Jim Varney the Vampire Hunter is the Ernest movie I never knew I needed to see until now. Jim Varney’s iconic Ernest character and the 19th-century penny dreadful character, Varney the Vampire, are a match made in heaven.

The story manages to capture everything about what an actual “Ernest Goes to Transylvania” movie would be. SPOILER ALERT: The movie’s triumphant climax, an emotional hurricane of a scene where the battered and bruised but never beaten Ernest rips off Count Dracula’s mask to reveal that the evil vampire lord has actually been a fraud this whole time who has been creating and cultivating a big lie. And it is Ernest’s heroism in revealing the truth that makes him worthy of attention, resources, and respect.

Some media only works within its current cultural context. Extracting the media from its past moment on the timeline and dropping it into the present moment only works when you adopt the story for the modern-day audience’s sensibilities, expectations, and demands — i.e., the current cultural context.

And as someone who grew up on both the Ernest movies and Saturday morning TV show, I can say with full confidence that this movie ranks up there against any of the original IPs from the late 80s/early 90s. It’s memorable and has a helluva lotta heart. And it accomplishes what made Ernest work in the first place: It makes Ernest earnest.

Above and beyond that quintessential factor, Jim Varney The Vampire Hunter has the lush visual palette that Oscar-winning cinematographers can only dream about. The movie brings the characters and the world to life in such a vivid experience that it more than just raises the bar for generative animation, in particular, and cinema, in general: It adds razor-sharp saws and bursting flames and a massive spikes that will make it nearly impossible for anything else to even come to getting close to the bar anymore ever again. 

If I went into the theater without any context or having seen any of the trailers, just went to watch the movie completely and totally blind, I would’ve walked out and swore it was live action. It would’ve been like the first time I watched Clerks, back when I was in high school. The next morning I hopped on the school bus eager to discuss the movie that broke my teenage mind with my friend who told me to watch it. After telling him I finally saw it, the first thing he said was, “I didn’t even care that it was black and white.” His statement launched a debate lasting the entire day that nearly came to blows during gym class because I refused to budge in my belief that the movie was in color. It wasn’t until later that night after everyone in my family went to bed that I grabbed the rented Clerks VHS from its hiding spot (my parents would’ve killed me if they knew I managed to get my hands on a movie like that), and popped the cassette into the VCR in the living room. And sure enough, I was wrong. The evidence was in black and white inches from my face. Same thing here in terms of real life versus gen-am.

The unpleasant moral of that tangential story is that the game is over. AI won. Now, please, let’s be civil and nobody topple the board. But it’s time to say goodbye to the thousands and thousands of names of those faceless VFX and CGI drones you’re forced to sit through as you wait for the post-credit scene — arguably the most important scene in any highly anticipated movie, regardless if it’s the franchise tentpole or just a tentflap flick. The blockbuster success of Jim Varney the Vampire Hunter printed the blueprint for how to make the new modern movie without having to clutter the credits. It gives the ticket-buying audiences what they want. What they truly deserve. And isn’t that what’s most important?

After all these decades, as we await a single Memory to find us, I think the late Jim Varney would absolutely love this film and receive it as a most fitting tribute. If only he could live forever like a vampire… And thankfully AI’s power and promise will make that a reality sooner than later.