All About Rockula Rockula movie Dean Cameron Toni Basil Luca Bercovici Thomas Dolby

Rockula (1990) (Dir. Luca Bercovici) Starring Dean Cameron, Tawny Fere, Thomas Dolby, Toni Basil and Bo Diddley

Synopsis

Profiles: Dean Cameron Toni Basil Thomas Dolby Tawny Fere Bo Diddley

Rockula (1990 Cannon Films) is about a 300-year old vampire named Ralph, played by Dean Cameron (of Summer School and Ski School fame.) In the 18th century, Ralph fell in love with Mona, a young girl who already had a boyfriend - a pirate with a rhinestone-studded pegleg. The pirate, acknowledging defeat in love, decided that if he couldn't have her, then no one would. And so he bludgeoned her to death with a large hambone. Now, somehow through the intervention of a gypsy curse, Mona is reincarnated every 22 years, only to be killed again by another spurned lover. That is unless Ralph can steel himself to saving her and consummating the relationship. In the midst of this entanglement of past lives and present fears, Ralph's overprotective mother, Phoebe (played by Toni Basil of "Oh Mickey You're So Fine" Fame), has been working against her son, ensuring that the curse will never get lifted, and her boy will stay safe and sound with her for eternity.

The Vampire Musical Comedy

Now forget the spooky, horror-movie plot. Because Rockula is a musical comedy. Not a traditional musical, Rockula instead is laced with onstage performances (both Ralph and Mona are in rock bands) and music-video dream sequences. And it is a goofball comedy. Ralph is a neurotic, mild-mannered vampire who relies on Red Cross donations for blood, wears a retainer, and can transform into a flatulant, bat-like goblin, if pressed.

His mother is a flamboyant, promiscuous former aristocrat, who enjoys giving silly but well-choreographed performances in her living room to small audiences, and who poses as a gypsy clairvoyant in her spare time. Ralph's arch rival in love, Stanley (played by Thomas Dolby of "She Blinded Me with Science" fame), owns a mortuary service (Stanley's Death Park), sells coffins and cemetary plots on TV like a used car salesman, and manages rock bands in his spare time. And lastly, there's Ralph's wise-cracking mirror-self, a personification of his id that is apparently trapped in some kind of mirror universe (we only see him in a mirror's reflection), probably because of the same gypsy curse that hold sway over the destinies of Ralph and Mona. He is freed from the mirror-verse when the curse is lifted.