LOVE AT FIRST BITE (1979)
Directed by Stan Dragoti, written by Robert Kaufman.
Starring George Hamilton, Susan Saint James, Richard Benjamin, Arte Johnson.
Summing up the plot of this comedy movie makes it sound very silly indeed:
Count Dracula is driven from his ancestral castle in Romania by Communist bureaucrats, and he escapes to present-day America with his servant Renfield.
The Count arrives in New York, and seeks out the fashion model Cindy Sondheim, whom he only knows from reading U.S. magazines. They date, he discovers disco, and seduces her.
Cindy's ex-boyfriend and psychiatrist Gabriel Van Helsing (sic!) tries to stop the Count from making Cindy his bride...
LOVE AT FIRST BITE succeeds because the people who made it understood what they were making fun of, and how to do it. It's a straightforward spoof of Dracula movies. A lot of humor is also made from putting Dracula in 1970s New York, where he is a fish out of water.
The actors are good, most of the jokes are still funny, and the plot runs at a brisk pace. George Hamilton is alternately hilarious, camp, and a smoldering Prince of Darkness, but he keeps the tone light.
If you like unpretentious parody movies and romantic comedies, then LOVE AT FIRST BITE will make you laugh. It's goofier and gentler than THE NAKED GUN or AIRPLANE!, but overall it gets more laughs than Mel Brooks' vampire spoof DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT (sorry, Mel).
Oh, and you'll annoy friends and family quoting this line: "Children of the night - shut up!!"
If you enjoy horror-comedy, why not try to my novel BLOOD & SWINE.
The English-language edition is available HERE.
(The Swedish edition, published by Saga Egmont, is available HERE.)
Comments
No posts