“Oh, I love the night life/I’ve got to boogie on the disco ’round, oh yeah”

Alicia Bridges’ disco anthem “I Love the Nightlife (Disco Round)” might not be the first that comes to mind when thinking about a soundtrack for a vampire movie. But most vampire movies are not “Love at First Bite.”

Things start in Transylvania, as many Dracula movies do. That is just for starters. After introducing this particular count, played by George Hamilton, the vampire prince gets booted by communist Romanian authorities, who seize his castle lair to turn it into an athletic training facility.

No problem, Dracula is all too happy to leave town, taunting the villagers that without him, Transylvania will be as exciting as “Bucharest on a Monday night.”

He decamps for New York, home of supermodel Cindy Sondheim (Susan Saint James), whose visage the count has drooled over through a steady stream of fashion magazines supplied to him by loyal henchman Renfield (Arte Johnson).

Being centuries old, Dracula is always a fish out of water. He bemoans being mistaken for a head waiter. But 1970s Manhattan takes it to another level. 

Dracula and Sondheim meet face to face at, where else?, a disco. After convincing her he is neither a waiter, magician or insurance salesman – “I am Count Vladimir Dracula. I do not sell life insurance!” – the two take to the dance floor, to “I Love the Nightlife.” If you watch this scene and don’t feel joy, you might not have a heartbeat. (Although if you’re a vampire, or otherwise undead, disregard. You have an excuse.) 

They fall in love. He bites her that night, two bites short of turning her forever into one of the children of the night. She tells her shrink/on-again, off-again boyfriend, Jeff Rosenberg (Richard Benjamin.) 

Rosenberg is also a direct descendant of famed vampire hunter Van Helsing. Benjamin, who made his name playing not just one, but two, Philip Roth characters – in film adaptations of Goodbye Columbus and Portnoy’s Complaint – is a clownishly ineffectual vampire hunter, brandishing a Star of David instead of a crucifix, for instance, to keep Dracula at bay. 

The movie is deft at mixing horror and vampire story structure and tropes with the silly milieu of the 70s: Disco, urban decay, sybaritic sex lives, inappropriate therapist/patient relationships and more. To complete the 70s vibe, Sherman Helmsley and Isabel Sanford, best known for their roles in iconic 70s sitcom The Jeffersons, have cameos in roles as a preacher and a judge, respectively.

Love at First Bite isn’t the first movie to throw Dracula into modern times, even the 70s. (Dracula A.D. 1972) It’s not the only one to play it for laughs (Dracula: Dead and Loving It). But it has a spark and a charm that makes it stand out. 

There is broad humor in it, particularly the scenes with Renfield (He loves to eat live bugs and mice) and Rosenberg, who doesn’t uphold the Van Helsing tradition terribly well. 

And those characters complement the dry, perfectly timed humor that Dracula and Cindy have throughout. 

And all of it still plays within the confines of a horror movie. It is, through and through, a movie about a vampire stalking his prey, seducing her with promises of immortality and a life of the night. It just substitutes dread with droll. There is some interesting timing here. The movie came out at the tail end of the 70s, a time when a new wave of horror was taking hold with grim movies like Last House on the Left, The Exorcist, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween. 

I don’t recall when I first saw Love at First Bite, probably on HBO after its 1979 theatrical release. But it stuck with me. The “I Love the Nightlife” dance scene, Dracula’s greeting to a shocked church service after a coffin mix-up at JFK Airport, Renfield’s laugh.

Some time in the 90s, I had a VHS tape of it that I’d watch whenever I needed a laugh, or to see that dance scene. I eventually lost track of the movie. 

So I had some trepidation in revisiting it. Would it hold up? 

For me, absolutely. Caveat: It’s not the easiest movie to find. I rewatched it on YouTube. There is a Blu-ray from Shout! Factory. Because of some intellectual property rights issues, some DVD transfers (like the one on YouTube I watched) subbed out the “I Love the Nightlife” song for one that simply doesn’t work as well to the Dracula-Cindy meet-cute dance. (The Blu-ray mercifully restored the original song.) 

But it’s still a joy to watch, during the Halloween season or otherwise. It’s not scary, but it’s got everything scary movies have to offer, with the added bonus of 70s silliness and impeccable comedy. 

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