Dracula: Dead and Loving It

I finally get to talk about Mel Brooks. I watched the horror-comedy movie Dracula: Dead and Loving It, released on December 22, 1995. Directed by Mel Brooks, it is rated PG-13. Starring Leslie Nielsen, Peter MacNicol, and Mel Brooks, it takes place in Transylvania and London in 1893.

When solicitor Thomas Renfield travels to Transylvania to meet Count Dracula at his castle, it goes badly. Dracula is a vampire and he hypnotizes Renfield to serve him. Shortly thereafter they go to England, where Dracula searches for human blood. The strange events cause Professor Abraham Van Helsing to get involved, where he correctly figures out there’s a vampire about. Now, the living have to determine the vampire’s identity and put a stop to him. Can Dracula’s terror be ended?

I have been excited to do this review so I can finally talk about one of my favorite directors, Mel Brooks. He became well known for his beloved parody movies. I love parody movies, and most are very well made and funny. While there are certain parody movies I might find funnier or better made, Mel Brooks has my favorite style of the parody movie. Mel Brooks’ other parody movies that I saw in this order are the 1987 Star Wars movie parody Spaceballs, the 1974 Frankenstein movie parody Young Frankenstein, the 1993 Robin Hood movie parody Robin Hood: Men in Tights, the 1974 western movie parody Blazing Saddles, the 1981 historical epic movie parody History of the World, Part I, the 1977 Alfred Hitchcock movie parody High Anxiety, and the 1976 silent movie parody Silent Movie. These are all classics and I do think this is a good order to watch them in. He also has other movies, 1967’s The Producers, 1970’s The Twelve Chairs, 1983’s To Be or Not to Be (which he technically did not direct, but he did produce, and it’s viewed as one of his movies because it has his signature style), and 1991’s Life Stinks. I have only seen his parodies and not his non-parody movies, but I encourage you to check them out yourself to see what they are like. The 1995 Dracula movie parody Dracula: Dead and Loving It was the last parody movie he directed. I went in unsure about this movie because unlike his other parodies, this got bad reviews. Now having seen it, I completely disagree with those opinions. I will share the various reasons why I like this movie.

Like I said, Mel Brooks styling for parodies is a key aspect of why I love these movies. First, he always does an effective job replicating the source materials to the point it could work legitimately in that genre. A lot of this movie gives a sense of dread, like an actual monster movie would. This works as it makes it a surprise whether a moment will be played seriously or comedically, adding to the humor. Brooks always parodied movies he liked. His intention was to homage, not to mock. Because of this, the parody is all in good fun to the source material and its fans. Another aspect of Brooks’ style to praise is the music, whether that refers to instrumental music or songs. While there are no songs in this movie, I do appreciate how the instrumental theme sounds like something that would be in a more serious Dracula movie. The whole opening title sequence has so much faithfulness with the gothic imagery we see in the book and the music. I realized recently the real charm of his movies. While he does effectively replicate the movies being parodied, most of the comedy comes from making silly jokes. Which means even if you are not familiar with the source material being parodied, you could still enjoy it. Which in my opinion, is the best thing a parody movie can do.

Mel Brooks’ parody movies always had a talented comedic cast, with this film being no exception. Starting with Leslie Nielsen as Count Dracula. Nielsen did have a history with parody movies. Appearing in parody movies made by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker (or ZAZ). He was funny in The Naked Gun trilogy and in Airplane!. After people were used to him working with ZAZ, who by the way also made multiple parody movies you should certainly check out, it was cool to see him finally work with Brooks, even if it took until Brooks’ last movie to get him. Nielsen plays the straight man, as an effective amount of comedy comes from Dracula’s straight-faced annoyed reactions to all the stupidity he is forced to deal with. He switches between being genuinely menacing and stuck dealing with idiots. Peter MacNicol delivers comedy as Thomas Renfield. He honestly might be the funniest part of the movie, as being trapped under Dracula’s hypnosis as his servant gives him plenty of over-the-top reactions. And he suffers so much throughout the movie, you kind of feel sorry for him, but not so much it will keep you from enjoying it.

In addition to being a hilarious director, Mel Brooks also loved to give himself roles in his movies, which were often big roles. He barely appears in Young Frankenstein, which does work to that film’s advantage, but otherwise he had a quite noticeable and entertaining presence in his movies. Here is no exception, as he plays Professor Abraham Van Helsing. Similar to the switches mentioned above with Dracula, Helsing keeps switching between being serious due to the gravity of the situation to being wacky as he engages in Brooks’ style of silly jokes. Everyone else plays their roles as best they can, with other main stars being Steven Weber, Harvey Korman, Amy Yasbeck, and Lysette Anthony.

There is one last thing I want to mention about Brooks’ style. Not only did he replicate the source materials and make the parodies really funny, but he also had just well made movies in general, parody or not. His movies always had a great story from beginning to end, that like I said could fit within the genre being parodied. Also, he made the characters feel fleshed out, not just parody characters. Despite this being a parody, I also did grow to care for these characters and want them to survive. As mentioned earlier, when it is not being funny, there is dread. I would even argue there is one scene that feels more like a horror movie scene. Brooks really put a lot of care into what he made and it shows.

Overall, having seen seven great Mel Brooks parodies, I am happy I now consider there to be eight. I can see why this received poor reviews, as I will admit it is the least good parody of his in my opinion. But with such an excellent movie portfolio, it is no wonder he could not compete with himself. It is still a hilarious parody that I recommend as much as his other films. It is quite a shame this film ended his directorial career. While I do think this is the Mel Brooks parody you should see last, it is still one I really think you should see.

Another part of Mel Brooks’ style is that he works his Jewish faith into some of his movies. This is not one of those movies, but it is still a signature style of his. I thought about discussing the rampant antisemitism that seems to be ever present in the world. Believe it or not, Jewish people only make up about 0.2% of the world’s population. Yet, they are talked about like there’s far more of them. They are people like us, who simply dedicate their lives to a belief, just like many others do. Unfortunately, Jewish people are one of the most discriminated against peoples in human history. They have been the subject of many of the world’s atrocities, most famously the Holocaust. This is disgusting and even in America, we can do much better. Fortunately, we can do something about this. Certain things you can do include reporting any antisemitism you see, educating yourself and others on all forms of antisemitism, avoiding stereotypes, and finding ways to support Jewish communities. You can also force policy change through methods like peaceful protest or writing to your congressman, and increase awareness that the Holocaust really did happen to discourage deniers.

This affects more than just Judaism. I would argue we need to fight for the rights of belief groups in general. I have been a Christian my whole life and my faith is really important to me. I am lucky to have a faith that is not discriminated against as much as some others. The many different other faiths like Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, and many more are all important faiths for those who celebrate them. It is not wrong to have faith. It is also not wrong to have no faith and be an agnostic or atheist. Whatever your belief system is, we need to fight for your rights. Ways to do this include getting to know others of different faiths, learning about other faiths like I am doing with a world religions book, question your worldviews, treat people for how they are as people, stand up to prejudice, force policy change again, help those who were victimized, and be an ally even if you are not oppressed. We can make a world where everyone is free to believe what is important for them to believe and celebrate the ways our belief systems make us more similar than different. We can all show compassion for each other and fight the broken system.