I caught a showing of My Sucky Teen Romance at a beautiful theater called The Paramount while attending SXSW 2011. There was a big crowd gathered pre-show so my expectations were high. I had also heard a bit about the director Emily Hagins who was supposed to be this young amazing filmmaker. I had seen a documentary about her making her first movie when she was 12 or 13 on the documentary channel. In short, my interest had been stoked. First let me say this movie is not bad - if taken in context. It was clearly a low budget indie and looked the part. It was obviously shot using minimal equipment, and with a couple of exceptions it was clear that the actors were not professionals. The feel of the story seemed too familiar to me. While the plot lines of My Sucky Teen Romance and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (movie version) are not the same - having a bunch of teens at a comic convention dealing with vampires reminded me a lot of having a bunch of teens at a prom dealing with vampires. If you keep in mind that this movie was made by a high-school student then it was pretty good for a high-school student film. Where it failed for me was that it played a major festival, when it clearly should not have. SXSW is a hometown festival for Austin, Texas and the director, Emily Hagins, is a hometown Austin girl. But my guess is, this is likely the last time she will be able to play the I'm-a-teen-movie-maker card and get away with it. In short, if you want to see a good high-school student film that was clearly made on a shoestring then you should definitely check it out. However, if you want to see a movie that stands on its own merits, without the gimmick of a child director, then you will probably want to pass and invest your time elsewhere.
