Transylmania opened in December of 2009 to universally bad reviews and one of the worst box office records in recent history (actually, the worst opening ever for any movie that debuted on 1,000+ screens). It’s got to be one of the worst movies ever, right? Well, you see, readers, I am what some would call an “eternal optimist.” Even if a movie gets ridiculously panned but it looks somewhat interesting to me, I’ll watch it regardless and at least give it a shot to decide for myself. Sure, critics can tell you if a movie is good or bad, but in reality, that’s just their opinion and it really doesn’t count in the grand scheme of things (oh, if any newspapers are hiring for critics, I’m available!). It is with this that I am here not only to tell you, but to beg and plead with you not to waste your time on Transylmania.
Interestingly enough, this isn’t even really a stand-alone movie. This belongs to a National Lampoon (remember when that was a good thing to be associated with?) series known as Dorm Daze. The first Dorm Daze, released in 2003, followed a group of kids on the crazy adventure known as “college.” It was filled with all the gross-out and toilet humor you would expect, but to be brutally honest I actually kind of liked it. The sequel, Dorm Daze 2: College @ Sea took some of the returning cast onto a semester at sea situation and threw in an old fashioned treasure hunt side-plot for giggles. It didn’t work as well, but you know what? There are worse things in the world than this.
The "worse thing" I just mentioned is the third film, the one I am (eventually) going to be talking about, known simply as Transylmania. Much like the Star Wars series, these films seem to be following an “every three years” rule, even though logic dictates most of these people should have graduated by now. In this installment, it focuses around a group of college kids going to Romania for a semester (I assume). Some of them are from the other films (the stoners Pete and Wang, the ditzy Lynne), and some aren’t (like our hero, which I will get to… right now!). So why did these crazy college kids decide on Romania? Well, because they were conned into it by mutual friend Rusty (Oren Skoog, and yes, that’s his name), who wants to go to Romania to visit his Internet girlfriend and finally geeeeet laaaaaaid (like in every college movie ever).
Article comments
1 - Joseph J. Airdo
Jonathan, thanks for taking a moment to read my review and comment on it. I appreciate the fact that you are able to respectfully disagree. I am disappointed you were unable to enjoy it the way that I was able to enjoy it, but, as you said, comedy is subjective. I still believe "Transylmania" is among the guiltiest pleasures of last year but you certainly have the right to your polar-opposite opinion. Hopefully, we can both agree that the best way our readers can determine if any movie is good or bad is by seeing it first-hand.
2 - Levi
movies like this play a pretty important role in the beginning of alot of movie careers for actors to break in to the movie industry. I have a lot of friends who live in North Hollywood and they are all trying to make their living as extras or getting on the dating game or a show like that, and getting themselves in a movie like this is usually a pretty big step for them so they can then move into a role on daytime TV or even a small role in an actual feature film. So as awful as a lot of these can be I hope they never stop making them because they play a pretty valuable role. If you follow a career of a lot of A-list actors back far enough you'll probably find them in a movie alot like this. So hopefully they'll never stop churning this crap out! :D
3 - Jonathan Sullivan
Oh, I definitely have no problem with people churning out stuff like this. It gives actors their foot in the door and sometimes it actually ends up being pretty watchable (like the first two Dorm Dazes). I don't want them to stop, not at all.