Transilvania 6-5000

Okay, this is a VERY silly film. I hadn't seen it in many years, but I vividly remembered a few scenes really standing out as quite funny to me. I just now re-watched it and I basically came away with the same impression.

If you don't care for really silly physical humour, than you likely won't care for this movie very much. Also, in my lowly and wretched opinion, I didn't think that the last 20 minutes or so were really that good, sadly. Thus the reason I only gave this film a '6'

BUT... FWIW... there are a handful of scenes that are clearly ad-libbed and not scripted. THOSE are the best ones! I think I remember reading several years ago about Michael Richard's scenes, especially at the 'dinner' being completely improvised. And YES, they are super silly, but for some reason I honestly found them very funny. You can easily tell that Jeff Goldblum is genuinely laughing during Richards' antics at the table. And, the scenes between Carol kane and John Byner, especially the very first one in the kitchen which was also improvised, were great! The timing and cadence of their lines back and forth in that first scene are excellent!

But, unfortunately, towards the end they started going for very broad 'Comedy' which was kind of ho-hum. It's interesting to me how so many films that try to be funny or silly usually fall kind of flat. But, in this case, especially with the handful of scenes that I mentioned, I think they came across really well, mainly because they struck me as genuine and spontaneous rather than flatly scripted. I think that if they had kept it more along the lines of the small sight and sound gags rather than going for 'situational' comedy, that would have played to the strengths of the film a lot better.

So, if you like 'Silly' at all, you might find at least some of this film entertaining.

This comedy has some tolerably funny stuff in it, surrounded by a lot of unfunny stuff. Just about every scene involving the servants of the castle and their silly antics is a waste of time. And the plotting is so sloppy that it makes you wonder if they actually had a script ready before they started filming this, or they were simply making it all up as they went along. (*1/2)

Two tabloid reporters head to modern Transylvania - now a charming eastern European tourist trap - in pursuit of a story about monsters, and find the place over-run with vampires, mummies, werewolves etc. Ed Begley Jr. and Jeff Goldblum have good on-screen chemistry together as the luckless writers, but the script does them few favors. The tone of the movie is all over the place, aiming for wacky and scary by turns, but that sort of approach (familiar to Abbott and Costello fans) takes finesse that is not on display here. The production designers worked hard to create an attractive and convincing modern monster movie setting and mostly succeeded, but the script has a too-many-rewrites-by- committee feel and the material is very weak for the most part. Geena Davis has a very appealing bit as a beautiful vampire wannabe, but most of the supporting performances are not well fleshed out and are occasionally just absurd. Joseph Bologna, as always, chews the scenery outrageously as a mad scientist, plus Michael Richards is just annoying and unfunny as a clumsy bellhop. There are a few genuine laughs here and Davis' first appearance in vampire gear is worth a rewind, but most of the movie is just exasperatingly unfunny and tiresome. Avoid.

I loved anything connected with horror as a kid. As such, as a boy, I watched many stupid horror comedies that I didn't know any better than to watch at the time, case in point, Jim Carrey's ridiculous Once Bitten. However, this movie is one of three horror comedies I loved as a boy that is still funny to me today (the other two being A&C Meet Frankenstein and Young Frankenstein). Mostly because it was writer/director Rudy DeLuca's (very funny man who works for Mel Brooks today) 1980's update of the classic Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. It's funny as hell, and anybody who didn't think so at the time should pick up the new DVD and check it out again.

Interesting post scripts to the movie's production:

1. Goldblum and Begley's parts were to be played by Bosom Buddies' own Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari respectively, but New World would not let them play the parts because they didn't know who the hell they were. 2. Michael Richards' dimwitted servant Fejos was not originally the clumsy idiot he is in the movie. Richards was recommended for the role by his friend Begley, and characteristically fell all over himself at his audition. As a result, he ad-libbed every one of Fejos' physical acts and they were all kept.

I just have to mention this. My favorite line in the movie is after Geena Davis' lady Dracula attacks Begley from Goldblum.

Begley: Do you smell perfume?

Goldblum (mock scared): Yes. I know what was in this room.

Begley: What?

Goldblum: The Creature from Estee Lauder!

"Transylvania 6-5000" is the sort of movie that you can only enjoy if you accept low, silly humor. It has moronic reporters Jeff Goldblum and Ed Begley Jr. going to Eastern Europe to investigate reports of Frankenstein (and possibly Dracula, the Wolfman, etc). Sure enough, they get a real surprise.

So does this count as a stupid movie? Maybe, but if so, then it's deliberately stupid. And how can one not like the "untie this" scene? Or what happens to the doctor walking in and out of the lab? Overall, "T65" isn't the sort of movie that you watch to have a religious experience; you watch it to get entertained, and I guarantee that you will. Also starring Joseph Bologna, Carol Kane, Jeffrey Jones, John Byner, Geena Davis, Michael Richards and Norman Fell (I assume that Rudy De Luca is the same guy from the Mel Brooks movies).

Oh, and the title spoofs the song "Pennsylvania 6-5000". I know that Glenn Miller did a version of it, but I don't know whether or not he wrote it.

Yeah, who needs lightning when you got all that other s--- to work with?