Love at First Bite (1979) on Netflix
Romania's communists seize Dracula's castle for a gymnasts' training facility, so he moves to New York with his servant Renfield. He believes model Cindy Sondheim is his lost love reborn.
- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb6.1/107,017 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes70%
Trailer
Plot summary
Romania's communist government takes over Dracula's castle for a gymnasts' training facility, and the count leaves for New York with Renfield, his bug-eating servant. An airport mix-up sends his coffin to a funeral in a Harlem church, and he settles into a hotel. Late 1970s America offers blood banks, sex clubs and discotheques, but Dracula wants only Cindy Sondheim, a fashion model he has admired from afar, believing her to be his true love reborn. Renfield finds the club she patronizes, so the two meet at last. Cindy's psychiatrist and would-be boyfriend, Jeffrey Rosenberg, a grandson of Dracula's old enemy Fritz van Helsing, stands in the way.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Love at First Bite (1979)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Love at First Bite grew out of poolside sessions where George Hamilton did impressions of Bela Lugosi; he and Harold Sonny Van Arnem met with screenwriter Robert Kaufman and agreed to make a film about Dracula living in modern New York City.
- The song played in the disco scene, Alicia Bridges's "I Love the Nightlife", was cut from later VHS and DVD releases of Love at First Bite and replaced with a different song, until Shout! Factory's 2015 Blu-ray restored the original Bridges song.
- Love at First Bite became AIP's highest-grossing film, a record it held until The Amityville Horror was released later that year.
