.
Cinema/TV, Dracula, Film Notes

Your Daily Dracula – Transylvania Twist (1989)

Your Daily Dracula – Robert Vaughn as Lord Byron Orlock, Transylvania Twist (1989) A jokey production from Roger Corman’s Concorde, with widely accessible if not very funny gags about Jason, Leatherface, Freddy, Pinhead and The Exorcist (1973) jostling parodies of scenes from Dracula (1958), House of Usher (1960), Premature Burial (1961), The Haunted Palace (1963) and Phantasm (1979).  The plot is borrowed from The Cat and the Canary as heirs search a castle for hidden terasure, while, in the most self-referential way imaginable, routines are stolen from the earlier spoof Young Frankenstein (1974).

Dexter Ward (Steve Altman) and Marisa Orlock (Teri Copley) visit the castle of Lord Byron Orlock (Robert Vaughn), aided by an intolerant Dr Van Helsing (Ace Mask), searching for a book which will summon Lovecraftian demons, represented by the carrot from It Conquered the World (1957).  Among the subtler gags is the constant reuse of the castle exterior shots created from Pit and the Pendulum (1961) and worn rahhed in Corman’s pictures, including The Terror (1963), from which comes interpolated footage that enables Boris Karloff to guest in a film made twenty years after his death.

Director Jim Wynorski’s trademarks (movie references, large-breasted starlets, makeshift visuals) are in evidence.  Miracle Pictures – credited as a co-production company – doesn’t exist: the logo is borrowed from Joe Dante and Allan Arkush’s wittier Hollywood Boulevard (1976).  With Angus Scrimm, Brinke Stevens, Kelli Maroney, Forrest J Ackerman.

first published in The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror

Discussion

No comments yet.

Leave a Reply

%d