Transylmania (College Vampires) Review

Movie: Transylmania (College Vampires)
By: Candlecove
Date: January 8, 2012

College kids. The other white meat.

I love everything about Romanian folklore. Thus, I jumped on the opportunity to watch Transylmania, not expecting anything special. However, all the small nods towards other horror movies and the fact that they opted to focus on Radu the Handsome instead of Vlad the Impaler, like it’s become custom to do whenever vampires and Romania are coupled, made it something that I will watch multiple times whenever I feel like there’s not enough jokes about farting horses in my life.

A class of college kids travels to Romania in an exchange program with the intention to party – on their way to Romania, they learn that 500 hundred years ago a prominent vampire (Radu) lost his one true love, and her soul have been trapped in a little music box ever since, which he has been looking for ever since. Incidentally, Rusty soon learns that he looks exactly like Radu, which leads to a lot of misunderstanding. Meanwhile, one of the professors mistakes Cliff for a fellow vampire hunter, Newmar thinks his girlfriend has been driven insane by his awesome newfound skills in the bed, and Rusty tries to trick his online girlfriend into thinking he still likes her even though her back is horrible deformed, because her father (a mad scientist and the dean of the school where this all happens) will torture him if he doesn’t. Confusing? Oh yes. Entertaining? If you’re into that sort of thing, yes.

As I said, I didn’t have high expectations to this movie. It’s not a cinematic masterpiece. It just sounded like something that could be funny to watch at night with my roommates – or, you know, when I’m drunk - just like I think Braindead is both funny and cringe worthy, and I do like the prequels: Dorm Daze 1 and 2, even though they’re not something I would normally watch. Transylmania is a stupid movie, but that seems to be the whole idea behind it. It’s interesting that they took Radu and made him a star in a goofy movie about vampires. It’s the sole reason I watches this more than one time. I have this secret love for vampire parodies, and it’s even better when there’s boobies, women in tight leather and sword fighting.

Sadly, I’m usually a bit disappointed when I watch spoof movies, but then again, they’re not supposed to be taken seriously or even be particularly scary. The historical facts were a nice touch, and so were the hints to classic stories such as Dr. Frankenstein and The Most Dangerous Game. And while some of the scenes are somewhat poorly written, the acting is a bit amateurish and just about everything looks like something that’s totally intended to go straight to video; it’s all part of the charm. I doubt they ever intended to make a great movie that would inspire people - merely to make people laugh by joking about Tourettes, farts, and gay stereotypes with a dash of tongue in cheek horror.

I know these sort of movies aren’t for everyone. I know a lot of people will lift their brows and tell me that it’s time to graduate from third grade, but I don’t care. Sometimes I just crave a movie like this. Kind of like how I’ll eat chocolate when it’s that time of the month, no matter the quality.