College Vampires - DVD

Film: The crazy troupe from the "College Animals"-movies (but not part 3, which has only the name in common with the first two parts) is back. And this time, Rusty (Oren Skoog) and company are headed to Romania for a semester abroad. But the hope of permanent parties and sexy girls is quickly destroyed. For Razvan University was once a vampire castle, the seat of the bloodthirsty Count Radu (also Oren Skoog). And just in time with the arrival of the American exchange students, the bloodsuckers come back to Transylvania as well. But that's not all: Rusty's internet girlfriend is carrying around an unsightly secret, Pete (Patrick Cavanaugh) and Wong (Paul H. Kim) never miss an opportunity to get high and get into extreme trouble as a result, and Lynne (Jennifer Lyons) is possessed by the ghost of Radu's vampire girlfriend. Only vampire hunter and professor Teodora Van Sloan (Musetta Vander) could put an end to the bloodsuckers - if it weren't for this American chaos squad...

After having to wait two years for its release, "College Vampires" arrived in US cinemas in 2009 at the height of vampire mania with an unusually large number of prints (around 1000). There, the comedy failed across the board, posting one of the lowest box office results ever for a film with such a high copy count. The work is definitely better off on DVD and Blu-Ray then, because there is absolutely no question that there is a market for comedies of this caliber, no matter what you may now think of the Hillenbrand brothers' work.

The level of the film is quickly established when Rusty gets his best part stuck in his laptop, Pete and Wong shove their drugs up their butts, or the horse that takes the exchange students to vampire college in their carriage loudly emits foul-smelling gases. If you appreciate gags on this level, you'll get your money's worth here for 90 minutes. Admittedly, the film does have a few really good laughs - although one of the best jokes has fallen victim to the scissors, as the extras prove. But overall, the film, shot almost entirely in Romania, remains on the lowest humour level, only reaching unexpected heights every now and then.

The film can definitely chalk up the decent visuals and good camera work on its plus side. But in the end, fans shouldn't care. After all, they want as many gags as possible that revolve around sex and the consumption of mind-altering substances, and to see a few attractive ladies dressed as lightly as possible, or not at all. And that's exactly what they'll get in "College Animals". Therefore, it's for fans only!

Picture + Sound: The picture features a surprisingly high level of detail, decent color mixing and decent black levels, and is also free of smudges of any kind. The audio, on the other hand, remains largely unspectacular, with dialogue in the German language version sounding a little more front-heavy than in the more harmoniously mixed original version. Good!

Extras: In addition to several cut and extended scenes, including an alternate beginning and a slightly different ending that can be viewed with optional audio commentary from the creators, there is also a gag reel, an extremely short behind-the-scenes look at just under 1:30 minutes, and quite a few trailers on the DVD. Not really stunning. There is also an audio commentary by the two directors and the actors Oren Skoog, Jennifer Lyons and Musetta Vander. What makes the unfortunately unsubtitled commentary well worth listening to is that the creators think their film is much better than it actually is, and thus unintentionally make for some really incredibly funny remarks, starting with comparing their animated opening sequence to "South Park". But that's just the beginning...

Conclusion: "College Vampires" is a raunchy comedy of the particularly shallow kind that, while it has a few nice gags here and there, focuses too much on below-the-belt jokes to ever come close to anything resembling level. However, there are enough fans who don't expect more from such movies and had fun with the predecessors of the "College Animals"-movies. For exactly such - but also really only for such - viewers the film is then also quite recommendable.

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp