FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Siflutter It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Abbigail Bush what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

t_atzmueller Transylvania, 1770: young, beautiful Hermine is on her way to meet her fiancé, but her coach is intercepted by the minions of a nameless vampire-count. She soon finds herself not only the interest of said count but, before being turned into a vampire herself, pregnant with his child. Soon after giving birth to her son Ferdinand, Hermine accidentally succumbs to the rising sun, leaving the count to raise his son on his own. Alas, Ferdinand is not only a reluctant vampire but a bit of a goof, who's rather help people rather than suck the blood out of them. In the mid 1970's a lot has changed: Romania is now under communist rule and the vampires have to abandon their castle, trying to seek refuge in the West. Unfortunately, due to a botched burial at sea (naturally the two gentlemen travel via coffins), father and son get separated. Ferdinand lands in France, where some friendly Arab guest-works take him under their wings and he is forced to "make a living" as good as he can. The elder vampire is more fortunate, landing in England, where he soon is discovered by a film-company as leading man in vampire-movies. Eventually father and son reunite, but the harmony only lasts that long, after falling in love with the same woman (who happens to be the spitting-image of Hermine).French comedies are not everybody's cup of tea, especially among the English-speaking audience, which has less to do with the humoristic quality than the (usually) horrible dubbing that (usually) sucks the last grain of charm out of the films. However, especially here in Germany, one virtually grew up with the comedies of Claude Zidi, Louis de Funes, Pierre Richard and countless other comedians and directors.Director Edouard Molinaro (a veteran of the comedic genre, who would later produce the celebrated "The Birdcage"; the original as well as the American remake) obviously understood that a Horror-Comedy doesn't necessarily means spoof a la "Dracula – Dead and Loving It" or "Love at First Bite". Rather he combines elements of the classic Hammer-Horror-flicks and harmless, often satirizing French comedies into one entity. The mix works rather well. There are moments of chill and gloom, especially during the first quarter of the film, set in Transylvania, despite better knowledge that you're watching a comedy. The jokes are generally subtle, satirizing the genre but never venturing into slapstick. To mention just a few examples: the vampires being driven from their castle with a hammer and sickle turned makeshift crucifix, Ferdinand being forced donate blood after being caught trying to feed at a blood-bank or the Count accidentally biting into the neck of a sex-doll (the incredulous, undignified look at Lees face is worth the price of admission alone).Sir Christopher Lee seems to have a ball with his performance, which seems a little surprising since the actors disdain for having been typecast for years in the role is legendary (and this was his 10th outing as the blood-thirsty count). Indeed, Lee only accepted the role under the condition that the name Dracula would not be mentioned and that his "Count" - a Baron in the original version - should be a completely different figure. The director honored that wish - the distributing companies didn't, as we can see from the title (and in the English dub he is even identified as Dracula by name). But at least Lee pulls his full repertoire: He can be regal, charming, even amiable, is able to show his comedic talent (which has often been neglected in other movies) and, as to be expected, is at the same time raise some scares when necessary. Not to mention, Lee has more lines in this film than in all his Hammer-Draculas combined, which may have been a factor of comfort.I'll end the review with a word of warning: if you come across this film in it's English dubbed version, save your time and money. What this hack job of synchronization has done to the movie can only be described with the German word "kaputt". Not only are the speakers completely incapable, managing to make Ferdinand sound like some dorky version of Woody Allen, but much of the dialog has been changed completely, making it seems like your watching some vulgar sex-comedy from the 70's. As if to add insult to injury, Vladimir Cosmas atmospheric, excellent soundtrack has been deleted and replaced with some silly Disco-tunes. Do yourself a favor and stick to the French version (if need be with subtitles) or, if necessary, the German-dub, which catches the original spirit rather well and has some excellent speakers.8/10

MARIO GAUCI Two years after Christopher Lee claims he swore off horror, Hammer and, most importantly, his signature role of Count Dracula, we find him donning that very famous cape once again for this largely forgotten but surprisingly agreeable Gallic spoof. Thankfully, the print I came across is an extremely good-looking one emanating from Germany that is, unfortunately, accompanied by frankly awful English subtitles (that often do not even bother to translate the intermittent German title cards!) which soon forced me to rely on my knowledge of the French language acquired in high school all those years ago; ironically, I managed to acquire a corrected set of subtitles soon after I finished this first viewing of the film! Having said that, the film occasionally lapses into Romanian (during the early Transylvanian sequences), English (when Dracula is picked up at sea by a British vessel and lands in that country) and Arabic (when Dracula Jr. is taken in by a bunch of them upon first disembarking on French soil) and, while it runs for a slightly overstaying 93 minutes in the PAL-sourced print I watched, it was reportedly much re-edited when cut down to 79 minutes for its Americanized English-language version (the end result got saddled with a *½ rating on the Leonard Maltin movie guide)! Ultimately, the film serves to show that, even at 54 years, Lee owns the role of the Prince of Darkness (essaying it here for the last time even if the name Dracula is never actually uttered) and it was an added pleasure hearing him speak his lines in perfectly fluent French! Indeed, there are a steady flow of funny lines and situations to be found in the film: Lee to his child, "Ferdinand, finish your blood and go to bed!" and "Ferdinand, don't play bowling with your mother's ashes"; Dracula's son as an adult – played by Bernard Menez (who had appeared in TENDER Dracula itself 2 years earlier) is so hesitant in plying his trade that, when he is sent by his father to bite an old gypsy woman in the woods, he ends up helping out with the cart she had been laboriously pushing behind her!; Lee is at a loss for words, when about to be thrown into the sea in a closed casket, as to how they will manage to reach the surface; the elder vampire bumps into the glass door of a modern British building when chasing after a prospective victim; French character actor Raymond Bussieres offering Menez a bite to eat in a train station when the latter's blood-starved stomach starts to make its hunger heard; the son bites into a frozen corpse during a day job in a mortuary and is later sickened by the sheer overdose of blood available for him to sample in an abattoir; their luggage is amusingly coffin-shaped; Dracula Jr. dumps his father's coffin out of a hotel window in a fit of rage; Lee is taken into police custody (when daylight is imminent) after being suspected of lewd acts in a car!; humiliatingly, he is also being made to advertise toothpaste on TV commercials; Lee pulls up his sheets in embarrassment when surprised by his young new conquest in his coffin, etc.It goes without saying that this was not the first comic treatment of Dracula on celluloid nor would it be the last – LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT (1979; with George Hamilton at his suavest), FRACCHIA CONTRO Dracula (1985; starring beloved Italian comedian Paolo Villaggio and Edmund Purdom as Dracula) and Mel Brooks' Dracula: DEAD AND LOVING IT (1995; starring Leslie Nielsen) – and, in fact. Lee himself had already sent the vampiric Count up in a much-earlier Italian spoof starring Renato Rascel, TEMPI DURI PER I VAMPIRI aka UNCLE WAS A VAMPIRE (1959) but, what I found surprising here is the fact that, much like Roman Polanski's own somewhat heavy-handed spoof of the genre, THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS (1967), this flawlessly replicates (at least in the scenes set in Transylvania) the Gothic atmosphere of a Hammer Horror, down to a full-blooded (pardon the pun) music score by Vladimir Cosma; notably, the makeshift cross – formed by peasants from a hammer and sickle a' la Michael Reeves' THE SHE-BEAST (1966) – is not only able to hold vampires at bay here but also set them ablaze! Unfortunately, the predictably upbeat ending is somewhat rushed with Lee meeting his demise in the way of his comeuppance in Hammer's first Dracula picture and Menez finding himself cured during a train journey merely by abstaining himself from drinking blood for so long…or perhaps through the power of love since, at the very end of the film we find him, father to a brood of children (one of whom bares his fangs in the closing freeze frame!) with the girl (Marie-Helene Breillat who, rather foolishly, does not believe the vampire lore, even if both father and son keep harping on it) who had been the object of contention between the titular characters throughout the film. The actress was married to director Edouard Molinaro (still a couple of years away from making his cross-dressing international hit, LA CAGE AUX FOLLES) at the time and her younger sister, controversial film-maker Catherine, has her last acting job for 16 years here (prophetically, we think she is being bitten but is actually getting it on with Lee in his coffin in an early scene from the film)!

Hartmut Berger Contains SpoilersThe original running time is a bit unclear, several sources give 110 min. The version I got to see (not the American one) is 94 min but shows no obvious holes/cuts.This is in my opinion one of the few successful comedic takes on the Dracula myth (please note that the name 'Dracula' doesn't occur anywhere in the film, Lee is just 'The Count' and plays his part totally straight(he actually protested against the the title)).Start of Spoilers Starting quite like a standard Hammer film it quickly turns a strange way resulting in the Count being responsible for a baby. After several time jumps (signified by the turning of a book's pages) passing through mischievous childhood and shy young adulthood Ferdinand and his father are literally driven away by hammer and sickle and find themselves in France (son) and England (father). Lee turns horror actor(!), Menez becomes an exploited night-watchman. Reunited at last both are interested in a young woman who tries to engage Lee for a toothpaste commercial. Now the film turns pure slapstick until only one remains standing. Jump to the next generation and some new toothing problems. End of SpoilersInterestingly there are only few overt gags, most of the time the film is quite realistic (how do you make a living when sunlight kills you and your diet is unconventional?). The different solutions for the coffin problem are ingenious. The comedy results primarily from people's reaction to our couple first hiding less than successfully their true nature and then openly declaring it ('That is my traveling coffin!'). Look out early in the film for the author of a book about vampires!If possible watch the French language version (subtitled if necessary).

MarioB Count Dracula had a son, by the name of Ferdinand. He's a shy and a good nature young man, not very happy to be a vampire. He don't want to bite people because he don't want to hurt them. So he bites rats and cats. His father becomes a movie star - playing, of course, a vampire - and fells in love with a young woman who reminds him his wife. But Ferdinand's in love with the girl too and don't want his father to bite the woman. Fun story of black humour, with great Christopher Lee making fun of his famous role of Dracula. But images are a little bit too dark and sometimes there's dull moments. Watch for funny lines like: Ferndinand, finish your blood and go to bed. Or : Ferdinand, don't play bowling with your mothers ashes. Good bloody fun could have been better, but it's pleasant to watch,