Why I like Asylum's Monster Mash (a list)
I'm starting to feel that the Asylum mockbuster Monster Mash is my favorite movie of 2024 (So far) and might retain that status. This is odd since the movie is deliberate direct-to-streaming, low-budget Schlock from The Asylum film studio. I actually liked it more than Abigail.
So I have decided to analyze why I like this movie.
1. It doesn't try to be high art. It just tries to tell a fun, spooky, story. 2. The character portrayals are surprisingly likable, from making Dracula the lead protagonist, a monster Tony Stark, to the subtle indications that Dracula probably could have handled all of this himself but he's secretly lonely and liked the excuse of having the other monsters at his side. It's adorkable. I love hero-Dracula. 3. The many delicious nods to the classic Universal monster movies from naming the Frankenstein Monster Boris (which is also a possible nod to the Monster Mash Song that was referencing the Universal Monster movie actor Boris Karloff), Dracula's daughter being implied bisexual like she was in the 1936 Dracula's daughter movie, the one scene deliberately using the eye lighting effect from the original Bela Lugosi Dracula, and thanking the creators of the Universal Monster movies on the end credits. And there were other delightful tropes and plot points.
4. The sense that the story is set in some surreal fairy-tale like, timeless, otherworld from Dracula's mid-nineteenth century fashion, to Elizabeta's slave girls wearing modern-ish evening gowns, to the medieval peasant girl costumes in the tavern, to The Invisible Man wearing 1930s black goggles, and a 20th century turtleneck shirt. 5. You have a desert cave, a Louisiana style swamp house (Home of the werewolf, who has a Southern-American accent), snarky Invisible Man who talks like Larry from Doom Patrol, and mentions of Turkey and Highgate cemetery and Candlewood Village all sounding weirdly close to each other. It's a bit disorientating until you think of it like it's own other world like Castlevania, or a Hammer horror movie, or The Enchanted Forest from Once Upon a Time. 6. I think of it as an alternate Universe version of Earth, on a continent (Europe-like despite the many American accents) where all the classic Gothic stories are true and co-exist. 7. The lack of specific time period and implied different cultures being in relative close proximity to each other amuses me.
8. The slightly off-putting but comical pause near the end to warn us that the scary part is coming, right before the really fake looking monster fight.
9. The strange contrast of the Dracula actor apparently giving it his all while the Dr. Frankenstein actor is barely acting and apparently phoning it in. The Asylum doesn't deserve this Dracula. He's too good for them. 10. For an asylum mockbuster it has a surprisingly diverse cast of characters and actors. Dracula, his daughter, a witch, a zombie, a mummy (played by a man actually from North Africa), werewolf, and The Invisible Man. I kind of hope the sequel (if it gets a sequel) is set on the high seas to allow for pirate ghosts (another fun trope) and The Creature from the Black Lagoon equivalent character. 11. Because Asylum is known as schlock I sometimes think a lot of the continuity errors and minor mistakes are deliberate (i.e. the misspelling of Nightmare on the trailer) which can be annoying but I found the movie charming enough to over look the apparent "deliberate" badness. 12. I could easily come up with joking call lines for this thing even though it's no Rocky Horror. (For starters it's not a musical.) 13. There's a surprisingly catchy theme song from the woman who plays Dracula's daughter. 13. I strongly feel this is the direction they should have gone with the Universal Studios Dark Universe.
