Oeuvre: Mel Brooks - Dracula: Dead and Loving It

After 'The Twilight Saga', everyone seemed in agreement that vampires were overexposed.  A common complaint lobbed at the the series (one of many) was that Edward Cullen and his ilk had nothing in common with vampires, except that they had sharp canines and an occasional thirst for blood.  "Vampires don't sparkle!" they cried.  "You make vampires look silly!"  Poor devils.  If only they'd seen Gary Oldman's hairdo in Francis Ford Coppola's 'Bram Stoker's Dracula' then they'd see how silly a vampire could really look.  Apparently, Brooks thought Oldman looked ridiculous as well for he set out to make his own Dracula parody just shy of the 100th anniversary of Bram Stocker's original novel.  And so, we finish off the films of Mel Brooks with his 1995 box office bomb, 'Dracula: Dead and Loving It.'

The plot closely adheres to most tellings of the Dracula tale.  A solicitor named Thomas Renfield travels to Transylvania to meet with Count Dracula over a real estate deal (no, really).  Dracula reveals himself to be a vampire and hypnotizes Renfield, making him his bitch before traveling to London to... suck some hot bachelorette neck, I guess.

Lets get all the Dracula puns out of the way.  It sucks.  Its lifeless.  It has no teeth.  It's a stake in the heart of Mel Brooks' career.  Bela Lugosee-something-else.  Yada yada yada.  The fact of the matter is that the film isn't very good.  Its more than not very good.  It's terrible.  It's a waste of time.  It's not very appealing to look at.  The cinematography, production design, special effects, and sets look simultaneously expensive and Party City cheap.  For a 90 minute runtime, it feels interminably long and what's worse, its boring.

But the devil is in the details.

Leslie Nielsen plays the titular Dracula.  He is humorous in his effortless Leslie Nielsen way and his comic timing is as impeccable as ever.  He finds a comfortable spot between Bella Legosi, Christopher Lee, and Gary Oldman but despite his decent Bela Lugosi impression, he never creates his own Dracula.  He's just Leslie Nielsen in a Halloween costume.

Peter MacNicol gives Brad Dourif a run for his money as Top Creep.  He starts the film steady as a weak-stomached, extremely British Renfield, but once he falls victim to Dracula's trance he turns into this horrible, screeching mess.  Every minute he was on screen, I wanted to staple my eyes shut.

Amy Yasbeck returns as Mina.  She has worked with Brooks before, plus she is pretty and has a long neck.  However, she has given nothing to do until the last act when she too falls under Dracula's spell.  Her crowning moment is a dance scene between her and Dracula with wirework out of 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.'

Mel Brooks plays Professor Van Helsing and yup... that's about it.

The only shining light in this film is Steven Weber as Harker, Mina's husband-to-be.  He is the only character who consistently made me smile.  A friend of mine suggested that he may be struggling with a deeply buried homosexuality.  I think he's just fantastically repressed by the times and wants to grab some tit.  His restrained desperation never ceases to be amusing.  He's an oasis in this comedic sahara.

Nielsen stands out in this movie, not because he's particularly good or bad but because he is a legend of parody.  Thanks in no small part to 'Airplane!' and other Zucker Brothers comedies, Nielsen's deadpan delivery and stretchy visage make him instantly recognizable as a satirical icon.  He just doesn't belong in this movie.  He sticks out like a sore thumb and his casting feels like a desperate attempt on Brooks' part for a safe bet.

With 'The Twelve Chairs', Brooks introduced the world to Frank Langella.  Most people don't know this, but Langella played Dracula in 1979.  Why couldn't Brooks bring him back for this, as a knowing wink to the audience?  He was probably busy filming 'Junior.'

This movie is so cheaply made, it's baffling.  In the very beginning of the movie, we see a carriage riding in broad daylight.  Then a shot of the red sunset.  Then a shot of the carriage in broad daylight again.  Its that sort of carelessness that envelopes the film with a lingering scent of "who gives a shit?"  None of the characters have character except for Steven Weber and Leslie Nielsen and even he's just playing himself.  Its impossible to understand what's really going on because nobody has personality, fears, or desires, except "wouldn't it be sad if this woman I told you I loved became a vampire?"  All this could be salvaged if there was a sharp wit to the dialogue but Brooks just replaces the "Your name sounds like something else" jokes from 'Spaceballs' and 'Robin Hood' with the surprisingly less amusing "Aren't accents funny?" jokes.


This is not the worst movie I've ever seen.  Its not even the worst comedy I've seen this year (I'm looking at you, 'Hot Tub Time Machine 2!').  But its really amazing how much work can go into something and the finished product still looks like garbage.  I've always found the process of making comedies fascinating.  Unlike theater or live studio audience sitcoms, you can't tell if something's funny or not until you release it.  You tell a joke on film and nobody can laugh until the director calls "cut!"  I imagine you must feel incredibly stupid jumping around and screaming while dozens of crew members stand stone faced.  And how embarrassed must you be, when the film is released, and all those pin drop quiet, laughless moments are magnified a thousand times?

When 'Dracula: Dead and Loving It' was released, it received universally negative reviews, as well it should.  For a thirty million dollar budget, it only made ten at the box office.  This brought about a firm and decisive end to Mel Brooks directing career.  Not with a bang but with a whimper.