Transylmania
Spoof horror in which a group of college kids do a semester abroad in Romania and realise that if the partying doesn't kill them, the vampires just might!
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- Cast:
- Patrick Cavanaugh , James DeBello , Tony Denman , Paul Kim Jr. , Jennifer Lyons , David Steinberg , Musetta Vander
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Reviews
To me, this movie is perfection.
Save your money for something good and enjoyable
I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.
Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.
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.
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.
I'm glad I saw this film the other day. It reminded me of classic comedy with a present day twist. You can tell right away when it starts that the film is not taking itself seriously, and it expects the same from its audience.Without giving too much plot away, this is not a typical spoof film like I thought it would be before I saw it. The story line is an original piece that makes fun of the vampire genre craze as a whole. This was very refreshing to see!The jokes throughout the film ranged from a great deal of subtle comedy to a wide range of old school slapstick and bathroom humor. The film is obviously rated R for a reason. That aside, it never seemed to have too much vulgarity compared to some of the other films I've seen in theaters lately.Also, regarding the subtle humor, because the story line is very complex, you need to pay attention to the film to keep up with the jokes. A lot of which go back to the film not taking itself seriously (a spoof comedy) and having some silly and ridiculous at times things happen in the background or to characters. Best thing to do is just relax and watch it.Regarding the acting on all of the actors part, I have not a single complaint. Everyone seemed true to their characters, including the actors who had more than one role to play. Aesthetically speaking, the cinematography is beautiful, making me forget I'm watching a spoof film at times. The film uses a magnificent castle in Romania for location. And the fight scenes were flawless. Especially a scene involving dual sword combat. And the special effects of this film are exactly what I would expect from any professional studio film.All in all, this is a must see. It is destined to become a classic. A+
Transylmania (1:35, R) — Other: Comedy, 3rd string, original, OSIT chauvinistsWhen 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.––––––*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.