New movie reviews, DVD reviews, interviews, and all things film.

Follow Me

• Ajami ***
• The Girl on the Train ***
• Greenberg **1/2
• Mother
• Repo Men **1/2
• The Runaways
• More

• Armored
• Astro Boy
• Broken Embraces
• Dillinger Is Dead
• Fallen Angels (Blu-Ray)
• The Fourth Kind
• Ninja Assassin
• The Princess and the Frog
• Undead: The Vampire Collection
• Wonderful World
• The 25 Best DVDs of 2009
• More

• 2009: The Year's Ten Best Films
• The Decade's Ten Best Films: 2000-2009
• My 2003 Interview with Brittany Murphy
• San Francisco Film Critics Circle Awards 2009
• Richard Linklater
• John Woo
• Jared and Jerusha Hess
• Essential Halloween Movies
• Michael Stuhlbarg
• Jane Campion
• Bobcat Goldthwait
• Hugh Dancy
• Kathryn Bigelow
• Willem Dafoe: The 2009 CineVegas Interview
• David Carradine
• A 2002 Interview with Edward Asner
• Vinessa Shaw
• Henry Selick
• 2008: The Year's Ten Best Films
• The San Francisco Film Critics Circle Awards 2008
• The 25 Best DVDs of 2008
• Bruce Campbell
• Darren Aronofsky and Marisa Tomei
• Josh Brolin
• A Tribute to Paul Newman
• Steve Coogan on Hamlet 2
• Manny Farber (1917-2008)
• Bernie Mac (1957-2008)
• Emily Mortimer
• Brad Anderson
• Don Cheadle at CineVegas
• Abel Ferrara at CineVegas
• Tina Sinatra
• My Top 100 Films [Updated]
• My Top 60 Directors [Updated]
• The Top 50 Movies of the Past Ten Years (1997-2006)
• Terry Zwigoff on the new Bad Santa Director's Cut
• Alfonso Cuarón Interview
• Guillermo Del Toro Interview
• Christmas Movies
• Combustible Celluloid's Big Guide to Halloween & Horror Movies
• Cult Movies
• Actress Interview Gallery
• The Top 100
• More Features and Interviews

• Not Quite a Memoir: Of Films, Books, the World, by Judy Stone
• James Agee: The Library of America Collection, by James Agee
• Just Making Movies, by Ronald L. Davis
• Guide to Essential Movies, by Joe Leydon
• Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood, by Robert S. Birchard
• Profoundly Disturbing, by Joe Bob Briggs
• A Third Face, by Samuel Fuller
• Dark Lover, by Emily Leider
• Agee on Film, by James Agee
• Lulu in Hollywood, by Louise Brooks
• Negative Space, by Manny Farber
• 5001 Nights at the Movies, by Pauline Kael
• More Books

• Home
• Reviews A-C
• Reviews D-F
• Reviews G-J
• Reviews K-M
• Reviews N-Q
• Reviews R-T
• Reviews U-Z

The online film magazine Combustible Celluloid offers new movie reviews, DVD reviews, film reviews, actor interviews, actress interviews, director interviews, film books and all things cinema related for the thoughtful and passionate. Online for ten years! Over 3000 reviews!

SEARCH MOVIES / CELEB

Transylmania (2009)

Rating: 0 Stars

Toothless

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy Posters at Moviegoods.com

All of the so-called jokes in Transylmania are either vulgar or juvenile, consisting of sex, foul language, drugs, stereotypes or noisy bodily functions. It's a completely horrible and often vile collection of idiotic, annoying characters, some haphazard plotting and filmmaking, and little else. It has no artistic or social value, and it contains not one laugh. A group of teens travel to Romania for a semester abroad. There, they learn of an ancient vampire called Radu who hopes to restore the body of his loved one to life, but her soul is trapped in a lost music box. One of the teens finds the box, his girlfriend becomes possessed by the spirit of the vampire queen, and suddenly vampires swarm the school. To make matters worse, Radu looks exactly like Rusty, another of the teens on the trip. Meanwhile, a mad scientist decapitates a girl in order to find a replacement body for his hunchbacked daughter. During all this, the rest of the teens are mainly interested in partying and sex. Fortunately, teacher/vampire hunter Teodora van Sloan (Musetta Vander) is on the job. Its extreme subject matter aims the movie at older teens, but viewers in this age group will find it far too stupid for their sensibilities. Unfortunately, pre-teens and younger teens will want to see it, even if they have to buy a ticket for some other movie and sneak into this one. Our only hope is that the movie -- which has been on the shelf for two years prior to its rushed release -- will burn out quickly and fade away quietly.

[Please also see my more in-depth review at Common Sense Media.]

With: Patrick Cavanaugh, James DeBello, Tony Denman, Paul H. Kim, Jennifer Lyons, Oren Skoog, David Steinberg, Musetta Vander, Irena A. Hoffman, Natalie Garza, Nicole Garza
Written by: Patrick Casey, Worm Miller
Directed by: David Hillenbrand, Scott Hillenbrand
MPAA Rating: R for crude and sexual content, nudity, drug use, language and some violence
Running Time: 92 minutes
Date: December 4, 2009