For her 17 years of life, Chance Sinclair (Avery Konrad, 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown) has believed she carries a birth defect that requires daily blood transfusions and causes skin tumors when exposed to direct sunlight. You and I and every movie watcher in history know better, of course: She’s a vampire!
Soon she’ll learn the truth: Her parents are vampires, too, as is her little sister, Luck. In fact, her ice-queen mother, June (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina matriarch Annette Reilly), is attempting to wrest control of the House of Sinclair from June’s own father, August (Timothy V. Murphy, MacGruber). Since he’s not going down without a fight, June plots to give it, by hiring a chef (Jerry Maguire kid Jonathan Lipnicki, all grown up) whose culinary skills are matched by his autism, to cater the clan’s annual dinner and garnish August’s steak crostini with poisonous sprouts.
That’s where Broil suddenly — and oddly — decides to change protagonists, pushing all of its chips to the chef. While the shift is abrupt, it’s the least of Broil’s missteps. Deeply ensnared in the who-cares dynamics of sexy-vampire-dynasty politics and all its splinter groups, the second film from Edward Drake (2012’s Animals) is highly reminiscent of the bloodsucking brothers and sisters in the undemanding The Hamiltons and its undemanded sequel, The Thompsons, whose characters I also found incredibly grating — and they weren’t named after months of the year or synonyms for “happenstance.”
Among this cast, the Juliette Lewis-esque Konrad makes a big impression in being vacuous. Her idea of emoting is widening her eyes to maximum pupilage, so it’s something of a relief when Drake rewards more screen time to Reilly, Lipnicki and a whole dining room table of Sinclairs with napkins draped over their heads while a purple orb manifests between them. Believe it or not, Lipnicki marks Broil’s one true surprise. I haven’t seen him onscreen since his aforementioned debut precociously spouting fun facts about the weight of the human head to Tom Cruise, but somewhere in between playing The Little Vampire and preparing a feast for a full-grown family of them, he learned how to deliver an adult performance.
Unfortunately, his goodwill is baked into a flavorless batch of Twilight over easy. Like a live-action adaptation paperback of paranormal fantasy puffery — Broil even comes with chapter headings, as if its scale is epic — the movie looks great, but as my dad always warned, looks aren’t everything.
Or was that my mom? —Rod Lott