Saint Mort’s Nostalgia Nightmare: Love at First Bite/Once Bitten Blu-Ray Review

Welcome to Saint Mort’s Nostalgia Nightmare. Every week, Matthew “Saint Mort” Kelly will either review an upcoming release that he’s been sent or ramble about some of his horror favorites that you should revisit. This week, Matt reviews the upcoming Scream Factory release of the Love At First Bite/Once Bitten double feature Blu-Ray. Let’s begin!

The first thing that I noticed about this particular Blu-Ray release is its lack of special features. Essentially, there aren’t any (aside from some vintage movie trailers or radio spots). It’s understandable given that it’s two movies on one disc and space is limited, but it didn’t stop me from feeling a little let down given how incredible Scream Factory’s special features usually are.

Prior to this release I’d never even heard of Love at First Bite so of course I started with that. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but based on its title and its placement beside Once Bitten I assumed it was another teenage vampire movie. I was wrong.

The story follow Count Dracula (George Hamilton) after he has his castle repossessed and is forced to move to New York. He falls in love with famous model Cindy Sondheim (Susan Saint James) and begins to date her despite her crazy ex Dr. Jeffery Rosenberg (grandson of Van Helsing). The movie’s humor is just as wacky and irreverent as that description seems.

It’s a pretty unique twist on the Dracula mythology by flipping roles. The count is now our hopeless romantic hero and Van Helsing is the villain that we want to see fail. While I love that twist the film is still far perfect. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have some great comedic moments; I particularly enjoyed a reoccurring joke involving Rosenberg’s (Richard Benjamin) clueless attempts to expose Dracula which include (but are not limited to) shooting him with silver bullets and holding a Star of David to the vampire’s face.

I’d also be doing a disservice to the movie to not praise the fantastic performance from Arte Johnson as Reinfeld. Moments like him cackling with glee while watching a movie about rats attacking a women or crying while watching a commercial for Raid are just the right level of absurdist comedy to make this an enjoyable experience.

I don’t know how frequently I’ll rewatch Love at First Bite, but I’m certainly glad Scream Factory gave me the ability to experience this movie for the first time. However I think the main reason many people will be getting this Blu-Ray is for the second feature the 80’s vampire/teen flick classic Once Bitten.

I remember hearing about Once Bitten back in 1993 just as Ace Ventura was making Jim Carrey a household name to kids my age who couldn’t watch In Living Color. It became a fairly regular feature film on Comedy Central. I’d always seen the film in its TV-edited version. Maybe it’s because of this that I don’t remember how much homophobic humor is in the movie.

I think there will be a ton of critics who point to these moments (specifically the ‘Fags in the Shower’ sequence) as a reason to dislike or avoid revisiting it. I’m not one of those critics. I was raised on movies like Porky’s, Revenge of the Nerds and Hollywood Knights. We as a society have come and a long way and that’s great… but I still find something super charming about the close minded 80’s teen humor and like it or not homophobia is a big part of that.

Most people only really think about Once Bitten because it’s a pre-famous Jim Carrey vehicle, but there’s more to the movie than that. It’s basically American Pie with Vampires. In order to maintain her eternal beauty and vampire countess must drink the blood of a virgin. Cut to Mark Kendall (Jim Carrey) and his group of friends trying to get laid. Mark believes he’s struck a sexual goldmine with the seductive Countess but he begins having weird cravings, an inability to sleep and weird dreams. It’s up to his on and off girlfriend Robin Pierce to take his virginity before the Countess drains him of all is blood.

This movie is way funnier than I remembered it. I still am a firm believer that in general My Best Friend is a Vampire (released two years after Once Bitten) is the superior Vampire Teenage film, but it’s undeniable that Once Bitten is a classic for a reason.

After watching this double feature I immediately felt like there should be another double feature from Scream Factory of Rockula and My Best Friend is a Vampire. So if anyone from Scream Factory is reading you should get on that for Saint Mort. Thanks in advance!

Get your own copy of Love at First Bite/Once Bitten from Scream Factory. It’ll be released February 10th, but you can pre-order right now! Also released the same day is the double feature of Vampire’s Kiss/High Spirits (look out for more about this next release next week).

Matt Kelly is the host of The Saint Mort Show, the co-host of the Reddit Horror Club and the blogger behind Every Damn DVD. He has an unhealthy love for horror movies, wrestling and punk music and wants you to buy him something nice off his Amazon Wishlist because free stuff is always nice. We at Geekscape can not support giving Matt free stuff but you can do what you want with your money. But that money would be better spent buying stuff from Scream Factory for yourself.