"Children of the night, shut up!"

Love at First Bite directed by Stan Dragoti was definitely the funniest, if not the cheesiest, vampire film I have ever seen in my life. Of course, just by the title alone, I wasn't expecting it to be anything profound. I was surprised, however, to find how corny and cliched this movie truly was. I'm usually not a fan of comedy movies, but I did find myself actually laughing out loud when I was watching Love at First Bite. The script was a little strange at times, however, the actors and the characters were really lovable and engaging. If you haven't already seen this movie, I definitely recommend it if you're in the mood for something silly.

It's to be noted that this movie isn't a direct adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula. It does, however, make a ton of references to the original novel throughout the movie. The film follows Count Dracula himself living with his eccentric servant Renfiled in his infamous castle. However, he is promptly kicked out of his abode and he and Renfiled move to New York City to continue their lives. Dracula is infatuated with a popular model by the name of Cindy Sondheim, for she is the reincarnation of his one true love - Mina Harker. The movie focuses mainly on the progression of Dracula and Cindy's relationship and the obstacles they need to face in the name of love. One of these obstacles being Dr. Rosenburg, a descendant of Van Helsing himself (of course) who is out the expose Dracula as the monster he is. It was very interesting and amusing to see how many Dracula references were actually packed into this movie. 

As I had mentioned earlier, the "Mina Harker character" in this movie was represented by Cindy Sondheim. (pictured above) Her character was very interesting to me and she really caught my eye from the very beginning. To say the least, she is definitely much different than her Dracula counterpart. Cindy is a well-known model that is well acquainted with the "simple pleasures" in life. She loves alcohol, drugs, and sex and she is definitely not shy in making it known to the people she comes into contact with. During her her visit with her psychiatrist, she happily goes into great detail to Dr. Rosenburg about her encounter with Dracula, and how erotic their time together was. She is also very quick to casually offer alcohol and drugs to Dracula during their first night together. Overall, Cindy is a a very open and liberated woman. She does what makes her happy and she isn't afraid to say what's on her mind, no matter how off-beat it may be. However, despite this, I feel as if this movie also makes her seem a bit stereotypical in the way she is portrayed.

While watching this movie, I was a little disappointed in how easily Cindy fell for Dracula. At first when they talked, she seemed very unimpressed with the Count. But after an extremely cheesy, straight out of the 70's quick dance montage, she fell head over heels for him and invited him to her apartment. Though love in movies usually isn't very deep, I found this to be almost insulting to this otherwise empowering character, making her seem "easy." Of course, I may just be reading too far into this. This movie, after all, is a comedy. We could easily justify this encounter as being "true love at first sight." However, I just received a bit of a negative vibe with the way Cindy as well as her sexuality was portrayed in this movie. Her sexual prowess seemed to be used in a comical way during a majority of this movie. 

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Overall, I thought this was a very good movie and I really enjoyed watching it. I really loved the parallels that this movie made to the original story of Dracula. I thought this movie was really clever and I feel like the comedy was spot on. George Hamilton is also a very handsome Dracula. This movie isn't as much about vampires as it is about romance. However, over all, it is a very entertaining film for horror and comedy fans alike. If you want to watch a vampire movie that isn't very deep, this movie will definitely leave you feeling satisfied.