Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995) – Mel Brooks countdown #9
Concept: Be rude about Francis Ford Coppola's version of Dracula
You know the story: a vampire comes to England, and starts biting posh people. Only Professor Van Helsing knows what's happening…
What’s good: The staking scene.. done with blood.
The 'if you want to be a doctor' autopsy scene.. done without blood.
It looks and sounds good, and all the performances are fine, including Leslie Neilsen's accent…
What’s not so good: … but again using him reminds us that he's done much, much better.
Music: It's a fine score, and there are no songs to mess it up.
Miscellany: This is Mel Brooks' last film as a director.
Overall: The basic problem is that, as a comedy, it's not funny enough. The script means there are plenty of smiles, but there are more actual laughs in the opening line of Love at First Bite* than this.
It also doesn't really work as a spoof of any particular film. Why's Nielsen got such silly hair at the start? Because that's what Gary Oldman had. But rewatching the Coppola version (on fast forward, because it's rubbish) there's not much else taken from that film. There could have been a bad acting Harker to mock Keanu Reeves…
On the other hand, it's good as a family version of the Dracula story with added silly bits. For that reason, I rate it above Men in Tights. Not everyone agrees: this has the lowest rating of all his films on IMDb.
TL;DR See Love at First Bite instead
Film: 2.5/5
DVD: 2/5
It depends on which version you get, but my R2 import doesn't have any extras.
* Wolves howl in the distance. Dracula enters and says "Children of the night… shut up!"