Don’t Suck – review

Director: RJ Collins

Release date: 2023

Contains spoilers

A comedy about a comedian (and a vampire) to my way of thinking is either going to work for you or not. Comedy is so very subjective, as I have said in plenty of reviews. Luckily I was rather taken with this and found it genuinely funny and also quite endearing despite the primary character being deliberately drawn as a douche.

It starts with the compère of the Pioneer Saloon, a backwater little bar. Outside a man approaches Pete (Jamie Kennedy), the main act comedian for the night, calling him “funny man” as a derogatory (which immediately brought a Bill Hicks story to mind). The support act, Ethan (Matt Rife), intervenes, getting between the two but the man, after telling “Twilight” to step out of the way, doesn’t care and shoots Ethan. He buckles and stands, claiming a miss, so there are more shots and Ethan’s eyes glow as his fangs emerge…

Jamie Kennedy as Pete

Two weeks before and Pete has arrived for a regular slot he performs in the ‘Comedy Cellar’. He’s staying in the casino and footage has gone viral (posted by a receptionist) of his arrival. She badgered him to be funny and so he asked her “What’s the difference between a c*nt and a vagina”. He is unphased by the video. There are jokes backstage about him “storming the capitol” – jokes at his look, I guess. And he is told to watch the kid on stage – he bombs badly each time, he is told.

Ethan bombs

The kid is Ethan and his act is based on being a vampire. The audience don’t get it and he isn’t particularly funny. Backstage he is excited to meet Pete and asks for a tip – which doesn’t go down well. Pete is drawn as a douche; acerbic all the time, he is constantly jealous around his girlfriend Steph (Ellen Hollman) as he demonstrates when he discovers that Ethan has invited her to a party (he invites Pete too, and other people at the club, but is unaware of their relationship) but she knows he sleeps around on the road. She somehow still loves him, though later mentions him breezing into town every six weeks.

Ellen Hollman as Steph

Ethan is rich, ridiculously so, and really wants to learn comedy (later we discover he spent 200 years perfecting harpsichord and then it went out of fashion). He has the same agent as Pete and wants to be the opener on a series of small gigs. Pete opposes the idea but drunk, and with the offer of Ethan picking up all the expenses, he agrees. Of course, Ethan bombs and Pete uses his poor performance within his act but they do draw closer and eventually Pete suggests he be himself and, also, do a trick with his finger and a flame that he showed him. This leads to a watershed performance.

victims turn to dust

Ethan is bombing again and so does the trick and also shows his vampiric eyes and fangs. But the thing that really gets the audience is him turning into a bat… of course the audience think it a trick but Pete realises he is the real thing (he had been saying it all along). We eventually get back to the Pioneer Saloon and the disgruntled man (Pete had dealt with the man heckling a hen night by disparaging his manhood, he was then thrown out). Ethan does kill him and, in an interesting twist to the lore, then puts his hand to the victim and makes him turn to dust.

feeding

The film is a bit of a buddy film, with the two main characters being odd fellows. It is also a redemption film, with Pete as the central role who needs to grow (this is directly commented on in dialogue when he asks to be turned – which happens in this if the vampire wants the person he bites to turn – but Ethan suggests that as a vampire you are eternally stuck, that he is the same young man he was centuries before, implying Pete's requirement for growth). We do discover, regarding Pete's character, that the medical bills he mentions near the beginning were for his deceased eight years-old son who had leukaemia... the debt has kept him working the worst of jobs for any income he can get and the incident informed his attitude. In truth, he doesn’t grow that much, more the character grows on the viewer.

eyes and fangs

Additional lore bits are that vampires can go out in sunlight, so long as it isn’t direct, they do reflect and Ethan’s grandmother was Erzsébet Báthory. Ethan runs into a woman called Scarlett (Lauren Compton), also a vampire, who is trying her hand at being an influencer. He doesn’t recognise her at first but it becomes apparent he may have turned her, but there is no big vampire society displayed within the film and no comeuppance for him revealing himself (though there is a circular moment as he seems to become more like Pete at the end). I liked this, the two main characters amused me, worked well off each other and, as I mentioned, Pete grows on you. 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK