Rusty (Oren Skoog) and his various friends have decided to transfer to a Romanian college for a semester. Rusty's motivation is to finally meet his online girlfriend, Draguta (Irena A. Hoffman), while the others tag along because ... well, that isn't really clear. I guess just to try learning abroad. Rusty's friends include pot-heads Pete (Patrick Cavanaugh) and Wang (Paul H. Kim), Pete's girlfriend and goodie-two-shoes, Lia (Natalie Garza) and her twin Danni (Nicole Garza), who is much more laid back. Next there's Newmar (Tony Denman) and his girlfriend Lynne (Jennifer Lyons). Newmar's insecurities over landing an extremely hot and popular girlfriend become a recurring theme throughout the film, as well as his inadequasies in bed. Rounding out the group is Brady (Worm Miller), a book worm, Mike (Patrick Casey), a closet homosexual and finally, Cliff (James Debello), a character who disappears before they leave the US, but still shows up in Romania before the adventure ends. However, while in the foreign country, Cliff leads people to believe he is a famous vampire hunter. I'm getting ahead of myself though.
When the cast arrives, they find the ancient castle that houses the school to be far less than the brochure promised, and the odd stories of old vampires surrounding the grounds get even stranger when coupled with one of their professors, Teodora Van Sloan (Musetta Vander), who starts teaching them how to take down the undead. What's worse is, it seems like the stories are true. Rusty and his friends have inadvertently brought with them an old music box containing the soul of a long-dead sorceress, and the vampire king, Radu (also played by Skoog ... which is, of course, the setup for many gags throughout the film), returns to the castle sensing that his mistress' soul has returned.
What ensues is a series of fairly predictable jokes typically involving mistaken identities as the vampires mistake Rusty for Radu, the humans mistake Radu for Rusty, and Lynne's possession by the sorceress' soul (but only when the music box is opened) leads to the various groups getting confused about which personality is in charge and when. Outside of these main-plot jokes, there are other smaller gags like the dwarf-dean's (David Steinberg) strange plot to transplant his hunchbacked daughter, Draguta, onto the body of a normal-looking girl. A related running-gag involves Draguta and how Rusty reacts to her misshapen form. While a making-of special feature promises Transylmania to be something that you will both laugh at and be scared of, I found neither reaction. Worse yet, I didn't even really get the "train wreck" feeling where you simply can't stop watching. I'm not entirely sure I would have been able to make it through the whole film had I not had to write this review.
As for the rest of the special features (besides the behind-the-scenes one mentioned in the previous paragraph), there is an alternate opening and ending sequence (trust me, they weren't chosen for a reason), as well as a slew of deleted scenes and a gag reel. The only other added feature is a trailer that has Pete and Wang breaking the fourth wall and describing the film while high.
I hate to say this, and it's rare when I do, but I can't think of a single demographic, or even slice of demographic, that would actually enjoy the film. There is a drug-element to it, but as a stoner-flick, it even falls short. As a horror movie it is laughable (but not really), and as a comedy it is predictable. Normally, I can think of some group that would enjoy at least renting this film, but even the "you have to see it because it's so bad" category doesn't fit because it doesn't feel cheesy enough to really work that way as well.
