Dracula: Dead and Loving It received much scorn at the time of its release, as critics derided the creative bankruptcy they thought it represented in both its star (Leslie Nielsen) and its writer/director (Mel Brooks). Too bad those critics couldn't know how truly bankrupt the parody genre would become in the years to follow. If Dracula: Dead and Loving It can be accused of anything, it's of being sort of limp. Brooks and Nielsen have both been famous for the gag-a-minute pacing of their material, so it's a bit surprising that their first and only collaboration traffics in more a sporadic kind of joke-slinging. In fact, many scenes don't even end on a joke. However, since some jokes work on a basic visual level -- such as Steven Weber's Harker getting repeatedly drenched by blood after staking a corpse -- the decision to concentrate on a relatively small number of them can actually be viewed as a disciplined sort of shrewdness. Unfortunately, comic minimalism is not why most people watch either a Brooks movie or a Nielsen movie, meaning Dead and Loving It should still be filed among the lesser works of both funnymen. At the very least it's fun to see the two legends interacting with each other, especially in the scene where Brooks' Van Helsing and Nielsen's Count Dracula jockey to see who can get in the last word -- which has a funny payoff at the end. Also, Peter MacNicol was a brilliant casting choice to play Renfield. With his excellent ability to twitch and dart his eyes around the room, he was born to play that character. Still, viewers are more likely to remember a bat with Leslie Nielsen's head crashing into a window and going cross-eyed, which is a more representative example of the film's humor level.