Nonureva Really Surprised!

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Adeel Hail Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

MisterWhiplash This is a horror comedy, and those are very tricky to pull off. How many absolutely great movies can you think of that combine those two genres? Two off the top of my head are Young Frankenstein and Abbott & Costello meet Frankenstein. But there are also the Scary Movie movies (the first two aren't at all, the rest... less said the better), Dracula Dead & Loving It (which, by the way, there's a gag involving a staking of a vampire in this that, I had to wonder, later inspired Brooks who went for a bloodier and possibly funnier scene in an otherwise lame spoof), Repossessed, um... maybe Student Bodies is alright(?) Point is, it's not the genre that people flock to necessarily and find the gold-mine all the time. Which brings us to Transylvania Twist, a Roger Corman produced movie via Concorde (and horror fans can *tell*, I'll get to that in a moment), and it's not all that bad! Faint praise, perhaps, but there are some parts in this where you can tell the filmmakers are trying and it's not all for not. It's not that it's all gravy; it's one of those comedies where the actors are (mostly) playing it straight, and that's the way to go about it if you have to ala the classic example of Airplane! The exception to this is Steve Altman as (Lovecraft inspired name) Dexter, who is being goofy as all hell (I thought of him like he was a lessor stand-up comic from that boom of the 80's, Carson and Elvis imitations and all), and that would be fine if he were a little more talented. Sadly he isn't, but that's not the only issue: some of the lines that the actors are given are terrible, mostly with puns but other times it's just lame gags and references that are dated. If it's not American Express card riffs, it's an Exorcist reference that already felt tired by then.But, I must stress, there are high points here, and it's not just with the cast - Vaughan, Scrim and Ace Mask (yes, that's his name, don't wear it out) are all wonderful here and get what they need to do to make these characters work so that there's comedy to play off of from the other characters - but with the style. It's not totally consistent throughout, which is a shame, but I enjoyed in the early part as the director and his camera man and editor tried to do some interesting things, like a commercial spoof involving a morturary service, or the music video Teri Copley is doing that has a hundred commercials in one minute of time, or the Honeymooners parody that is shot *in* black and white (and includes and Ed Norton!), or a simple gag like the camera following in a scene with Dexter at the library and the cameraman gets distracted.In other words, there are enough times where the writing clicks and the actors click and the director clicks that the self-knowing stuff actually works. I wish that it did work more, or that certain gags had a touch more cleverness to them - to give another idea of what I mean, because Scrim is in this there's a part where his character holds the glass ball from Phantasm, and it's used for a baseball bit - but there's enough winks and nods to keep most open-minded horror fans happy. The strangest (and funniest) thing of all is how Corman, whether it was his idea or Wynorski and company I don't know, spoofs himself in a way; there's constant cut-aways to stock footage from The Terror (or maybe one of the Poe movies, or both), and then, lo and behold, Boris Karloff makes an appearance(!) Yes, there is actually a scene where Steve Altman walks into a room and interacts with stock footage of Karloff from The Terror; I have to think Corman knew how silly this would be and went for it. It's admirable and, most importantly, it's funny, and unexpected.To put it another way, "Arkham Library" is a joke here. Do with that information what you will.

TheLittleSongbird I remembered a long time ago that I did enjoy Transylvanis Twist, and after re-watching it I still do. True, the characters are rather clichéd and while not awful to look at the low budget does show at times. However, the soundtrack is cool, the film is smartly written with amusing nods to recognisable horror figures/films and some very funny jokes. The stock footage may be too much occasionally, but still well-used and interesting and the story is always fun and rarely dull. The acting I thought was good also, Angus Schrimm and especially Ace Mask are hoots in their roles and Terri Copley is very sexy without being too vapid. Steve Altman does a good job making sure his character isn't too tiresome and Robert Vaughn while he's been better is still good value. All in all, a very entertaining movie. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Paul Andrews Transylvania Twist starts as Dexter Ward (Steve Altman) attends his uncle Ephram's (Jay Robinson) funeral, however mid ceremony Ephram jumps out of his coffin as good as new. Ephram confides in Dexter that he is the librarian to the world's biggest collection of books on the supernatural & the occult, he also says that someone named Marinas Orlock (Howard Morris) borrowed the 'Book of Ulthar' & never returned it. Ephram is worried as this book has the power to open doorways to other dimensions & let evil invade Earth, he ask's Dexter to visit Marinas's daughter Marissa (Teri Copley) & try to discover the whereabouts of the book & return it before it falls into evil hands. Before long Dexter has contacted Marissa who has, by coincidence, received a telegram from Victor Von Helsing (Ace Mask (!?)) informing her that her Father is dead & she needs to travel to Transylvania to claim her inheritance. Marissa & Dexter travel to a foreboding castle where they are greeted by Marissa's sinister uncle Lord Byron (Robert Vaughn) who seems very keen himself to get his hands on the Book of Ulthar...Directed by Jim Wynorski (whose very name sends shivers down my spine when I hear it in connection with a film I'm about to watch) before he started to hide under his usual 'Jay Andrews' pseudonym Transylvania Twist is definitely one of his better efforts & is in it's own silly way a decent film. The script by R.J. Robertson obviously doesn't take itself seriously & is a sort of Naked Gun style spoof of the horror genre. The gags & one-liners come thick & fast & to be fair to everyone involved a lot of it is actually quite amusing, I don't think there are many (if any) scenes which will have you rolling around on the floor in stitches but I must admit a fair amount of the film brought a smile to my face. It's a fun homage that doesn't try to be offencive like the Scary Movie films, it relies on visual gags & silliness but in a more playful vein. A lot of the films works, a TV advertisement in which a coffin salesman cracks lots of cheesy jokes for instance or the scene set in the local Transylvanian pub where everyone is called Hans, much hilarity ensues with puns & misunderstandings like 'Hans Up', 'Hans Down' & 'Hans Full', I know it's bad but it raised a chuckle & it's not that bad. The story itself is inconsequential & secondary to the comedy, there really isn't anything to it. Stick around until after the cast credits have gone at the end as you'll find out what happened to the angry village mob.Director Wynorski made this back in '90 when he actually cared & wasn't ashamed to use his own name on the credits, these days the guys a hack who churns out low budget crap of the worst kind & steals huge chunks of footage from other films (he only steals a few minutes here) & edits it into his own. The film is very well made & has a great atmosphere to it, the sets are actually pretty impressive. Loads of horror films are parodied, paid homage to & taken the mickey out of, The Exorcist (1973) complete with green puke, Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dracula (1931), a Phantasm (1979) spoof which features Angus Scrimm (who starred in the Phantasm films) throwing his silver ball at our heroes who run off screen for a second only to come back on wearing baseball gear & have a quick game of baseball with the deadly sphere narrated by Stu Nahan (is he a big commentator in the Staes?), it has cameos from the likes of Leatherface, Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, Pinhead & it even features the cucumber alien monster from Roger Corman's (who was executive producer here) sci-fi film It Conquered the World (1956). Too many here to mention individually though & I'm sure many horror fans could have some fun recognising them all.Technically the film is pretty good, in fact it's rather impressive with nice production values throughout. The acting was OK & they even manage to include Boris Karloff as some footage of him is edited into a conversation with Dexter.Transylvania Twist is a surprisingly likable & amusing horror spoof, I doubt anyone would want to see it more than once & I also think to get the most out of the homages, references & the film as a whole you should have at least some sort of interest in the horror genre. Much better than expected & worth a watch.

stu-67 This movie is so incredibly stupid, but it's still one of the most enjoyable films I have ever seen. It is one of those ridiculous movies where everything that happens is totally silly and whacked out.The plot revolves around a guy named Dexter Ward,who works for a library and must search out the Book of Ulthar which is 200 years overdue. That concept alone pretty much tells what the rest of the movie is like. The characters are all a little odd to say the least, like Victor van Helsing, the fearless vampire hunter, played by the B-Grade actor extraordinare Ace Mask. One of the more amusing scenes features a flashback to van Helsing's youth, in which the child portraying him has a moustache and gets in trouble at school for staking one of his classmates (who just happens to be a vampire dressed in a little Dracula-type costume). I also liked the part where van Helsing is talking about a book that caused two brothers to never speak to one another again. When asked what that book was, he replied that it was either the Book of Ulthar or the latest Jackie Collins novel. Robert Vaughn is enjoyable also with his over-the-top acting that made him such a favorite with Roger Corman fans.This movie is so much fun on so many levels. The comedy is so crazy that half the time you're laughing at the hilarious acting and dialogue and the other half of the time you're laughing at the sheer stupidity of what is supposed to be funny.I definitely recommend this movie to fans of Roger Corman flicks and fans of the Zucker and Abrahams movies.THIS MOVIE IS A CLASSIC!