# Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995)

### reviewed by
Chris Casino

    DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT

    A film review by Chris Casino

**1/2 out of **** (not up to standards, but has it's moments).

Cast: Leslie Nielsen (Count Dracula), Mel Brooks (Dr. Abarham Van Helsing), Peter MacNichol (Renfield), Steven Weber (Jonathan Harker), Harvey Korman (Dr. Arthur Seward), Amy Yasbeck (Mina), Lysette Anthony (Lucy), Megan Cavanaugh (Chambermaid), Mark Blankfield (Martin), Ezio Greggio (Coach Driver), Anne Bancroft (Madam Ouspenskaya).

Crew: Directed by Mel Brooks, Screenplay by Mel Brooks, Steve Haberman, and Rudy De Luca, from an original script by Haberman and DeLuca. Produced by Mel Brooks, Peter Schindler & Robert Latham Brown & Leah Zappy. Cinematography by Michael D. O'Shea.

What do you get when you team two of the funniest men in comedy, Mel Brooks and Leslie Nielsen, and have Nielsen do a takeoff on every classic Dracula film ever made, with Nielsen parodying Bela Lugosi's Dracula?

A surefire winner like Young Frankenstein?

    Well, not quite.

    A surefire bomb?

    No, that's not correct, either.

    What is correct is you get something that falls
    somewhere in the middle.

Nielsen plays the Count, who is visited by lawyer Renfield (MacNichol who, despite being amusing, is a poor substitute for Marty Feldman, who so obviously would've played this role, and done better with it, if he were still alive today) about leasing Carfax Abby, the house in England the Count wants to buy. He takes him on as a slave, and they meet Jonathan Harker (Weber), his wife Mina, who Dracula bites, Dr. Seward (an amusing Harvey Korman), and Lucy (Anthony) whom he kills. When Seward has his nasty suspicions, he calls upon the vampire expert, Dr. Van Helsing (Brooks. He's funny, but nowhere near as funny as someone like Gene Wilder could've been as Van Helsing) to confront the Count.

This isn't the best film Mel Brooks has made, not even close. This isn't up to the "loving tribute" style his other monster parody, YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, was--even though it tries hard to be--and there's a reason for that.

He worked with Gene Wilder on YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, and he needed to work with him here too, to make the film work. If he and Gene Wilder had collaborated on the script, it might just've worked, as they work well together. Maybe then, this would've been in black and white like it should've been.

I also think the cast was wrong. Leslie Nielsen is one of those comedic actors who's always funny. Here is no exception, and he does an excellent Lugosi impression, you can keep him. Brooks did not act in YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, which was a wise idea, and he should've done that here and given the role of Van Helsing to Gene Wilder, whom I miss seeing on the screen, and also miss seeing with Brooks. Comedian Mark Blankfield, who works for Brooks now, would've been better suited to be Renfield instead of guard Martin, and I could see Kenneth Mars of YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN playing Dr. Seward. Weber is ideal as Harker as is Yasbeck as Mina. Only then would this film have been perfect.

I'd tell you to stick to LOVE AT FIRST BITE, which was very funny, but I prefer parodies that do not trample on tradition, which this tries not to do and gets a passing grade for effort on, and that film does not.

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