“TRANSYLMANIA” (Film Review)

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Written by Greg VictorcloseAuthor: Greg Victor Name: Greg Victor
Email: Greg@parcbench.com
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About: Greg Victor (Parcbench Culture Editor) is a historian, pop culture critic, and theatrical dramaturg and has stage managed theatrical productions on Broadway and on tour, including Billy Joel's "Movin' Out", Monty Python's "Spamalot" and more.See Authors Posts (197) on December 8, 2009

* (out of 4)
Rating: R (sexual content, nudity, drug use, violence, strong language)
Director: David and Scott Hillenbrand

Director-producer-brothers David and Scott Hillenbrand have given us the first of what are bound to be endless vampire spoofs, thanks to the popularity of the “Twilight” series. Too bad this one just sucks.

“Transylmania” is about 20 years too late for its genre. It’s unfunny and, worse, dated. Teen comedies have come a long way in the past couple decades, but no one bothered to tell the creators of this movie. The level of humor in this drek is as lame as it can get. Think farting horses, for a start.

The movie centers on a group of college students abroad for a semester. They end up at a university housed in an ancient castle in the heart of Transylvania. Just in case you think this is getting interesting, let me inform you that the university is run by a 3-foot tall dean and several bikini-topped vampiresses.

It gets worse; I haven’t described the students yet. There’s a pair of stoners that are constantly lighting up; a pair of twins – one a slut, one a goody-goody; an internet porn addict in search of his Romanian online girlfriend (who ends up being a hunchback); and a few other one joke characters. Of all the cliché characters, the one that makes the greatest impression is the Asian pothead “Wang” (played by Paul H. Kim). But even he is a left-over character from an old John Hughes film.

The kids all get involved in a battle with some undead locals from long ago after they accidentally release a vampire who has been dead for centuries.

It’s a bad movie, made worse by a cast of no-names who don’t even try to make something out of the ridiculous screenplay and lack of direction. I guess I could be charitable and give some credit to the actors for looking like they don’t know how awful this movie is. More than once, you can see the actors’ breath in spurts of fog coming out of their mouths, so I’m guessing the sets weren’t even heated. Well, at least the actors got to get some work weeks in. Maybe this shoot was long enough to allow them to file for unemployment. Based on their talents, they’ll need it.

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