Jennifer Lyons & Oren Skoog

You've got to love actors who show up, give their all and try to make something out of whatever Z-grade horror comedy they've been lucky enough to get cast in. I like to think their best acting job is pretending they don't know how bad the script is, that "Z-grade" stands for "zero" ambition on the part of the writers, if not the directors.

"Transylmania" is a bad movie with a cast of no-names who hurl themselves at it as if it were auditions week at Juilliard. A graphic spoof of vampire thrillers and college-kids-in-Europe-in-jeopardy horror, it's unfunny and out of step. It feels dated, almost quaint, in the post-"Hangover" and "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell" cineplex.

Ten college "types" set off for a semester of study at Romania's Razvan University, which is actually a castle where students occasionally disappear. Might the vampires who once ruled the roost be to blame?

RU is run by a dwarf dean (David Steinberg, who pronounces castle "CAST-ull) who has a humpbacked daughter (Irena A. Hoffman). She's been sexting the virginal-but-on-the-make Rusty (Oren Skoog) after meeting him on the Internet. Rusty is a dead ringer for a long-dead (supposedly) vampire, which his classmates -- the brainy one, the stoners, Mr. Bad-in-Bed, the sexpot, the good sister and bad sister, the hustler and '70s hair -- think is hilarious until the real vamp wakes up and confusion ensues.

Musetta Vander ("Kicking & Screaming") rolls her R's as the resident vampire hunter on campus. An Ava Gardner look-alike, she wields swords and wears her Spandex with verve. C-movie vet Jennifer Lyons flings herself at her character -- the daffy, sometimes-possessed-by-a-vampire bombshell Lynne -- with the abandon of someone with a lot of direct-to-DVD credits and one shot at showing she deserves better.

Other than them, only the pothead "Wang" (Paul H. Kim) makes an impression.

The Hillenbrand brothers, veterans of a "National Lampoon Presents" direct-to-DVD, don't make anything funny out of the script (too many characters, virtually no jokes) they were handed. Their direction is so paint-by-numbers that the only mystery is why it took two of them to shoot this.

One laugh: Vampires, stuffed in their coffins on a horse-drawn wagon, whine to the driver, "Are ve DERE yet?"

The most expensive item on the budget had to be buying the rights to "White Rabbit" (for a drug trip) and "Bad Moon Rising" (for obvious reasons) for the soundtrack. They probably got a group rate for the plane tickets to Romania. From the many indoor scenes where you can see the actors' breath, I'm guessing they didn't even pay to heat the sets.

 

     RSS

 

"Transylmania" Movie Trailer

 

Recent Movie Reviews - Films in Theaters

 

George Clooney

Up in the Air
George Clooney & Vera Farmiga in Up in the Air

For a movie set in a sour economy, 'Up in the Air' is very crafty about lobbing to the sweet spots of all concerned. It is smooth as glass, destined for a big audience and many awards. George Clooney stars as a well-tailored hatchet man for an Omaha firm.

 

De Niro & Barrymore

Everybody's Fine
Robert De Niro & Drew Barrymore in Everybody's Fine

It's a relief to see Robert De Niro giving an honest, effective starring performance in a project that does not stink. How long has it been? This Americanized remake of Giuseppe Tornatore's 1990 'Stanno Tutti Bene' is gracefully acted by a good cast.

 

Maguire & Gyllenhaal

Brothers
Tobey Maguire & Jake Gyllenhaal in Brothers

This gripping film is an honorable addition to the tradition of homefront war stories. The stars playing the brothers of the film's title, Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal, have been effective in much of their respective screen work, but their best stuff here is the their best stuff to date.

 

Catalina Saavedra

The Maid
Catalina Saavedra & Mariana Loyola in The Maid

A spiky social comedy from Chile, Sebastian Silva's 'The Maid' features a marvelous, moon-eyed actress, Catalina Saavedra, as a sphinx-like servant who has lived, worked and, slowly, calcified for a bourgeois Santiago family for 23 of her 41 years.

 

MPAA rating: R (for crude and sexual content, nudity, drug use, language and some violence).

Running time: 1:32.

Cast: Jennifer Lyons (Lynne); Oren Skoog (Rusty/Radu); Irena A. Hoffman (Draguta Floca); James DeBello (Cliff); Musetta Vander (Teodora van Sloan).

Credits: Directed by David Hillenbrand and Scott Hillenbrand; written by Patrick Casey and Worm Miller; produced by Radu Badica. A Full Circle release.