College Vampires

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!

Transylmania (1:35, R) — Other: Comedy, 3rd string, original, OSIT chauvinists

When you're shooting for stupidly outrageous, it's really, really easy to slip off the tracks and end up as outrageously stupid. That's what happened to the parody Stan Helsing, for example. And that was a movie that featured at least a few actors that you'd heard of before and a character who was supposed to be a descendant of Dracula's Abraham Van Helsing. Transylmania features nobody you've ever heard of before, and one of its characters is a descendant of vampire hunter Victor Van Sloan, equally unknown to history prior to today.

Nonetheless, Transylmania works on its own terms. It follows 10 American college students, every one of them a flaming stereotype, as they arrive for a semester abroad in Romania, specifically Transylvania (where the movie was actually shot), explicitly at Razvan University, whose campus is in historic Castle Razvan, which 500 years ago was the home of famed vampire Count Radu. Rumor has it that the count is immortal, a hypothesis quickly confirmed as we find him roaming the corridors. Rusty, the student who opens the film as our narrator, is a dead ringer for the count, made more so when (by sheer coincidence) he dresses up for the freshman welcome ball in exactly the same outfit that Radu habitually wears.

Also among the American students are a couple of stoner lads who discover their blue jeans are a local gold mine; twin sisters, Lia the goody-goody and Danni the try-anything good- time gal; Newmar, the inept football player; Lynne, the nymphomaniac airhead cheerleader who has the hots for him; and Cliff, the oaf who figures the way to impress women is by claiming to be a vampire hunter. He uses this line on Prof. Teodora Van Sloan (the aforementioned descendant of Victor), and she takes him with the same deadly seriousness with which she approaches vampire hunting in general. With lips, vocal tone, and swordplay, she evokes Catherine Zeta-Jones in Zorro.* (In the only college class we actually see on screen, she demos self-defense techniques involving decapitation and a stake thru the heart. In response to a question she says "Vampires? Don't be silly. Now let's talk about what to do if someone jumps at you from out of a coffin." The rest of the movie is much like this.)

The mcguffin is a music box containing the soul of Radu's true love, the sorceress Stephanie, entrapped there by Victor. It was lost half a millennium ago but has recently been rediscovered. It falls into Lynne's hands. Every time she opens it, she's possessed by Stephanie; then, when it's closed, she reverts, wondering what happened.

There's much more. Dean Floca, the dwarf with a dungeon. His dotter Draguta, totally babeulicious chatting with Rusty via videocam but sporting a hideous hunchback in real life. Better than the Kama Sutra, the Codex Eroticon, which "can blow a chick's mind". The machine that keeps disembodied heads alive. The tall, gawky student who once kissed another guy while drunk and can't live it down. The horses with the odd reaction to the word "Razvan". Much of this is throwaway stuff, but a lot of it actually advances the plot.

Really, the story is way more complex that you'd ever expect for something played as broadly as this — and it's played VERY broadly — but it all hangs together. Not a millisecond of it can be taken even remotely seriously, of course, but the audience is all in on the joke, and the writers (Patrick Casey and Joshua "Worm" Miller) and directors (David and Scott Hillenbrand) make it work.

Objectively, this is a terrible movie. But subjectively, I got a real bang out of it. Of course, I happen to be partial to breasts the size of canteloupes, of which there's an abundance, and that helped. And I kept laffing out loud because I kept thinking "Wow, are they really trying to be THAT outrageous? Yeah, I guess they are."

So I give it a 5. This is higher than where I've pegged Fantastic Mr. Fox (3) and 2012 (4) and a coin-flip with that other vampire movie in town. Does that mean that I'd rather see Transylmania than those others? Yes. Yes, I would. Heaven help me, yes, I would. YMMV. No guarantees.

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*I don't recall that Catherine ever went in for the tight-black-leather look, but from now on I'm not going to be able to get that image out of my head.

The moron American student Rusty (Oren Skoog) arranges a student exchange program for his closest friend and him to study in Romania for six months and meet his Internet girlfriend Draguta (Irena A. Hoffman) to have sex with her. He travels with the potheads Pete (Patrick Cavanaugh) and Wang (Paul H. Kim); Pete's girlfriend Lia (Natalie Garza) and his twin sister Danni (Nicole Garza); the naive and romantic Newmar (Tony Denman) and his easy and stupid girlfriend Lynne (Jennifer Lyons); the nerd Brady (Joshua 'Worm' Miller) and the crook Cliff (James DeBello). His friends actually intend to party and score the Romanians.

While traveling by train to Razvan, they learn that five hundred years ago, the vampire Radu lost his beloved Stephania, whose spirit was trapped in a music box. Radu has kept Stephania's body and has been seeking the music box to bring Stephania back. Meanwhile, a Radu's minion retrieves the music box but is deadly wounded by the vampire slayer Teodora Van Sloan (Musetta Vander) and he drops the object in a gypsy's basket. Newmar buys the music box and gives it to Lynne.

When they arrive at the university, they are welcomed by the Dean Floca (David Steinberg) that is a dwarf. Meanwhile Rusty meets Draguta and finds that she has a horrible hunchback and the dean is her father. Further, Dean Floca is a psychopath that keeps a torture chamber in the dungeon of his house. When Lynne opens the music box, she is possessed by Stephania and Radu is identical to Rusty, and the brainless American students get into a messy situation.

I have already written that parody movies are always of the type "love or hate" it, and "Transylmania" is no exception. I am not intellectual, I love cinema as culture, but also as entertainment, so I like them. Further, when I see this type of spoof, I know exactly what I am going to see: scatological jokes, funny and surrealistic situations and definitely a movie that will never be indicated for an Oscar. This is the type of movie that you must shut down your brain and start laughing.

What I do not understand is some comments of persons that should never watch this type of movie. What do they expect to see when they go to the movie theaters or buy / rent a DVD or Blu-Ray entitled "Transylmania"? An art movie, with hidden messages, an epic, a classic or a film with politically correct jokes? Honestly, if I did not like this genre, I would never spend my time watching it and writing bad reviews. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Transylmania – Uma Universidade de Arrepiar" ("Transylmania – A Shivering University")

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.