Mel Brooks has brought out a couple of outrageously funny movies, and Leslie Nielson has starred in his own series, but this one measures up to neither standard, alas.<br /><br />One of the problems is that the original "Dracula" with Bela Lugosi was so perfect in its thingness that, after only a few viewings, it's practically a self parody. In the 1930s version, Lugosi serves some drugged wine to Renfield. Renfield: "Aren't you having any?" Dracula: "I never drink -- wine." I doubt that the people involved in the production intended the line to be a joke, but that's what it's become. In Mel Brooks' version, the line is repeated and the camera holds on Leslie Nielson's face, waiting for the laughs to die down.<br /><br />A second problem is that the gags vary from funny to silly, as is usual with Brooks, but there aren't enough of either kind. We seem to follow the 1930s version fairly closely, almost as if it were to be taken seriously. And the jokes that pad out the scenes simply aren't that amusing. In one conversation (in "ancient Moldavian") both Nielson and Brooks try to get the last word in. It drags on. And in the last scene of the movie, Brooks is alone with the coffin containing the now thoroughly cremated Nielson. He glances around, slyly opens the coffin an inch, and shouts in the last word of the ancient Moldavian conversation they'd had half an hour earlier, then slams the coffin shut and strides out with a look of satisfaction. If that's the best that could be done for a climactic gag, well, there's a problem.<br /><br />There are other problems. Brooks is okay in the part of Van Helsin, but Leslie Nielson is a bit old for the part of Dracula, and he doesn't have the accent. (It ought to be overblown in a movie like this.) See George Hamilton do a better job with better lines in HIS Dracula parody, "Love At First Bite".<br /><br />It's not a total waste and there are some funny moments. It's just that there aren't enough of them.