Worst of Netflix: Taintlight

Every week, I scour Netflix for a movie rated at one star and put it in my queue, suffering through it for your entertainment so that you don’t have to. In the past, I’ve taken on anime cancer demons, softcore Iraq War porn and racist ventriloquism, and this week, it’s a Twilight parody so bad that the IMDB refuses to admit it exists.

Taintlight (2009)

Starring: The reason I drink.

Despite the fact that Netflix provides more than enough terrible cinema for me to watch on it’s own, I’m always open when readers suggest movies for this column, because after all, any meal where a friend starts a conversation with “I watched the most terrible movie last night” is technically a non-taxable business lunch.  It happens pretty often, but not since Transmorphers have I had so many requests to review a movie as I got last month when Netflix added Taintlight to their Instant Watch selections.

And that is why today, I hate everyone I once called “friend.”

To be fair, Taintlight is not the worst movie I’ve ever seen, but that’s only because it’s 30 minutes shorter than Sorority Girls’ Revenge, and when you get to a certain level of awfulness, it only matters how long it lasts.

As you might expect from the title, Taintlight is allegedly a parody of the Twilight movie.  Now, I haven’t seen Twilight, but I have read the book – for the amusement of others who, as I think we have already established, enjoy seeing me suffer – and while it’s absolutely terrible, adding in fart noises and incest jokes doesn’t really improve things.

About two minutes into the movie – which is one minute after it officially becomes unbearable with an opening shot of a dude faking both a Southern accent and a bowel movement – we’re introduced to Stella, Taintlight‘s stand-in for Bella.  This, of course, will eventually lead to a  Streetcar Named Desire reference that I suspect is actually a reference to The Simpsons referencing Streetcar, in a testament to this movie’s originality.  That, however, is something to look forward to, as the immediate concern is her father, who, in addition to his fake moustache, also rocks a t-shirt that says “I Hate Actors.”  Don’t worry, pal, you won’t find any here.

To keep things rolling Stella meets Edwin in a community college with a pretty dismal theater and film program standing in for a high school…

…and blah blah blah aren’t sparkly vampires stupid blah blah blah gay joke blah blah blah fart noise blah.  I will say, though, the fact that every interaction between Edwin and Stella ends with him telling her to shut up because she’s stupid and then adding “So… talk to you tomorrow?” actually does sum up the relationship of the original pretty well.

Matters are further complicated when villains show up:

At left, the girl who can’t decide if she wants to do the voice of Lois Griffin, Harley Quinn or Magenta from Rocky Horror Picture Show, and instead manages to synthesize only the most annoying parts of each.  At right, the dude who can’t decide between Morrissey and Riff Raff.   Not pictured: Anyone you’d actually want in a movie.

Eventually things come to a head, and while Twilight has many, many, many, many, many, many, many faults, the lack of an extended Frisbee golf sequence set to a terrible ska band isn’t one of them.

And that’s the thing about Taintlight:  I thought it would’ve taken a team of scientists millions of dollars in funding and years of research to make something that’s actually worse than Twilight, but these people have somehow managed to do it with a camcorder and twenty bucks, and most of that was spent on wigs.  So on one level, it’s an accomplishment.  Just not, you know, one you’d ever want to actually tell another human being about.

Check out the Worst of Netflix archive.

Chris Sims is a freelance comedy writer from South Carolina. He briefly attended USC before he dropped out to spend more time with Grand Theft Auto, and his career subsequently took the path that you might expect from someone who makes that sort of decision. He blogs at http://www.the-isb.com and creates comics at http://www.actionagecomics.com.