DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1996 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT may be
marginally better than the other films we have seen
from Mel Brooks in a decade, but he is trying too
hard to imitate the Zucker Brothers rather than to
write in the style of THE PRODUCERS and THE TWELVE
CHAIRS. Too many of his gags fall embarrassingly
flat and he is not bothering to create characters
the way he did in his early comedies. This is a
film that frequently shows visual style and keeps
promising to be something, but in the end it did
not care to deliver more than gags. A few of the
gags work. Rating: high 0 (-4 to +4)
It is faint praise, but DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT is the best Mel Brooks comedy in quite a long while. And for once he made a film that without the humor might have been above average. But some of the nice visuals are just wasted here and the film remains only a very mediocre effort with humor that is just too weak and mechanical to carry the film. The enema jokes and other unfunny run-on gags spoil the few funny bits in this satire of three different film adaptations of DRACULA.
At one time Mel Brooks was a really good filmmaker with genuine characters and a great sense of humor. Consider the skill with which he balanced personality with humor in THE PRODUCERS or the too-rarely- seen TWELVE CHAIRS. We have not seen much of that Mel Brooks in quite a while. Brooks's humor these days leans to cheap and easy gags, scatological or just lame far too often. And the weak humor sabotages not only his own production values, but his better gags as well. DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT is no YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, but it has a nice visual sense and many of its jokes really are funny. But Brooks needs to get a better idea of which gags work and which fall flat. In the end this new film has too many jokes to work as a horror film and too high a percentage of lame jokes for it to work as a comedy.
DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT is basically a reworking of the 1931 screen version, itself a reworking of the John L. Balderston and Hamilton Deane play. That play, is a perennial favorite on the stage and formed the basis of the 1931 Bela Lugosi and the 1979 Frank Langella versions of DRACULA. The Brooks film then recreates and satirizes scenes from the Lugosi, the 1958 Christopher Lee DRACULA (U.S. title: THE HORROR OF DRACULA), and the 1992 Gary Oldman BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA. There is even a quick nod to the 1921 NOSFERATU. There is a nice recreation of the stairway and web sequence from the 1931 version and a beautiful recreation of the staking of Lucy from the 1958 version, even matching the odd color values. It is in these two scenes that the film has its best moments. There are times when the photography has an exaggerated dreamlike quality that really does work. And the opening which takes us through famous graphic portrayals of vampires is done with a great deal of style. Unfortunately, these good moments get lost in the film.
By far not the smallest fault in the film is the transparent casting of Leslie Nielson as Dracula. Nielson's forte is playing characters who are overly obvious like big children, while a quality of mystery and otherworldlyness is necessary to play the famous vampire, even in a comedy. He is cast against type, and he plays against type. If that was a gamble, it fails miserably, but more likely he is in the film because of his associations with other films. Harvey Korman as Dr. Seward has more than a little Nigel Bruce in his performance.
Brooks's writing has turned formulaic and that is slow death in comedy. He fills time in the film with pointless run-on gags that do not seem to get any funnier with the repetition. One of the run-on gags only reaches its real point at the end of the credit sequence when it plays mostly to empty seats--another example of where Brooks misjudges his audience. Too many of his jokes just end up a reference to urine or feces as if that by itself is funny. Also overused are pratfalls.
It is a sad state when all the best aspects of a Mel Brooks comedy have little to do with the humor. Brooks should take a look at what made some of his early films so good and refresh his memory on the difference between humor and gags. The style of the film, perhaps contributed by a good cinematographer, brings this one up to a high 0 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mark.leeper@att.com
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