TRANSYLMANIA: Dracula: Dumb and Loving It!

TRANSYLMANIA: UNRATED EDITION
Starring Patrick Cavanaugh, James DeBello, Jennifer Lyons
Directed by David and Scott Hillenbrand
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Review by Louis Fowler

Why do scabs like Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer get to have their brutally unimaginative pop-trend rip-off riffs, like the recently excreted TWILIGHT make-em-up VAMPIRES SUCK, put into every Goddamned theater in America, yet the Hillenbrand Brother's latest opus, TRANSYLMANIA, was relegated to a few small dollar movie runs and a bland straight-to-DVD premiere a week later? I'm willing to bet—and, yes, this would be the saddest wager in the history of gambling—that TRANSYLMANIA is a far funnier, far more engaging and, definitely a far more creative take on the current cinematic vampire trend than the aforementioned VAMPIRES SUCK. It would have to be.

The reason I say that is because while TRANSYLMANIA is utterly idiotic—and oh boy, is it—at least it tries in it's little heart to be somewhat original. It desperately wants to give you a bit of a fresh story, no matter how stupid that story might be. At least it is a story. The Hillenbrands know that any ol' hacks can do a scene-by-scene Xerox parody of TWILIGHT—all you gotta do is have a couple of scenes where, say, Paris Hilton gets hit with a car driven by a fat Edward Cullen who just punched a werewolf in the nuts that shat out an Oompa Loompa that immediately started singing “Who Let the Dogs Out”. See how easy that was? Let me do that half a dozen more times. Where's my twelve picture deal, assholes?

When it comes to goofy horror parodies, I definitely fall on the Mel Brooks side of things, and, no, TRANSYLMANIA is no YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, but it sure is a good as DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT. And I liked DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT. Make fun of the conventions, make fun of the cliches, make fun of the idea of horror movies. TRANSYLMANIA does that like clockwork. It doesn't do a great job of it, sure, but at least it shows up to work on time.

Best described as NATIONAL LAMPOON'S DORM DAZE 3: MY VACATION WITH DRACULA AND BONGS AND LESBIANS, because, well, that's what it is, the characters you've grown to know and love from the previous DORM DAZE movies get accepted to partake in an exchange program in, wait for it, Transylvania. In the first five minutes, multiple lubed bags of weed are shoved deep inside rectums, a dick gets slammed in a laptop computer and, most imaginatively, a Yakuza fucks a bootleg inflatable doll. Humpbacked hotties get humped, a nubile airhead sexpot gets possessed by a long-dead sorceress, one of the gang is mistaken for a vampire lord and, God bless 'em, a midget shows up. Of course there's a midget. There's always gotta be a midget.

And I appreciated it. I really did. I had a good time and I laughed more than I probably should have. Does that make me a bad person? Maybe. But keep this in mind: VAMPIRES SUCK has, so far, made over $30 million at the box office. No part of that money came from me. You tell me: who's the real evil?

Mull that over while I wait for TRANSYLMANIA 2, or NATIONAL LAMPOON'S DORM DAZE 4 or...hmmm...wait, what's this? According to IMDB, a little seen American movie called, awkwardly enough, THE AMERICAN POOP MOVIE, is known in Thailand as DORM DAZE 4. Now that I really want to see!