THE REVERSE VAMPIRE STORY

Transylvanian Homesick Blues

Original Air date December 11, 1987

Writer: Michael Reaves

Director: Charles Grosvenor

Main Cast:

• Dave Coulier as Peter Venkman
• Frank Welker as Raymond Stantz
• Maurice LaMarche as Egon Spengler
• Arsenio Hall as Winston Zeddemore
• Kath Soucie as Janine Melnitz
• Frank Welker as Slimer

(Rating 1 of 5)

Summary: The Ghostbusters are invited to Boldavia by the local ruler Count Vostok.  The Count hopes they can help rid him of a particular ghost.  Since Count Vostok paid upfront the Ghostbusters head out to see him.  When they arrive it is clear that Vostok is a stereotypical vampire in the manner of which he dresses, acts, and even the strange castle he lives in.  The dead giveaway however is when the “ghosts,” shaped like giant bats, attack the people and then turn their attention towards the castle Vostok transforms into a giant bat himself and battles the others who vanish.

So what are we doing here? Don't know his episode doesn't make any sense.

                The Ghostbusters have lots of questions, probably due to the fact that they have forgotten the previous encounter they have with vampires.  Egon asks if he drinks blood and Vostok says that he now sustains himself with modern artificial blood.  He also states that he is the last of his kind, and that his family’s old enemy Van Helden is out to destroy him even though he doesn’t hurt people.  He created a machine that creates ghost bats framing him for the people’s terror. 

Count Vostok

                As day approaches Vostok retires to his coffin and the Ghostbusters are stuck dealing with an angry mob.  When Slimer doesn’t manage to scare them Egon turns the PKE meter into a sonic weapon and drives them away.  Van Helden sneaks in and tries to get the Count but the Ghostbusters come in and stop him.  The chase him by car and catch him after he hits a tree.  Egon then concludes the villagers are probably over their problem with the Count by now.

Javert- I mean Van Helden

My Take: I didn’t think it was possible but it turns out Michael Reaves, the author of the Boogieman Cometh and many other five star episodes, is capable of writing a bad episode.  This episode had an interesting concept with a vampire who has discovered a way to survive without harming people but is still menaced by society who still thinks he is dangerous.  I almost gave it a ‘2’ just for that but ultimately decided to go with my gut ruling. 

This episode, despite being the second to last episode of Season 3 is placed as the first episode of the season on the DVD set.  This is due to the fact that because of an animation error Janine was drawn to look like she did in the first two seasons.  Janine’s hair and glasses are the least of this episode’s problems.  The most obvious issue with the episode is how the characters are really excited to meet a vampire because they never seen a vampire before.  But they have, in fact they saw a large group of vampires, one that became so big they had a schism and split into two groups that were fighting amongst themselves.  So when Vostok claimed to be the last of his kind they should have corrected him.

Also some of the things that were said about Transylvania were very off.   Transylvania was never its own country historically it had been part of the Principality of Wallachia, whose most famous Prince, Vlad III (AKA Vlad the Impaler), was the one of main inspirations for Dracula.  At the time that book was written Transylvania was part of the Habsburg Empire, which was long thought of as backward by those in Western Europe so it was easy to imagine a vampire living as one of their counts and preying on the people of their county.  In fact, another Dracula inspiration, the real life Countess Elizabeth Báthory kind of did.  Nowadays Transylvania is part of Romania and had been since the early twentieth century. 

Now for my stray observations:

·         Peter is smart to recognize that the Ecto-1 can’t get them to Europe. (Actually it probably could now with all those gadgets that we have seen this season.)

·         Did Vostok buy this castle from Count Duckula?

·         Villagers shouldn’t speak English.

·         Since when is Slimer incapable of scaring people?

·         Okay why are the Ghostbusters even here?  The Count has issue with the Vampire Hunter and the Villagers.  What good are the Ghostbusters?  I mean it worked but who would have thought.

·         Egon is overly sure about what the villagers, who he nearly fried their brains, are going to do.

              Well, even great writers are allowed to mess up now and again.