Customer Reviews

Transylvania 6-5000

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

When my parents first bought a reconditioned top loading VCR in the late eighties, the video store had four films to rent; Legend, Driller Killer, The Magic Toyshop and Transylvania 65000. My views on the film might be slightly clouded by the fact that I watched this film approximately once a week for 3 years. It is worth buying for the Butler/Doll scene alone. There's also a brilliant slipping-on-a-banana gag. I would recommend it highly. My Dad doesn't laugh at many films but he was streaming with tears and boogers at this one (once a week for 3 years).

Transylvania 6-5000 is one of the funniest comedies ever done. With Jeff Goldblum and Ed Begely Jr. and other hilarious actors the laughs and gags continue without an end.

The movie is about two reporters who are asigned to Transylvania to write a monster story. Upon their arival they run into the craziest of characters like Faojs the castle butler, (Michael Richards) the mayor, (Jeffery Jones) and servent's Radu and Lupi (John Byner & Carol Kane)

While staying in the castle they find more than they came looking for like a vampier countess that enjoys "necking" (Geena Davis) the sane/insane Dr. Malavaqua (Joseph Bologna) and many more.

The movie is filled with funny one-liners and great comic acts. It'll have you laughing until it hurts!

Please don't press play with the expectation of doing any higher learning. Just go with it. I, too, recall this one fondly from my childhood and I couldn't wait for it to be released on DVD. The early appearance by Michael "Cosmo Kramer" Richards is worth the purchase price by itself, not to mention Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis in roles they might rather forget. All that notwithstanding, my favorite two characters have to be Lupi and Radu. What a marriage!

I think this is a classic for all horror movie lovers. It is a parady of most Monster-horror movies made in the early part of the 20th century. If you Like movies such as Airplane! , Hysterical, Young Frankentein, Top Secret, Earth Girls are Easy, or the Files from Police Squad, this is another movie you need to have, or need to see.

Transylvania 6-5000! Jeff Goldblum plays straight-man tabloid reporter to child-like partner Ed Begley Jr. in this hilarious monster-movie spoof, as they are sent on a mission to Transylvania to uncover the truth about a suspicious videotape that allegedly features the real Frankenstein monster! As enthusiastic Gil (Begley Jr.) pursues the story, skeptical Jack (Goldblum) pursues a lovely American tourist with a small daughter. Everything seems to be calm and quaint in the charming and very hospitable Transylvanian village, but, once the two reporters begin to work together, they discover there is more to the sleepy little town than meets the eye! There are physical gags and witty banter aplenty in this fantastically 80's style take on "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein," complete with Jeffrey Jones as the Mayor, John Byner and Carol Kane as dimwitted servants, and Joseph Bologna as the mad doctor. All contribute laughs by the cartful, but it's Geena Davis and Seinfeld's Michael Richards who really steal the show as a nymphomaniac vampiress named Odette and Fejos, the token brute. Those of you who cherish the comedy teams of yester-year will get a kick out of the chemistry between Goldblum and Begley Jr., and they'll make you wish that films like this (and "Brain Donors") were more successful.

As for DVD details, I personally own the double feature disc with "Elvira: Mistress of the Dark" on the flip-side, which is the one I recommend picking up considering the price (and that I find both films hilarious for the witching season, or anytime). If you aren't interested in Elvira though, this version seems to have all the same extras (assuming it has the theatrical trailers too, which Amazon does not have listed with the other extras, though it would be odd if they are not included). The commentary by the director/writer and visual consultant is quite informative and enjoyable, the trailers and TV spots are a kick, and the DVD even includes galleries of storyboards and stills. Not at all bad for a great movie at a great price! One would have expected something bare bones for such a film, but Anchor Bay really delivered. So, if you're in the mood for good Abbott and Costello style laughs with a Transylvanian touch, just call "Transylvania 6-5000!"

This movie is one of the few minor horror comedies I watched when I was six years old that still holds up today while I'm almost twenty-two.I recommend the DVD for the stories director Rudy DeLuca tells about how he'd wanted Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari for Goldblum and Begley's respective parts but New World didn't know Tom Hanks (Hah!) And how Ed Begley recommended his good friend Michael Richards for the part of Fejos and Richards ad-libbed almost everything that he did.

My personal favorite line, after Geena Davis' lady Dracula attacks Ed Begley's character:

Begley: Do you smell perfume?

Goldblum: Yes! And I know what was in this room!

Begley: What?

Goldblum: The Creature from Estee Lauder!

After reading a bunch of Leonard Maltin's reviews, i can only come to the conclusion that this man has no sense of humour. This movie is not 'un' funny at all. Yeah it is stupid, but so are most comdey movies. It is a great, monster spoof with some really great actors, including michael richards, carol cane, ed begley, jeff goldblum and gina davis. i'm hoping for it to be released on dvd. rent this and enjoy it!

So you're a huge, multinational corporation like Dow Chemical, and you're trying to unfreeze some assets from an eastern European country, but due to some strange legal rigmarole, the money can only be spent within the country of origin...so what do you do? Finance a movie! And, apparently that's how this film, Transylvania 6-5000 (1985), came about, at least according to information found on The Internet Movie Database. Written and directed by Rudy De Luca (Silent Movie, High Anxiety, Caveman), this Yugoslavian production stars Jeff Goldblum (Silverado, The Fly) and Ed Begley Jr. (Best in Show, A Mighty Wind). Also appearing is Joseph Bologna (Blame It on Rio, The Woman in Red), Carol Kane (The Princess Bride), Jeffrey Jones (Howard the Duck, Beetle Juice), John Byner, voice of the ant and the aardvark from the Pink Panther cartoons, Michael Richards ("Fridays", "Seinfeld"), Teresa Ganzel (The Toy, National Lampoon Goes to the Movies), Donald `Ogre' Gibb (Revenge of the Nerds, Meatballs Part II), Norman Fell ("Three's Company"), and MENSA member Geena Davis (Fletch, The Fly, Thelma & Louise)...an interesting note, it was while working together on this film Goldblum and Davis fell in love, eventually getting married in 1987 (and then divorced in 1990).

Jack Harrison (Goldblum) and Gil Turner (Begley) work for a tabloid rag. Their editor (Fell), after receiving an amateur video featuring what might be Frankenstein's monster attacking a tourist, sends the boys to Transylvania to get the story. Jack, who aspires to be a real journalist someday, thinks it's a hoax, but Gil's all onboard primarily because his father's the editor. The boys arrive in the quaint, picturesque town, but their inquires regarding monsters only elicit laughter from the residents. Also, it seems the town has become somewhat of a tourist attraction, so much so the mayor (Jones) is in the process of turning a castle into hotel. Gil busies himself investigating possible leads, while Jack proceeds to put the moves on a recently divorced buxom blonde tourist name Elizabeth (Ganzel), who's there with her young daughter. Gil's persistence eventually turns up something with regards to a local man named Dr. Malavaqua (Bologna), who has an undetermined relationship with the mayor and the chief of police. Eventually some monsters do turn up, Elizabeth's daughter goes missing, and Jack and Gil find themselves in the middle of a real...well, for lack of a better phrase, creature feature...will they return with a fantastic story? Or will they themselves become the story? It's all out monsterific mayhem in the vein of those Abbot and Costello monster/comedies of the 40s and 50s, only not quite as good...

This is a really silly film, and kinda fun, if you're not expecting a lot. Imagine a Mel Brooks film, only nowhere near as humorous. Actually, this really did feel like a Mel Brooks film, probably due to the fact writer/director De Luca wrote a number of screenplays for Brooks, including Silent Movie (1976), High Anxiety (1977), Life Stinks (1991), and Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995), along with appearing in the features, usually in a bit part (as he does in this film). As I said, the comedy really isn't that funny, but more akin to schtick comedy you'd come across being performed in a Catskills resort. The most notable aspect of this film for me was Ms. Davis and her Grand Tetons. Her minor role as Odette, the nymphet vampire included wearing an extremely low cut (to her navel) outfit that showed off not only her twins, but also her long legs...homina homina...there's a pretty screwy collection of characters here including Richards as a butler/brute/idiot named Fejos, Byner and Kane as a married hunchbacked servants Radu and Lupi (sans the hunchback...they bent over a lot to give the impression of being hunchbacked), Gibb as the Wolfman, Bologna as the seemingly normal doctor who goes into mad scientist mode whenever he enters his secret laboratory (perhaps there's a touch of Jekyll and Hyde in his character), and Petar Buntic, as Hunyadi, a Frankenstein monster type. Shooting on location in Yugoslavia for a film like this certainly has its advantages, as for one thing, I bet it was cheap, and for another, it really helped set the tone. As I said, the story is very silly, and ends up falling apart shortly after it begins, and it seemed De Luca was content with letting some of the more creative performers, like Richards, Byner, and Kane, improvise rather than adhere to the script. This was probably for the best as it provides some of the best humor...Davis' character was basically a throwaway, but does rate extremely high on the ogle scale, and Bologna performed much as he does in many of his roles. As far as Begley, I thought he did really well, especially playing straight man to Richards' kookiness. And then there's Goldblum, who I personally find annoying as hell, no matter what film he's in (except, maybe for The Fly)...I just always felt he maintains this air of pretension, like he's always so much better than the movies he appears in, especially the crappier ones. And how many times can he trot the quirky, `eccentric', wisecracking, womanizing character bit before it becomes old (not too many, for me)? Actually, I don't think it's a bit, but how he is in real life. Anyway, pardon my rant...as I said, the story pretty much falls apart early on, and after that you're just killing time, waiting for the next humorous moment to come along. My favorite bit occurred late in the movie, as Begley's character, strapped to a gurney, is trying to get free. He asks Davis' overly amorous character to undo one of the buckles, to which she starts working on the one holding his pants up and he cries, "Not my belt!"...it's much funnier on the screen. You can undo my belt, Ms Davis, anytime...homina homina...another couple of good bits were when Goldblum's character was `helping' Begley's character get into, and then out of, the sanitarium, for investigational purposes. All in all this is a goofy, forgettable film with a few, good laughs, but not really worth going out of your way to see unless you have a real Jones to see Geena Davis poured into a sexy Dominatrix-like outfit...sadly, there's no full on baring of mammary here, which is a shame as Davis and Ganzel could bring home the bacon, and fry it up in a pan, if you know what I mean...and I think you do...

The widescreen (1.85:1) picture, enhanced for 16X9 TVs, looks very good and the Dolby Digital mono comes through well on this Anchor Bay Entertainment DVD release. Special features include an entertaining, but subdued, audio commentary track featuring writer/director De Luca and visual consultant Steven Haberman, two theatrical trailers for the film, three TV spots, original storyboard artwork, a still gallery, and a 5X7 insert card containing a detailed reproduction of an original poster for the film, and chapter stops for the DVD on the flipside.

Cookieman108

By the way, during the commentary, De Luca mentions he originally wanted Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari, who previously worked together on the TV show "Bosom Buddies"...the studio executives apparently didn't want to take a chance on an unknown, at the time, like Hanks...hindsight is, as they say 20/20...

I hadn't watched this film before because I'd been swayed by Leonard Maltin's shortest ever film review on Entertainment Tonight: after bobbing his head to a few seconds of the Glenn Miller Orchestra, he just said, "'Transylvania 6-5000.' Stinks." (IMDB says he said 'Stunk,' but I remember him saying 'Stinks.')

I finally rented the DVD after enjoying Jeff Goldblum's performance in "Pittsburgh." If you see "Transylvania 6-5000," I recommend watching "Pittsburgh" if you haven't already, and vice-versa.

The director, Rudy De Luca worked on several Mel Brooks films, and at times this feels likes a cross between Brooks' "Young Frankenstein" and Merrie Melodies' "Transylvania 6-5000" Bugs Bunny cartoon from 1963. I laughed more than I did during Brooks' mid-eighties films; I especially appreciated the surgeon who says "you don't lobotomy, I don't lobotoyou" and the newspaper editor's confusion about a Rope Factory.

I forgot to listen to the audio commentary before I returned the disc. I wanted to find out more about what DOW chemical company had to do with the film. IMDB mentions DOW funded the film to make use of frozen finances in Yugoslavia.

Two news magazine reporters (Jeff Goldblum and Ed Begley, Jr.) are brought to modern day Transylvania to shed light on the possible reality of Frankenstein roaming its countryside. While there, they encounter what may be the Wolfman, the Mummy, and other legendary creatures that once only existed in stories. Great chemistry between the two leads, and a great cast of oddball characters make this '80s comedy, with a slight twist of comedic suspense, and one that doesn't take itself seriously, a whole lot of fun.