Review of Vampire Academy (2014) by Nikki W — 26 Aug 2014

"Not only do these vampires suck, they also stink.".

DVD Movie Review: Vampire Academy.

Date Viewed: May 20 2014.

Directed By Mark Waters (Freaky Friday, Mean Girls, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Mr. Popper's Penguins).

Screenplay By Daniel Waters, Based on the novel by Richelle Mead.

Starring: Zoey Deutch, Lucy Fry, Sarah Hyland, Gabriel Byrne, Danila Kozlovsky,.

Dominic Sherwood, Olga Kurylenko, Sami Gayle, Cameron Monaghan, Ashley Charles,.

Claire Foy and Joely Richardson.

"Vampire Academy" could have been tasty blood to drink, it was directed by Mark Waters who did "Mean Girls" a decade ago and it was written by his older brother Daniel Waters who did "Heathers" 25 years ago. Unfortunately, it deserves to be burned at a stake because it sucks. Not only does it try to be a mashup of both "Harry Potter" and "Twilight", it also tries to add in funny humor but I did not laugh once. If you get one idea and then mix it in with lame humor, poor CGI effects and terrible acting, you get a vampire movie that's dead on arrival.

The Waters brothers are clever people, could they have seen that "Vampire Academy" was not yet ready to be released? Were they forced to this by blackmail? Based on the young adult book series by Richelle Mead, "Vampire Academy" focuses on a school for vampires called St. Vladimir's Academy in rural Montana. The school is run by Headmistress Kirova (Olga Kurylenko), an elder named Victor (a miserable looking Gabriel Byrne) and a ravishing Queen Tatiana (Joely Richardson). All three of them are good actors but they're just here to cash a paycheck.

The movie's two leads are Vampire Lissa (Lucy Fry) and her guardian Rose (Zoey Deutch). They want to get out of St. Vladimir's but the school keeps pulling them back in. In any movie like this, there is always a school bully who tries to take advantage of them, and that role goes to Sami Gayle (who played Nicolas Cage's daughter in the boring action thriller "Stolen"). There is nobody to root for in this picture because not only do these vampires suck, they also stink.

"Lame Vampires" would have been a more appropriate title for this silly and tedious movie. I'm sure Mark and Daniel Waters can come back from this disaster, after all they made two of the best school movies ever. I hope "Vampire Academy" is the last of these "Twilight" rip-offs because vampires are now starting to turn rancid.