Breakfast with Dracula – review

Director: Fabrizio De Angelis

Release date: 1993

Contains spoilers

First of all, a technical note. I got an Italian Blu-Ray of this film. I have two main players on my PC, the better one does not take screenshots but the other both takes screenshots and is multi-region. This disc just wouldn’t play on that second player due to undisclosed technical reasons and so I couldn’t take screenshots. If that is the case I will try and find a trailer, for screenshots (I couldn’t find one), or look for screenshots on the internet. There were VHS quality screenshots from Kim Newman’s website but I eventually decided to just go with no screenshots with this review.

This is partly because it won’t be a long review. There isn’t much of a plot going on and this is an Italian comedy – such films as Uncle was a Vampire and Young Dracula not offering that much of a pedigree, I’m afraid. The film follows Vlady Drak (Daniele Liotti), who follows his dreams by hitching to Miami with a view to becoming the next great male model.

Unfortunately, he isn’t very patient and every time he goes to an agency he leaves if there is a queue of potential models. He spots an ad in a paper for a room and visits. The house is massive and the butler, Bud (Scotty Daffron), was expecting him, it seems. There is a roof collapse that kills Vlady but he dreams of the past and wakes in the coffin. Bud serves the Dracula family, Vlady is the last male heir and this is his inheritance/destiny. But he still wants to be a model.

He gets a background spot on a commercial – but his fangs emerge. The director hates the main model and gets Vlady to try the main role – it’s a perfume ad and he is meant to be intoxicated with a woman’s scent. His draw to her neck and his fangs are, the director thinks, sensational and he becomes the next big thing. He starts sleeping/necking his way round Miami but needs virgin blood to survive (not an easy ask in Miami). The manager of the agency hates him but the owner falls for him… and she happens to be a virgin… oh, and falling in love cures vampirism. Not much of a story and pretty much cinematic fluff. 3 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.