Transilvania 6-5000

Okay, this is a VERY silly film. I hadn't seen it in many years, but I vividly remembered a few scenes really standing out as quite funny to me. I just now re-watched it and I basically came away with the same impression.

If you don't care for really silly physical humour, than you likely won't care for this movie very much. Also, in my lowly and wretched opinion, I didn't think that the last 20 minutes or so were really that good, sadly. Thus the reason I only gave this film a '6'

BUT... FWIW... there are a handful of scenes that are clearly ad-libbed and not scripted. THOSE are the best ones! I think I remember reading several years ago about Michael Richard's scenes, especially at the 'dinner' being completely improvised. And YES, they are super silly, but for some reason I honestly found them very funny. You can easily tell that Jeff Goldblum is genuinely laughing during Richards' antics at the table. And, the scenes between Carol kane and John Byner, especially the very first one in the kitchen which was also improvised, were great! The timing and cadence of their lines back and forth in that first scene are excellent!

But, unfortunately, towards the end they started going for very broad 'Comedy' which was kind of ho-hum. It's interesting to me how so many films that try to be funny or silly usually fall kind of flat. But, in this case, especially with the handful of scenes that I mentioned, I think they came across really well, mainly because they struck me as genuine and spontaneous rather than flatly scripted. I think that if they had kept it more along the lines of the small sight and sound gags rather than going for 'situational' comedy, that would have played to the strengths of the film a lot better.

So, if you like 'Silly' at all, you might find at least some of this film entertaining.

Horror spoof that is probably best remembered as the film where Jeff Goldblum met his future ex-wife Geena Davis and vice versa.

Jeff plays a skeptical tabloid reporter who feels that he is not making any great contributions to the world of journalism who is forced to go on a wild goose chase for in Transylvania with hapless believer Ed Begley Jr. (also the son of their boss). Along the way, they encounter a number of oddballs who are not actual monsters but are really just downtrodden, misunderstood misfits. Among them is Geena Davis as a sex starved vampire wannabe. Geena fell for Ed, but Jeff walked away with her off camera.

Film takes a while to get going but briefly comes alive here and there when a pre-Seinfeld Michael Richards is on screen as a goofy hotel worker. The film also gets a good shot in the arm from Joseph Bologna as the mad scientist whose entire personality changes depending on whether or not he's in his lab. Geena does what she can and Jeff & Ed have their moments as the reporters.

"Good. Everything hurts." - Joe the mad scientist.

"If I didn't keep you chained up, no man in town would be safe!" - another good line from Joe the mad scientist.

Two tabloid reporters head to modern Transylvania - now a charming eastern European tourist trap - in pursuit of a story about monsters, and find the place over-run with vampires, mummies, werewolves etc. Ed Begley Jr. and Jeff Goldblum have good on-screen chemistry together as the luckless writers, but the script does them few favors. The tone of the movie is all over the place, aiming for wacky and scary by turns, but that sort of approach (familiar to Abbott and Costello fans) takes finesse that is not on display here. The production designers worked hard to create an attractive and convincing modern monster movie setting and mostly succeeded, but the script has a too-many-rewrites-by- committee feel and the material is very weak for the most part. Geena Davis has a very appealing bit as a beautiful vampire wannabe, but most of the supporting performances are not well fleshed out and are occasionally just absurd. Joseph Bologna, as always, chews the scenery outrageously as a mad scientist, plus Michael Richards is just annoying and unfunny as a clumsy bellhop. There are a few genuine laughs here and Davis' first appearance in vampire gear is worth a rewind, but most of the movie is just exasperatingly unfunny and tiresome. Avoid.

Two reporters (Ed Begley and Jeff Goldblum) travel to a strange castle in Transylvania to investigate the apparent reappearance of Frankenstein's monster...

One would think that with this cast (besides Begley and Goldblum, you have Jeffrey Jones, Geena Davis, Carol Kane and Michael Richards) it would be a non-stop fun romp through Transylvania. But, it really is not all that. While there are some decent jokes, most of them just fall flat or are never really properly explored.

Seeing a pre-Seinfeld Richards is a treat, with his antics being more along the lines of his role in "UHF" (the doofus with the childlike behavior). But although he may be the highlight of the film, he is not enough to carry the entire picture.

I feel like there was a lot of potential here and it was an idea that just never got fully cooked. But, you know, that happens.

I love a good horror comedy, and this movie does a great job poking fun at tabloids, the old movie monsters as well as East Europe. The plot is good, but the script seems written by high school kids with a mismatch of jokes and laughs varying from funny and hilarious to just bad. Some of them shoved down your throat. First off, Goldblum and Begley are a hilarious comedy team; Goldblum acts like some sort of genius in logic with Begley as his gullible foil. Begley is a believer, but Goldblum is a confirmed skeptic with a sense of humor. They are sent to Transylvania to investigate someone masquerading as the Frankenstein monster. Not knowing exactly where the region is, they are told it is over there somewhere. The problem with this is that Transylvania is not a town or a country; it's a region of Romania (the movie was actually filmed in Yugoslavia). Nevertheless, the locals, somehow knowing too much of American culture, have fun teasing these bumbling reporters. Jeffrey Jones is a bit subdued in his acting, but Joe Bologna has a fun time with his role. Michael Richards plays a bellboy doing bad prop comic jokes in order to get Begley to take him to Hollywood. The funniest characters are John Byner and Carol Kane as married servants who have been married too long. He wants to take things easy, but she is still in love with him. In some scenes, Kane is almost as funny and coquettish as Madonna used to be. Geena Davis, however, is woefully miscast as a sex starved lady pretending to be a vampire. As a whole, it's not a bad movie, but the soundtrack is bad and the ending just doesn't measure up to the movie. The whole thing sort of ends anti-climactically with a whimper, but yet, it's still worth a watch.