Vampire Academy

PG-13 Feb 07, 2014 Comedy · At 104 minutes, it feels both rushed and sluggish.
Critical failure
5.4/10
IMDb
18%
Rotten
31
31/100
Metacritic
2.42/5
Letterboxd
🎬
6.3/10
TMDB
Rewatch
one and done
Attention
half watch ok
Phone-check
medium
Ages
feels dated

The brief

Vampire Academy feels like someone threw Mean Girls into a blender with Twilight and forgot to add any of the charm that made either work. Zoey Deutch does her best with clunky dialogue and a plot that lurches between boarding school drama and supernatural action without finding its footing in either. The whole thing has the glossy, rushed feel of a franchise starter that never bothered to nail the basics first. If you're desperately craving more YA vampire content and have already exhausted every other option, this might scratch that itch, but those 18% critic scores aren't lying.

teen angst campy supernatural boarding school drama half-hearted romance clunky dialogue franchise starter

The verdict

If you're a devoted fan of YA vampire fiction who can overlook clunky execution for the sake of boarding school supernatural drama, this delivers familiar genre beats with glossy production values. If you expect the wit of Mean Girls or the romantic tension of Twilight, you'll be left with a rushed, charmless misfire that fails to excel at either high school comedy or vampire romance.

Watch with

  • 👥 Friends who love bad vampire movies
  • 👤 YA fantasy completists only
  • ⚠️ Skip if you hate cringe dialogue

Heads up

  • Fantasy violence and vampire feeding (moderate)
  • Teen romantic tension (brief)
  • Supernatural threat to minors (moderate)

Credits

Director
Mark Waters
Cast
Zoey Deutch, Lucy Fry, Danila Kozlovsky, Gabriel Byrne, Dominic Sherwood, Olga Kurylenko, Sarah Hyland
Official synopsis

Rose, a rebellious half-vampire/half-human guardian-in-training and her best friend, Lissa -- a mortal, royal vampire Princess - have been on the run when they are captured and returned to St. Vladamirs Academy, the very place where they believe their lives may be in most jeopardy. Rose will sacrifice everything to protect Lissa from those who intend to exploit her from within the Academy walls and the Strigoi (immortal, evil vampires) who hunt her kind from outside its sanctuary.

The Double

Make a night of it
Poster for Enola Holmes 3

Pair this with Enola Holmes 3 (2026)

Both feature strong young women navigating dangerous academic institutions with mystery.

If you liked this