Thursday, June 17, 2010

TRU: A XXX PARODY


I wouldn't call Tru a parody of True Blood, instead I would call it a XXX reimagining of the original. The opening credits of the movie are very similar to True Blood's opening credits and set the scene for what I hoped was going to be a really good movie. Too bad that instead of getting to the story, we're jumped right to a long sex scene between Vanessa Naughty and Johnny Castle. This is obviously Lee Roy Myers' idea of how to open a movie, since he did the same thing in a couple of his other parodies that I have seen. At the end of the sex scene, Vanessa wants to know where Sookie Stackhouse is, when Johnny can't tell her, we hear a scream and see some blood spurting from his dead body.

Tru's next scene is between Sam (Evan Stone) and Sookie (Ashlynn Brooke). Sookie wants to get off work early to surprise Bill (James Deen) when he wakes up and Sam reluctantly agrees. Vanessa Naughty shows up in Sam's office and we now find out that she's Maryann. She wants to know where she can find Sookie, but Sam doesn't want to tell her. When Mary Ann goes into her vibration mode, which would cause Sam to shape shift (I only know this from watching the HBO series), he relents and says he'll tell her. Maryann is going to reward him with sex, but there's a scream from the parking lot. Sam realizes it sounds like Sookie and he rushes out to see what is wrong. SURPRISE! No sex scene.


Sookie has found someone dead inside a car and it will be revealed later that it's Lafayette, gay cousin of Tara (Misty Stone). We get a look inside the car when the cops arrive and we see Lafayette with his heart ripped out. Sookie promises Tara that she'll find out you killed Lafayette and she calls Bill to help her. Sookie tells him to come quick and in a funny bit, he arrives in a flash at super vampire speed and tells Sookie "he got there as quick as he could!".

Sookie and Bill go to see Eric (Bill Bailey) to see what they can find out. As I have mentioned many times, each XXX parody always has one person in a bad wig. Bill Bailey's wig looks like they just grabbed the first blond wig they could find and socked it on his head.


Cut back to the bar where Sookie's brother Jason (Levi Cash) has come to offer Tara his sympathies; but she gets mad when he starts talking about his support group and Misty gets to deliver the best line of the movie.....which I won't spoil here, but it includes Kayne West. Jason starts to leave but Tara tells him she doesn't want to be alone and you guessed it, this leads to the next sex scene. Misty Stone not only does a good job with Tara's accent and characterization, but also stays in character during the sex scene often referring to Levi as Jason.


Back at Eric's, Sookie is having trouble reading his mind. Which makes me have to say WTF.....didn't Ashlynn Brooke watch True Blood before writing this movie....Sookie CAN'T read vampires' minds, that's one of the reasons she is so attracted to Bill. Anyway, Sookie and Bill return to the bar and Sookie's not real pleased about what has gone on between Tara and Jason, but more importantly she wants to know what Jason has told the people in his support group. Before we get too much about the support group, Tru makes its next bad move with a flashback sex scene between Levi Cash and Gracie Glam, who are both high on "V" (vampire blood). There are only two explanations for this scene: forcing another sex scene into the movie OR someone just wanted to play with the color palette on their camera/editing machine (you'll have to watch the movie to see what I'm talking about). Either way, it grinds the storyline of Tru to a complete halt. It would have been better to have had the sex scene missed earlier between Sam and Maryann, at least it would have flowed with the story.

When we get back to the story of the support group, we find a couple of the women (Lana Violet, Lindy Lane) are very interested in Jason's story about buying vampire blood. The two women go to Eric's bar in order to find some V. Eric is astounded that they would ask a vampire directly for blood, but wants to know how they found out about V and he tells them that they'll have to answer a few questions as Shay Sights leads them to a red couch against a very black background (this made for a very dull set) and of course this starts as a g/g/g scene but Eric eventually joins the trio. After the sex scene, Eric finds out that Jason was the one who told them about V and then both girls are killed.

Back at Sam's bar, Jason finishes his flashback story and Sookie thinks Eric must be responsible for the death of Lafayette. Sookie goes alone to confront Eric. He tells her that he had wanted to kill Jason's source of V - Lafayette, but Lafayette was already dead when he got there. Eric is really into Sookie's mind reading and he's about to make her his, but as his fangs come out, Bill shows up and stops him. Sookie refuses to tell Eric where Jason is and Eric says there'll be a price to pay later.


Winding up the day (or night actually) Sookie and Bill take to her bed and we have the final sex scene. When Sookie wakes up the next morning, Bill is gone, but she hears a voice calling "Sookie, Sookie, Sookie" (could it be John Kay? - if you don't get that reference, too bad, it amuses me). She thinks Bill might be in trouble and goes to investigate and finds out it's actually Maryann using Bill's voice. She tells Sookie that she's the one who killed Lafayette and that she is now going to kill her. Maryann dips her hands into the dirt and comes up with claws instead of hands. This is true to the HBO series, where Maryann did a similar thing. Sookie makes a run for the woods as Maryann chases her. When Sookie falls, both women hear something coming towards them, while Mary Ann is distracted, Sookie takes a log and runs it through Mary Ann killing her. If you watched True Blood on HBO, you would know that this wasn't possible and is the second biggest mistake in the plot. We then find out what was rushing toward them was a dog, which morphs into Evan Stone! This is the end of movie and looks like the set up for a sequel, which I would definitely watch.

A lot of this plot may or may not sound confusing if you have never watched True Blood on HBO. Since I've watched all of the True Bloods (we're big vamp fans here at the House of X-Ray), the plot basically made sense to me. I think Ashylnn Brooke, who is credited as the writer, did a pretty good job of condensing most of the plots from the first two seasons of True Blood. IF, she had only paid a little more attention to some details and not gotten a couple of major plot points wrong, this would have been a great script. With those few plot flaws, the first long sex scene, the let's play with colors sex scene, and the red couch sex scene.....you know, after I think about it, most of the sex scenes pulled Tru down. So, I'll grade Tru this way: Sex Scenes: C- , Plot: B+, Average: B-


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