's definitely worth your time considering that it mostly flew under the radar with only a select few hearing about its very limited theatrical release. If you can find this for a decently cheap price, or at the very least, on an accessible streaming site that isn't outrageously expensive, give it a watch one afternoon or evening with some likeminded friends and fans of horror-comedies based around the devil's music, for which I know there aren't a lot to choose from.
Besides, getting to see Henry Rollins with hair again is worth the price alone.
Tomorrow, I stay hungry (hardy har har) and dig into Ravenous!
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