‘Your favorite pain in the neck is about to bite your funny bone!’
Love at First Bite is a 1979 American horror comedy film directed by Stan Dragoti from a screenplay by Robert Kaufman, using characters originally created by Bram Stoker.
The movie stars George Hamilton, Susan Saint James, Richard Benjamin (Saturday the 14th) and Arte Johnson.
The original music score was composed by Charles Bernstein.
Plot:
Count Dracula is expelled from his castle by the Communist government of Romania, which plans to convert the structure into a training facility for gymnasts (the head trainer declares that it will include Nadia Comăneci). The world-weary Count travels to New York City with his bug-eating manservant, Renfield, and establishes himself in a hotel.
While Dracula learns that America contains such wonders as blood banks, sex clubs, and discotheques, he also proceeds to suffer the general ego-crushing that comes from living in the Big Apple in the late 1970s as he romantically pursues flaky fashion model Cindy Sondheim, whom he has admired from afar and believes to be the current reincarnation of his true love.
Dracula is ineptly pursued in turn by Sondheim’s psychiatrist and quasi-boyfriend Jeffrey Rosenberg. Jeffrey is the grandson of Dracula’s old nemesis Fritz (sic) van Helsing but changed his name to Rosenberg “for professional reasons”. Rosenberg’s numerous methods to combat Dracula – mirrors, garlic, a Star of David (which he uses instead of the cross), and hypnosis – are easily averted by the Count. Rosenberg also tries burning Dracula’s coffin with the vampire still inside but is arrested by hotel security.
Subsequently, he tries to shoot him with three silver bullets, but Dracula remains unscathed, patiently explaining that this works only on werewolves. Rosenberg’s increasingly erratic actions eventually cause him to be locked up as a lunatic, but as mysterious cases of blood-bank robberies and vampiric attacks begin to spread, NYPD Lieutenant Ferguson starts to believe the psychiatrist’s claims and gets him released…
” …a coarse, delightful little movie with a bang-up cast and no pretensions at all […] Sometimes tackiness works to the film’s advantage […] If you’re going to show a bat on screen, it might as well be a silly-looking stuffed bat suspended from obvious wires. Some of the film’s ethnic jokes skate by on very thin ice.” The New York Times, April 13th 1979
“Atrociously directed and full of groan-making jokes, but the cast are having such a good time that it’s difficult not to respond in a similar way. See it when you feel at your silliest.” Time Out magazine, 1979
“It’s a fun notion and George Hamilton makes it work. In the first place, he’s funny just to watch […] Director Stan Dragoti keeps the chuckles coming, spaced by a few good guffaws.” Variety, December 31st 1978
Trailer:
Dracula’s disco moves clip:
Free online on YouTube:
Choice dialogue:
George Hamilton [Count Dracula]: Shh! Children of the night, shut up!
Doctor Jeff Rosenberg [Richard Benjamin]: “Not funny, lieutenant. Horrible! Messy! Unspeakable!”
Technical specs:
1 hour 36 minutes
Audio: Mono
Aspect ratio: 1.85: 1
