For me, the best joke was the fact that this vampire spoof is set in my hometown of Erie PA, scary enough without vampires, and with its place in history probably having many ghosts too. I have seen all the "Dracula" satires, from "Old Dracula" (coming out in 1974, the same year as "Young Frankenstein"), "Love at First Bite" and "Dracula: Dead and Loving It". I've seen abandoned houses (and huge factories) years after leaving upon visits, so choosing it for that reason as well as its name was a good idea. In 1981 when this was made, the country was impacted by a recession, so there were many Erie's all over the United States.
This film would have been funny on a TV variety show as a series of sketches (or as part of a "Creepshow" movie), but they couldn't even get the movie to reach 90 minutes. The premise is that a vampire, TV's Jeffrey Tambor, wants a long abandoned house to find a mysterious book, but it's been spoken for by Richard Benjamin. Wife Mary Kay Place is not pleased, and the kids either have nightmares or can't sleep. Dishes somehow wash themselves and rooms automatically clean (a homemaker's dream, so why complain?), and the monster from the boy's nightmare turns up in a bubble bath.
Obviously made for those with the mentality of 13 year old boys, this takes silliness to a ridiculous level, and very cheaply. A cast of veteran character actors obviously needed to do something to qualify for union insurance so they took anything they could get. Rosemary DeCamp, Severn Darden, Stacy Keach Sr. And Roberta Collins do their bits and run to the bank. Apparently so did 13 year olds to the theater to see this. But the critics pretty much said what I do. Comedy requires a consistently funny plot and jokes, and this only has a limited bit of both.
This film would have been funny on a TV variety show as a series of sketches (or as part of a "Creepshow" movie), but they couldn't even get the movie to reach 90 minutes. The premise is that a vampire, TV's Jeffrey Tambor, wants a long abandoned house to find a mysterious book, but it's been spoken for by Richard Benjamin. Wife Mary Kay Place is not pleased, and the kids either have nightmares or can't sleep. Dishes somehow wash themselves and rooms automatically clean (a homemaker's dream, so why complain?), and the monster from the boy's nightmare turns up in a bubble bath.
Obviously made for those with the mentality of 13 year old boys, this takes silliness to a ridiculous level, and very cheaply. A cast of veteran character actors obviously needed to do something to qualify for union insurance so they took anything they could get. Rosemary DeCamp, Severn Darden, Stacy Keach Sr. And Roberta Collins do their bits and run to the bank. Apparently so did 13 year olds to the theater to see this. But the critics pretty much said what I do. Comedy requires a consistently funny plot and jokes, and this only has a limited bit of both.