Turn around. A young man named Dexter Ward arrives at the funeral of his librarian uncle, who in the middle of the ceremony suddenly changed his mind to die, rose from the coffin with orders to his nephew to find a certain Marisa Orlac, go with her to her father Count Marius Orlac and take from him an old book, which the librarian frivolously gave him 20 years ago. The book, the notorious Necronomicon, turned out to be the gateway to evil in our world and must be destroyed. Marisa turned out to be a blonde beauty, an aspiring actress and singer. Together they go to the distant Transylvania for a magical book, to meet the dangers, taking in his company Victor Van Helsing, the famous vampire hunter.
Jim Winorsky, along with his friend and teacher Roger Corman, had a huge influence on American cinema in the 80s and 90s. They shot films of various genres: horror, fiction, fantasy, adventure, detectives, eroticism, comedies. Winorsky selflessly loved the movie, the very process of its creation, worked a lot and with pleasure, because in his filmography a huge number of low-budget independent thrash, which at that time was filmed immeasurably, of various quality and subjects. But Jim Winorsky’s films were distinguished in this mass by the indispensable presence of humor, irony, some inner drive, the presence of a large number of half-naked beauties, in case of a lack of acting talent, which were completely replaced by luxurious forms and cute faces. Eroticism was given a significant place in his films, and often it was so close to the boundaries of porn that sometimes gently merged with him in the plot, filling a large part of it with itself, like a liquid in communicating vessels, regardless of genre. Winorsky believed that having beautiful women in a picture is half the success of the film, and bare female breasts on the screen is the best special effect. He used this recipe for success boldly and confidently, adding, composing and dispensing ingredients to taste and mood.
“Turn to Transylvania” is a comedy-parody cocktail, in which satirical-ironic homages are mixed to various cult and recognizable horror films of different colors, detectives, musicals, as well as actors from these films. The irony is scattered throughout the film by the generous hand of the director - the viewer, in order to notice, appreciate and understand it, must be a well-watched lover of horror films. This film is like a rebus, a maze-riddle, which you can not only watch, but also guess what film this or that scene hints at or from which film a particular character appeared.
What do you think of the mystical rituals of summoning a demon with pretentious speeches, lightning throws and stupid spells? Or Pinhead walking out of the building under the sign "Transylvanian Acupuncture" and pointing to a needle-stacked head saying, "I don't care who says what, but it hurts." Recognisably perturbed in comedy a lot. Transylvanian airport, the passenger areas of which are divided into white, red and twilight, and porters there work zombies. A ridiculous alien monster, like a barrel with a fang head and claws from the science fiction films of the 50s. Numerous thunder and lightning in the dark blue of the sky, waves of raging surf, crashing against the coastal rocks, on which there is a gloomy old castle - without these attributes, no Gothic horror film can do. Dinosaurs from Jurassic Park and werewolves howling at the moon roam the forests. Even the very introduction, in which the famous monsters Leatherface, Freddy Kruger and Jason Voorhees pursue a beautiful villager, played by the Queen of Creek Monique Gabriel, walking with a basket through the night forest, drive the poor thing into a forest hut and ... great regret about it, because it happens in Transylvania, where vampires are no less than in Brazil don Pedro. The film parodied and ridiculed common cliches and techniques of horror films, popular storylines, mise-en-scene and angles.
The castle itself is like a huge world of cinema, the numerous halls of which are the scenery of various classic horror films. There are halls of "Fantasma", where Angus Scrimm, just like in the movies, throws his deadly spheres at guests like baseballs, and outside this room he simply serves as the butler of this castle. Boris Karloff lives in his own room, bored with loneliness. There are rooms of 3D films, huge living rooms with family portraits on the walls, one of which is an exact copy of the heroine. And of course, the spirit of this lady dwells in her great-great-granddaughter, which the heroine turns out to be. They even have the same name: Marisa. Here the director did not miss the opportunity to trample on the “Exorcist” with obvious signs of possession of an unclean spirit. Not left unnoticed and wandering from film to film stupid, but brave locals, determined to go with pitchforks and rakes to burn the castle of the vampire, but lost on the way, because they made a mistake and took the map of Armenia instead of the Carpathians, and the whole film wandering through the mountains and forests in search of a turn to Transylvania.
In his film, Weinorsky mocked television with stupid contests and talk shows, stupid advertising, video clips with a spectacular but meaningless video sequence, sitcoms with a mock laugh that is heard regardless of what the characters say on the screen. The characters themselves sometimes comment on what is happening on the screen, just as audiences often do in the cinema. Van Helsing's memories suddenly run through the film before the eyes of Marisa and Dexter during his story, like a commercial on TV that you can't turn off - you just have to wait for it to end, releasing your comments along the way. Sometimes heroes start singing like people do in movies or musicals, but never in real life. Like a parody, it looks quite comical and fun, and the final general dance and song number of all the characters of the film is quite grandiose.
We hope that many fans of horror films will be interested to watch the thrash comedy “Turn to Transylvania” and test themselves, whether they guess how many puzzles of other films fell into the overall cartoon picture of this very worthy film parody.
8 out of 10