tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3264128934766008488.post8793888500568289074..comments2023-06-21T03:40:54.829-07:00Comments on Classic Horror Lives: Love at first Bite movie reviewjwgumbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01927723588001266746noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3264128934766008488.post-70559984857329664092011-06-01T11:03:29.269-07:002011-06-01T11:03:29.269-07:00"Love at First Bite" is a comedy classic..."Love at First Bite" is a comedy classic that was a trifle misunderstood in its day. As you may recall, the film received mixed reviews when it came out. I think a lot of people were expecting a broad Mel Brooks farce(nothing against Mel Brooks, incidentally). While the opening of the film seems in Mel Brooks territory(and Arte Johnson's performance wouldn't have seemed out of place in a Mel Brooks film), the movie hits its stride in the American sequences. Instead of being broadly farcical, it is in fact satirizing the banality, vulgarity, and emptiness of late twentieth century American culture. It's not Nabokov by any means, but it definitely has its moments. Again and again, the Old World Dracula(who tries so studiously to get 'with it' to little avail) is contrasted with the brash vulgarity of American culture. When Dracula falls in love with an American model(the actress's performance here is so charmingly vulgar), it is almost as if the filmmakers were parodying the Freudian idea of one always overestimating your loved one(hey, it's part of the Human Comedy). George Hamilton's performance is spot-on, flawless. Richard Benjamin gives a sly, wonderful performance as the psychiatrist/Van Helsing. The scene where the psychiatrist pulls a Star of David on Dracula and the staring/hypnotizing contest between the psychiatrist and Dracula are surely classic. Satirical points are also made in the film about some topical matters(e.g., the brownouts and blackouts in New York at the time), about uneasy American race relations, and, in a genial way, the essential underlying anomie of American culture. And the closing line in this film is one of the classic closing lines in all comedy - it just cracks me right up. Too bad the DVD replaced "I Will Survive" with another disco song - the original was so much more appropriate in so many different ways. If you haven't seen this, you have a comic delight awaiting you...Greg Cameron, Surrey, B.C., CanadaGreg Cameronnoreply@blogger.com