Seven years before Mel Brook’s Young Frankenstein, Roman Polanski made the horror spoof, The Fearless Vampire Killers, a send up of the Hammer Horror productions popular during the day. Though not nearly as well made as Brook’s masterpiece, the work possesses many inspired moments but, ultimately, suffers due to weak structure and pacing.
Professor Abronsius (Jack MacGowran) and his loyal assistant, Alfred (Roman Polanski), travel to Transylvania in hopes of locating and killing vampires. Once they arrive at their destination, they discover that the townspeople are less than willing to discuss the topic when Alfred spots Sarah Shagal (Sharon Tate), whom he instantly falls in love. Shortly thereafter, Count von Krolock (Ferdy Mayne) appears and preys upon the inn keeper, Shagal (Alfie Bass), and Sharon, thus complicating the duo’s mission.
The film opens with two great caricatures, Abronsius, an absent-minded Einstein look alike, and Alfred, his less than chivalric assistant. In the vein of Young Frankenstein, many exaggerated characters follow, most satirical of which is the misplaced figure of Koukol (Terry Downes), Count Krolock’s hunchbacked, Frankensteinian assistant; Sarah, Alfred’s buxom love interest; and the Count’s overtly gay son, Herbert (Iain Quarrier). However, in lieu of the fact that the film is littered with such mocking, innately funny characters, a humorous cast is only part of the equation for comedy, and this is the film’s tragic flaw.
Polanski’s mia culpa is his choice to mimic Tom Browning’s Dracula by refusing to place a soundtrack alongside most of the action due to the fact that most of the would-be humor is situational or slapstick and that the build up for such comedic instances has little to carry the film between such moments. Comedy should be relatively fast-paced but, due to this omission, the film lags, thus depreciating much of its potential power.
Don’t get me wrong, the film does house instances which no vampire parody has yet to equal. For example, Shagal (Alfie Bass), the Jewish inn keeper-cum-blood sucker, states, “Oy, you’ve got the wrong vampire” when a crucifix is held up to him and Abronsius, Alfred, and Sarah finding themselves in an oddly embarrassing situation at a vampire ball when all turn to discover our three leads naughtily casting reflections in a full-length mirror, much to the partygoers’ chagrin. The subgenre typecasting of Herbert as a homosexual is humorous when he is first introduced, yet Polanski fails to follow through with this character, allowing the potential for a mocking commentary upon the correlative metaphor of (homo)sexuality and vampirism to be lost in the quagmire of the production.
I–as I’m sure many other fans of horror comedies did–frothed at the mouth at the prospect of a vampire film subtitled “Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck” coming from the loins of such a renowned master but, alas, it would never be. Perhaps the edited version, which Roman Polanski disowned, quickens the production’s languid pace. However, I somewhat doubt, due to the structure of the film, that even this could pull the work up by its bootstraps enough to get the production up and running enough to make it even a weak success. Ultimately, the film is a great idea, with its own unique moments of heightened inspiration. However, Polanski unfortunately fails to make the work meld into a conducive whole. What one is left with is a feeling of utter disappointment with what might have been, the distress of which is doubled considering who was at the directorial helm. Sadly, I can only recommend this work to Hammer Horror fans who don’t take themselves too seriously and who don’t mind tossing away a couple of hours of their lives to little effect.
-Egregious Gurnow
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