Before viewing this Dracula spoof, "Love at First Bite," I watched two other 1979 film adaptations of Bram Stoker's novel: Universal's update and Werner Herzog's "Nosferatu" remake. I've been watching a bunch of Dracula movies since reading the novel, and I was especially disappointed by those two versions, as well as by Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 production. All three of those films turned the gothic horror story into romances. Klaus Kinski played Dracula as a lovesick clown; Coppola expanded on the historical Vlad the Impaler connection to make a silly-Hollywood reincarnation love story; and Universal's "Dracula" is entirely dime-romance-novel trash. "Love at First Bite" manages not only to successfully parody such adaptations; it also has a better romance. It doesn't play to juvenile emotionality of the lowest common denominator for the genre; it's just fun, and the woman chooses whether to be turned into a vampire. It's not the damsel-in-distress or sacrificial-lamb treatments of rape fantasies passed off as romantic, as in other Dracula movies (which are often far more misogynistic than the 19th-Century source). And George Hamilton's tanned burlesque on the suave vamp almost makes it worth having watched the travesty with Frank Langella in the role.
Another thing I like about this parody is its twist on the "invasion" genre, of which Stoker's novel was part of. The book is a rather xenophobic tale of a foreign Easterner sneaking into the West to steal women. In "Love at First Bite," however, Dracula's Transylvanian castle is seized by the communist Romanian government, and he's evicted. Booed out of town by the villagers, he flies, with his servant Renfield, to New York. This is such a hilarious twist on the novel that I didn't mind that the rest of the jokes are hit and miss. Plus, the one-liners and gags keep coming, so a failed bit here and there is soon passed over. For instance, some of the politically-incorrect humor, including at the expense of African Americans and much of the plot with Van Helsing's Jewish-Freudian-shrink descendant isn't so much offensive as it's just dated and not funny. On the other hand, the opening line of Dracula yelling, "Children of the Night, shut up!," in addition to the invasion twist, is a great start to a comedy that makes fun of the novel, and with the main narrative of a suave-Dracula romance, makes fun of other Dracula movies.
Another thing I like about this parody is its twist on the "invasion" genre, of which Stoker's novel was part of. The book is a rather xenophobic tale of a foreign Easterner sneaking into the West to steal women. In "Love at First Bite," however, Dracula's Transylvanian castle is seized by the communist Romanian government, and he's evicted. Booed out of town by the villagers, he flies, with his servant Renfield, to New York. This is such a hilarious twist on the novel that I didn't mind that the rest of the jokes are hit and miss. Plus, the one-liners and gags keep coming, so a failed bit here and there is soon passed over. For instance, some of the politically-incorrect humor, including at the expense of African Americans and much of the plot with Van Helsing's Jewish-Freudian-shrink descendant isn't so much offensive as it's just dated and not funny. On the other hand, the opening line of Dracula yelling, "Children of the Night, shut up!," in addition to the invasion twist, is a great start to a comedy that makes fun of the novel, and with the main narrative of a suave-Dracula romance, makes fun of other Dracula movies.