"TRANSYLMANIA" (2009) (Oren Skoog, Patrick Cavanaugh) (R)
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NOTE:
The following is an unedited version of our final review that may contain spelling, grammatical, and/or factual errors. Full Circle Releasing did not screen this film in advance for reviewers.
QUICK TAKE:
Comedy: A group of college students head to Romania for a semester and must contend with a number of blood-suckers and the vampire killer who's after them.
PLOT:
A small group of students has decided to study abroad at Razvan University in Transylmania, Romania. Rusty (OREN SKOOG) is headed there to meet Draguta (IRENA A. HOFFMAN), a young woman he's met on the Internet and who's eager to have sex with him. Roommates Pete (PATRICK CAVANAUGH) and Wang (PAUL HANSEN KIM) are smuggling a bunch of drugs so they can keep up their habit uninterrupted, which is just fine with Danni (NICOLE GARZA) but not her more square twin sister Lia (NATALIE GARZA) who just so happens to be dating Pete.
Newmar (TONY DENMAN) and Lynne (JENNIFER LYONS) are another couple who are along for the trip and hoping to spice up their sex lives. Then there's nerdy Brady (WORM MILLER), Mike (PATRICK CASEY) who habitually can't seem to tell women and men apart to embarrassing results, and Cliff (JAMES DeBELLO) who's briefly delayed after a delivery of sex toys to some Asian men goes awry.
Little do they know, however, that they're headed straight into a centuries old battle between vampires, led by Count Radu (OREN SKOOG), and the latest in the line of a family who hunts them down, Teodora van Sloan (MUSETTA VANDER). She's also a professor at the university, but its leader, Dean Floca (DAVID STEINBERG) -- who just so happens to be Draguta's father -- constantly discredits her allegations.
But vampire activity is clearly afoot, what with Count Radu and his trio of vamps trying to resurrect his former lover whose soul has long been hidden away in a music box thanks to the work of Teodora's ancestor. All sorts of comedic chaos then ensues when that vampire's soul ends up in Lynne's body and Rusty ends up unknowingly dressed exactly like Count Radu for a party while also trying to avoid the physically deformed Draguta and her diminutive but crazed father.
OUR TAKE: 0 out of 10
Our reviewing policy for films that aren't shown in advance to critics (or are done so late the night before they open) is that we'll only provide a paragraph or two about the film's artistic merits or, more accurately, lack thereof. After all, life is too short to spend any more effort than that on a movie that even the releasing studio knows isn't any good (which is why they hid it from reviewers before its release).
If the current vampires in the movies craze wasn't bad enough already, along comes this poorly conceived and executed comedy. While it thankfully isn't one of those awful spoof ones that include satirical recreations of well-known genre scenes, its comedy is just as flat, if not lower.
The lame attempts at humor include, natch, riffs on vampires, Frankenstein (including one horse-related one from "Young Frankenstein" meets "Blazing Saddles") and more, while the filmmakers throw in old comedy stand-bys such as the mistaken identity bit and even the fake mirror routine.
None of it's remotely funny and to say this should have gone straight to video is an insult even to that release platform. Get out your stakes, silver bullets, garlic and whatever else you need to keep this awful thing at bay. Easily one of the worst of the year, "Transylmania" rates as a 0 out of 10.
Reviewed December 4, 2009 / Posted December 4, 2009
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