Transylvania Twist starts as Dexter Ward (Steve Altman) attends his uncle Ephram's (Jay Robinson) funeral, however mid ceremony Ephram jumps out of his coffin as good as new. Ephram confides in Dexter that he is the librarian to the world's biggest collection of books on the supernatural & the occult, he also says that someone named Marinas Orlock (Howard Morris) borrowed the 'Book of Ulthar' & never returned it. Ephram is worried as this book has the power to open doorways to other dimensions & let evil invade Earth, he ask's Dexter to visit Marinas's daughter Marissa (Teri Copley) & try to discover the whereabouts of the book & return it before it falls into evil hands. Before long Dexter has contacted Marissa who has, by coincidence, received a telegram from Victor Von Helsing (Ace Mask (!?)) informing her that her Father is dead & she needs to travel to Transylvania to claim her inheritance. Marissa & Dexter travel to a foreboding castle where they are greeted by Marissa's sinister uncle Lord Byron (Robert Vaughn) who seems very keen himself to get his hands on the Book of Ulthar...
Directed by Jim Wynorski (whose very name sends shivers down my spine when I hear it in connection with a film I'm about to watch) before he started to hide under his usual 'Jay Andrews' pseudonym Transylvania Twist is definitely one of his better efforts & is in it's own silly way a decent film. The script by R.J. Robertson obviously doesn't take itself seriously & is a sort of Naked Gun style spoof of the horror genre. The gags & one-liners come thick & fast & to be fair to everyone involved a lot of it is actually quite amusing, I don't think there are many (if any) scenes which will have you rolling around on the floor in stitches but I must admit a fair amount of the film brought a smile to my face. It's a fun homage that doesn't try to be offencive like the Scary Movie films, it relies on visual gags & silliness but in a more playful vein. A lot of the films works, a TV advertisement in which a coffin salesman cracks lots of cheesy jokes for instance or the scene set in the local Transylvanian pub where everyone is called Hans, much hilarity ensues with puns & misunderstandings like 'Hans Up', 'Hans Down' & 'Hans Full', I know it's bad but it raised a chuckle & it's not that bad. The story itself is inconsequential & secondary to the comedy, there really isn't anything to it. Stick around until after the cast credits have gone at the end as you'll find out what happened to the angry village mob.
Director Wynorski made this back in '90 when he actually cared & wasn't ashamed to use his own name on the credits, these days the guys a hack who churns out low budget crap of the worst kind & steals huge chunks of footage from other films (he only steals a few minutes here) & edits it into his own. The film is very well made & has a great atmosphere to it, the sets are actually pretty impressive. Loads of horror films are parodied, paid homage to & taken the mickey out of, The Exorcist (1973) complete with green puke, Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dracula (1931), a Phantasm (1979) spoof which features Angus Scrimm (who starred in the Phantasm films) throwing his silver ball at our heroes who run off screen for a second only to come back on wearing baseball gear & have a quick game of baseball with the deadly sphere narrated by Stu Nahan (is he a big commentator in the Staes?), it has cameos from the likes of Leatherface, Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, Pinhead & it even features the cucumber alien monster from Roger Corman's (who was executive producer here) sci-fi film It Conquered the World (1956). Too many here to mention individually though & I'm sure many horror fans could have some fun recognising them all.
Technically the film is pretty good, in fact it's rather impressive with nice production values throughout. The acting was OK & they even manage to include Boris Karloff as some footage of him is edited into a conversation with Dexter.
Transylvania Twist is a surprisingly likable & amusing horror spoof, I doubt anyone would want to see it more than once & I also think to get the most out of the homages, references & the film as a whole you should have at least some sort of interest in the horror genre. Much better than expected & worth a watch.
Directed by Jim Wynorski (whose very name sends shivers down my spine when I hear it in connection with a film I'm about to watch) before he started to hide under his usual 'Jay Andrews' pseudonym Transylvania Twist is definitely one of his better efforts & is in it's own silly way a decent film. The script by R.J. Robertson obviously doesn't take itself seriously & is a sort of Naked Gun style spoof of the horror genre. The gags & one-liners come thick & fast & to be fair to everyone involved a lot of it is actually quite amusing, I don't think there are many (if any) scenes which will have you rolling around on the floor in stitches but I must admit a fair amount of the film brought a smile to my face. It's a fun homage that doesn't try to be offencive like the Scary Movie films, it relies on visual gags & silliness but in a more playful vein. A lot of the films works, a TV advertisement in which a coffin salesman cracks lots of cheesy jokes for instance or the scene set in the local Transylvanian pub where everyone is called Hans, much hilarity ensues with puns & misunderstandings like 'Hans Up', 'Hans Down' & 'Hans Full', I know it's bad but it raised a chuckle & it's not that bad. The story itself is inconsequential & secondary to the comedy, there really isn't anything to it. Stick around until after the cast credits have gone at the end as you'll find out what happened to the angry village mob.
Director Wynorski made this back in '90 when he actually cared & wasn't ashamed to use his own name on the credits, these days the guys a hack who churns out low budget crap of the worst kind & steals huge chunks of footage from other films (he only steals a few minutes here) & edits it into his own. The film is very well made & has a great atmosphere to it, the sets are actually pretty impressive. Loads of horror films are parodied, paid homage to & taken the mickey out of, The Exorcist (1973) complete with green puke, Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dracula (1931), a Phantasm (1979) spoof which features Angus Scrimm (who starred in the Phantasm films) throwing his silver ball at our heroes who run off screen for a second only to come back on wearing baseball gear & have a quick game of baseball with the deadly sphere narrated by Stu Nahan (is he a big commentator in the Staes?), it has cameos from the likes of Leatherface, Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, Pinhead & it even features the cucumber alien monster from Roger Corman's (who was executive producer here) sci-fi film It Conquered the World (1956). Too many here to mention individually though & I'm sure many horror fans could have some fun recognising them all.
Technically the film is pretty good, in fact it's rather impressive with nice production values throughout. The acting was OK & they even manage to include Boris Karloff as some footage of him is edited into a conversation with Dexter.
Transylvania Twist is a surprisingly likable & amusing horror spoof, I doubt anyone would want to see it more than once & I also think to get the most out of the homages, references & the film as a whole you should have at least some sort of interest in the horror genre. Much better than expected & worth a watch.