Transylmania

I still remember Airplane which was a comedy or other American features who were called comedy but still I couldn't laugh with it. Otherwise their are UK productions like Doghouse or Lesbian Vampire Killers were I died laughing. What I'm trying to say is that UK humour is my thing because it doesn't have that cheap college jokes in it. Sadly transylmania do have them too. I watched it and didn't use my fast forward but when the end credits came on I asked myself, hey man, did you laughed. Scary movie did had some laughable bits but that was a spoof, here I just couldn't laugh. The idea is of course okay and there is gratuitous nudity in it but still the jokes are so cheap that they really are for 12 year old youth like it was rated over here. Next time I skip my US comedy and wait for another entry of th UK. Sorry.

All through my viewing of "Transylmania", I kept picking my brain where I knew the names of David and Scott Hillenbrand from. I knew it had to be horror-related, but seriously couldn't place them. Afterwards, upon checking here on this website, it finally made sense! They are the genius minds behind "King Cobra" and "Demon Island". Now, both those movies really sucked but at least they were serious intended horror attempts, whereas "Transylmania" is a spoof of the genre. Not only have we been saying way too many horror spoofs coming out in the last couple years, but there also aren't any valid excuses in case a spoof is embarrassingly bad. The good news is that "Transylmania" definitely isn't any worse than "Stan Helsing" or "Scary Movie 4". The bad news is that it sucks nevertheless and hardly contains any juvenile and sexist gags you haven't seen approximately three dozen of times before. As part of a student exchange program, a bunch of idiotic college kids travel to Romania for one semester. One of them is anxious to finally meet his sexy Romanian internet girlfriend while the other just intend to party hard and score with the easy local beauties. Rusty's romantic plans backfire as it turns out the lovely Draguta has a hideous hunchback and a psychopathic midget father and the rest of group runs into trouble with ancient vampire curses and bodily possessions. I chuckled perhaps a total of four or five times throughout, but the rest of the film was derivative and infantile. The acting performances are all neutral, with the exception of the late David Steinberg as the crazy dean with a dungeon full of torture devices, and the Hillendbrand clearly know as little about comical horror as they do about cheesy horror.

If studios could do product recalls, the witless and inept "Transylmania" would be high on the list of returnable merchandise. This truly pathetic stab at horror movie comedy involves a group of brainless college students from America who enroll in a summer school session held in a vampire-infested castle in Romania. The incoherent storyline is matched by the amateurish acting and low-grade humor, which frequently reaches back - badly - to old Marx Brothers and "I Love Lucy" routines for laughs. Actually, the movie has seemingly saved all its clever and funny parts for an epilogue that runs all of six minutes. If the other ninety had been half as good, we might have had something here. But, any way you slice it, "True Blood" this ain't.

I won't waste your time with a play by play, this was not worth the $1 at the Red Box. I enjoy horror movies that aim to scare but fall short and are in turn funny. Spoof movies try too hard to be funny and truly exploit the lowest common denominator much like a Big & Rich song! Either be a good horror movie or let us laugh at you trying, there truly is no humor in trying to spoof horror; have you ever seen a Freddy Kruger movie? This was one of the first movies I stopped watching after few minutes in. This movie was not worth the waining hours of my Friday night. From the opening lines I knew I was duped by the cover's graphic design. Ever met someone who tries too hard to be funny? If not, check out any self- proclaimed spoof movie! Spinal Tap is truly the only one to get it right.

Transylmania can be considered the third movie in the National Lampoon's Dorm Daze series. Though it's loosely based off of them, it can be pretty much defined as a third sequel, and doesn't need much knowledge of the first two movies for this one to be seen. Seems like no one in this movie has any knowledge at all. I was lucky enough to speak to directors David and Scott Hillenbrand via the Transylmania fan-page on Facebook. As well as seeing exclusive interviews from the cast. The movie seems like another goofy spin off of the neverending American Pie Presents franchise. Though this accomplishes more than any of those movies have. But when compared to the original three American Pies, it doesn't stand much of a chance. It attempts to be an 80s throwback, which it does feel like a little bit, but not a perfect one. Rusty (Oren Skoog) has been dating an online overseas girl for a while and feels he needs to see her in person. When asked to fly over to Romania to get in touch. He feels that maybe he could get accepted to The Razvan University where she goes to school. They embark on a cross country journey to see her. The Razvan University has a bad history to it. A music box, when opened, posses your soul into a demon vampire. When open, the demon takes over your body. When ceased, or closed, your normal. Little does the gang know, duplicates of themselves, usually with deeper voices, are being produced as well. So the gang must find the fake impersonators, and banish them. Sounds like an uncut episode of Scooby Doo. Though the thing that caught me surprised me was that this is intended to be a spoof movie. And it's actually decent. This one doesn't have random pop culture references popping here and there and at random times. It doesn't have convoluted performances and bad acting. This didn't try to fit every God-forsaking blockbuster into their movie. I thought this might be the "new age" parody film that would start a revolution of the same kind of parody flicks in the style of The Naked Gun, and Airplane, or the absolute classic 70s and 80s style parodies we were waiting for for years. We would finally cease from all the mindless crap Hollywood puts out. No more Jason Friedberg or Aaron Seltzer. No more brain dead first timers forcing us to laugh at corny one liners. The world will finally be at rest from the likes of pointless parodies. That is...until I saw the trailer for The 41-Year-Old Virgin who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall and Felt Superbad About It.

This is supposed to be a comedy, but they telegraph the "jokes" a mile off... A group of college students are lured to a university in Transylvania, where they tangle with a cult of vampires, a sexy vampire hunter, a mad doctor (who happens to be a little person) who is trying to find a new body for his hunchback daughter. We get a bunch of tired gags, monsters that aren't very scary, and characters (way too many of them) we just don't give a flip about. Was there a point here? There are a lot of gratuitous * scenes with a lot of the actresses. That's a plus. Not much of one, and maybe it was the excuse as to why the movie was made.

I had never been in an empty theater before until Saturday, when my girlfriend and I went to see this and we were the only ones there. It was very weird and very creepy. I figured we were in trouble but we stuck it out and watched the whole thing. And I liked it a lot. I've spent the last two days reading how much everyone hates this movie and since I didn't, I have to post here for the first time with my theory on what the studio did wrong. Here goes. I'm a film student so I try to see everything. I watch 4-5 movies on DVD a week and 1-2 in the theaters. And they are completely different experiences. I saw Vincent Gallo's Buffalo 66 on DVD two weeks ago and I loved it. I saw a movie I never knew existed called Little Noises with Tatum Oneal and Crispen Glover on DVD that had the worst sound in the world and it was still great. But I think if I had seen those things in the theaters I would have hated them. I saw Transformers 1 in the theater and I liked it. Then I saw it on DVD and realized it sucks. In the theater you want it to be big and know they spent money. You can't always follow the story because so much is coming at you with sound and sight so you don't even notice when the plot sucks. This thing was cheap and looks it. But I still liked it. It was complicated as hell but was funny and somehow very interesting. I think being in the theater pretty much alone it felt like I was watching a DVD on my couch. But the studio made a HUGE mistake putting this in theaters. They also made trailers that made you think it was a spoof which it isn't. I want to hear what people say about this when they see it at home. Date Movie and Epic movie suck on DVD. I bet this won't. That is my theory.

I don't really care for many comedies. "American Pie," "There's Something About Mary," and similar films simply don't appeal to me. I just don't find them funny. Now, this is not to say that "Transylmania" was funny. It never made me laugh. But it WAS more entertaining and less frustrating than most comedies. The Hillenbrand brothers at least managed to keep the pace up through most of the movie. And they cheerfully steal from (er...pay homage to, I guess) numerous other films. The sets and locations are decent, the animated title sequence is a bit more imaginative than following one of the characters around campus (as most films do), and you can actually see and hear what's going on. The major puzzle is why it's as tame as it is. I watched the "unrated' version, which is basically a mild R-rating. The little violence and nudity is pretty comical, though the language can be a bit strong. The relative lack of nudity was also surprising. None of the extra-busty (or buff, take your pick) leads ever peeled down. And only a few of the extraneous characters ever got nekkid. Now, this isn't essential to a film like this, but it's pretty much the norm. Plus, if you're shooting in Romania, you're going to find lots of attractive actors there who are anxious to make a splash. I'm just surprised, is all. OK for people with nothing better to do.

Yea. Yea. Yea. This is not everyone's cup of Joe but there is redeeming quality here. The actors are committed to the far-out gags, characters and the well laid out storyline. No one is winning awards and I don't care. I wanted to laugh at some silliness in the vampire genre and that's what this is -- that's all. A splash of ta-tas, nice sword fighting, babe in leather (who should have her own TV show) and the look-a-like mistaken identify angle which is always worth a laugh or two. The mad scientist/Dean sub-plot fit perfectly into a main story that went balls-out for comic bits, some worked, some didn't. So what? Pop some corn, kick back and laugh at the broad but consistent spoof before you. Cheers!

Even though the reviews may have been not so good. I thought this movie was really funny and I enjoyed it. There was actually a plot which a lot of comedy spoof movies don't have. Although you haven't seen the actors in much, i thought they all did a really good job. I think the story was cute and i most surely did laugh!! I recommend it to all. It is a shame to see reviewers writing bad reviews. Who believes them anyway. I know that more then half the time I read what they say I don't agree. Its not fair for them to spoil a movie for others, especially a funny one. I think that if people would just give some things a chance, or an independent production company, they would not be mad they spent their money on the movie. Just because there isn't a huge distributors name attached doesn't mean the movie isn't good for what it is. I heard that it isn't going to be in theaters much after the first week and thats really sad because if people would see it they would really enjoy it I think.