The 1995 film had comedy director Mel Brooks – who had previously skewered Robin Hood, silent movies, and Frankenstein – do a send-up of Stoker's novel. In the film, actor Leslie Nielsen starred as Dracula with Brooks himself as Van Helsing. The movie kept the characters of Mina and Lucy, though some other parts of the story are changed for comic effect, such as Dracula being killed by his slave, Renfield, accidentally opening a trap door. The film was not a box office success and met with mostly criticism from reviewers, with Washington Post critic Hal Hinson writing that it was "filled with atrocious puns and corny sight gags, the movie looks cheap and has the feeling of having been cooked up on the spot."
