Three years after Francis Ford Coppola brought out his version of Bram Stoker's classic story, director Mel Brooks (The Producers, Young Frankenstein) brought us this terrible spoof of the two or three successful versions. It is the same basic story, R.M. Renfield (Peter MacNicol) goes to the castle in Transylvania, to finish the deal with Count Dracula (Leslie Nielsen) to buy Carfax Abbey. Dracula turns him into his servant, and they go to London, England, where the dark lord wants to devour all the blood from (rich) English women he can. After an attack on Lucy Westenra (Lysette Anthony), Dr. Abraham Van Helsing (Brooks) is brought in to try and help solve the mystery of the strange markings on her neck, and he is sure it is a vampire attack. Van Helsing, along with Jonathan Harker (Steven Weber) and Dr. Jack Seward (Harvey Korman) are determined to make sure Mina Murray (The Mask's Amy Yasbeck) doesn't meet the same fate. Obviously they do find out Dracula is the vampire, and that Renfield is his servant, and they are now all brought together in the final showdown. The fact that Brooks fails to create the same quality of horror spoofing he did with Young Frankenstein, is a little embarrassing. Nielsen may have the accent, but no real presence, MacNicol may have a better English accent than Keanu Reeves did, but he is still an idiotic character, and as for the jokes, only the ones involving blood going everywhere gets the tiniest giggle from me, the rest are cheap and boring. Poor!
Review of Dracula: Dead and Loving It
