Suckers

I’m not sure how, but somehow we discovered that there are a ton of heavy-metal horror comedies. Many are now in our queue. Suck (2009) is the first one we saw.

It’s written and directed by Rob Stefaniuk, and he is one of the stars: the leader of the punk(ish) band, the Winners, which includes his beautiful ex-girlfriend Jessica Pare. Setting up for a gig, Stefaniuk gets waylaid by creepy bartender Alice Cooper, who lays some cryptic banter on him. He also meets with their manager, Dave Foley, who recommends that they fire him - because he’s too chicken to fire them. But they are still on for the big festival in New York, where there are a lot of execs who might discover them.

But Pare goes to a party with a weird guy named Queenie after the gig, and comes back the next day different. More glamorous, hypnotically attractive. People are digging the band now. At first, Stefaniuk thinks she has started using, but it finally comes out. She’s been turned into a vampire. This leads to a little trouble at the US/Canada border, since she looks pretty bad during the day, but fortunately, the customs agent is Alex Lifeson of Rush. He says he was in a band and understands. Rock on.

They hang out with Beef, the lead singer for the Secretaries of Steak - played by arch-vegan Moby. He’s a bit of a jerk, so they feed him to Pare. Later, they go to record with Iggy Pop, a reclusive producer, who immediately knows what’s going on - he’s seen stuff. That’s most of the cameos - there are a few more, but I didn’t recognize them.

Wait, one more - Eddie Van Helsing is on their trail, and he’s played by Malcom McDowell. They do some flashbacks to his younger days by cutting in shots from O Lucky Man! Soderbergh did this with Terence Stamp, so it isn’t quite an innovation, but it is fun.

There’s a lot of cheepnis in this movie - mostly manifested by cheesy models shots for transitions. Also, they used a lot of dive bars for the dive bars the bands played in. I’m not too sure about the music - it isn’t very punk or metal. Some of it has an edge, but a lot is pretty “indie” sounding. You know, sensitive singer-songwriter stuff. Stefaniuk does do his own singing and it looks like he wrote a lot of the songs. He might have done better with some help.

But not on the comedy. This was funny and satisfying. We’ve got a bunch more queued up.