The Night That Dracula Saved the World (Rifftrax)

Film Year:  1979
Genre:  Comedy, Horror, Fantasy
Director:  Bruce Bilson
Starring:  Judd Hirsch, Mariette Hartley, Henry Gibson, Jack Riley, John Schuck, Robert Fitch, Josip Elic
Rifftrax Year:  2015
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

The Movie

Originally titled The Halloween That Almost Wasn't (not to be confused with The Christmas That Almost Wasn't from that other riffing show), The Night That Dracula Saved the World (neveryoumind that Dracula doesn't actually save the world) is a 70's television special starring Taxi's Judd Hirsch as Dracula.  Halloween is threatened with cancellation because the Witch who flies over the moon each year is sick of being called ugly, and will refuse to do so unless Dracula gives in to a list of demands.  Dracula refuses and conspires with other monsters to bully the Witch back into flying over the moon.

The Night That Dracula Saved the World won an Emmy for "Outstanding Achievement in Children's Programming."  All I can say about that is that children's programming must have had a very low bar in 1979 if this was considered an "Outstanding Achievement" in anything.  This is 24 minutes of character whining and lackluster slapstick comedy.  While I understand it's simpler to make a child laugh than an adult, children could laugh harder if there were actual craft put into a slapstick gag.  That's why I think the Three Stooges find popularity with children so easily.

The special really isn't much to talk about.  Actors wear costumes, speak in broad accents and snarls, and do their best to convey the story as theatrically as possible, often facing the camera and DECLARING their lines.  Given what he's asked to do, Judd Hirsch is actually pretty good as Dracula.  In fact the entire cast does fine.  They're just being sucked down the drain in a low rent production that has no desire to be better than it is.

The Trax

Is there a line between a short and a feature Rifftrax?  Sometimes riffs like this or Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey can blur it.  Though the shorts in Rifftrax initially started adhering to a strict ten minute limit, a lot of the more recent ones can be even longer than The Night Dracula Saved the World.  Though I think the fact that both Nestor and Dracula are self-contained stories told in a sitting is what makes them a feature Rifftrax as opposed to a short.

Whatever the case may be, specials like this may offer some fun to the riffing format, but it's best to tread carefully.  The Night That Dracula Saved the World is a broad and childish slapstick comedy and I'm not entirely sure what the powers that be at Rifftrax saw in it.  It's stupid, yes, but it causes way too many groans in it's humor for me to consider it genuine riff material.  I find most of their humor bounces off of it because the special seems to have a lack of genuine concern for itself and is just bouncing around like a rubber ball.  Because of that bouncy nature it's hard to catch and play with.

They do try though.  There are some great jabs at the cheapness of the production, especially when a house in the suburbs is used to represent a Transylvanian home.  Kevin gets the biggest laugh of the special by pointing out that the featured Zombie of the movie looks exactly like Observer from Mystery Science Theater (and I mean exactly).  It just feels all for naught, as they're trying to push the movie and it's ignoring them.  There are some laughs but mostly I found my attention drifting.

Average