Blacula (1972) American International/Horror RT: 93 minutes Rated PG (violence, language including slurs, suggestive content) Director: William Crain Screenplay: Joan Torres, Raymond Koenig and Richard Glouner Music: Gene Page Cinematography: John M. Stephens Release date: August 25, 1972 (US) Cast: William Marshall, Vonetta McGee, Denise Nicholas, Thalmus Rasulala, Gordon Pinset, Charles Macaulay, Emily Yancy, Lance Taylor Sr., Ted Harris, Rick Metzler, Ji-Tu Cumbuka, Logan Field, Ketty Lester, Elisha Cook Jr., Eric Brotherson, The Hues Corporation. Box Office: $1.9M (US)
Rating: ***
You have to admire a movie that contains dialogue like this:
“You shall pay, black Prince. I shall place a curse of suffering on you that will doom you to a living Hell. A hunger, a wild, gnawing, animal hunger will grow in you, a hunger for human blood. Here you will starve for an eternity, torn by an unquenchable lust. I curse you with my name. You shall be… Blacula! A vampire like myself. A living fiend! You will be doomed never to know that sweet blood which will become your only desire.”
It’s delivered in all seriousness by Count Dracula himself (Macaulay, Three O’Clock High) in Blacula, a semi-campy blaxploitation horror piece offset by a dignified performance from William Marshall (The Boston Strangler) as the titular bloodsucker.
A prologue set in 1780 introduces us to African prince Mamuwalde who’s come to Transylvania in hopes of convincing Dracula to help end the slave trade. Instead of support, the Count offers to buy Mamuwalde’s wife Luva (McGee, Detroit 9000). The offended prince objects and tries to leave, but is subdued by Drac’s minions. He’s then transformed into a vampire and left to suffer eternal undeath in a sealed coffin while his beloved wife is left to die a slow death in the same crypt.
About 200 years later (1972 to be exact), Dracula’s now-unoccupied castle and all of its contents are purchased by a couple of gay interior decorators, Bobby (Harris, UFOria) and Billy (Metzler), who take everything back to L.A. including the coffin found in a secret room. They don’t realize it comes with an occupant until it’s too late. Blacula is awakened from his slumber and immediately attacks the couple turning them into vampires.
It sounds like a premise for a comedy, an 18th century vampire finds himself in the 20th century, a much different world from the one he once knew. Director William Crain (Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde) doesn’t go that route aside from a humorous encounter with a sassy cab driver (R&B singer Lester). Instead, he takes his cue from The Mummy with Blacula pursuing a woman he believes is the reincarnation of Luva. He first spots her in the funeral home where the undead Bobby is lying in state. His friend Tina (McGee) is visiting along with her sister Michelle (Nicholas, Room 222) and her boyfriend Dr. Thomas (Rasulala, Willie Dynamite), a pathologist for the LAPD.
From the moment he spots Tina, Blacula is hooked. He follows her from the funeral home and tries to talk to her, but she runs off scared. He gives chase, but gets mowed down by a taxi. It’s understandable that a guy fresh from the late 1700s doesn’t know the rules of road safety. The irate driver gives him an earful right before he sinks his fangs into her neck. Wow, I thought stuff like this only happened in New York.
Blacula tracks Tina down at a nightclub the next night while she’s celebrating Michelle’s birthday with The Hues Corporation performing on stage. He turns on the charm and asks to meet with her the following night. While they talk, the club photographer (Yancy, The Sword and the Sorcerer) takes their picture. Not a good idea, lady. Somehow, the 18th century African prince knows vampires don’t show up in photographs. He follows her to her studio and kills her before proof of his existence gets out. Blacula visits Tina at her apartment the next night. She, of course, falls under his spell. It doesn’t even faze her when he tells her about his affliction- i.e. vampirism.
Meanwhile, Thomas is looking into the killings and the disappearance of Bobby’s body. Unfortunately, he can’t convince his colleague Lt. Jack Peters (Pinsent, Away from Her) that a vampire is responsible for the mayhem. He needs proof. He gets to see it with his own eyes when the cab driver’s corpse attacks him at the city morgue. Now he believes in vampires. The next step is determining who the vampire is and where they can find his coffin. Will they get to Blacula before he can turn Tina?
The following is an exchange between the cab driver and Blacula. It takes place just after their run-in.
Cabbie: “S***! You ain’t hurt, man, but you lucky. Chasing tail could get you killed, you know.”
Blacula: “I lost her because of you, imbecile!”
Cabbie: “Imbecile? Who the hell are you calling an imbecile? You the nut that ran in front of my cab. You the only imbecile on this street – boy!”
I love dialogue like this. You can only hear it in goofy blaxploitation movies from the 70s. To be honest, I’m a little surprised to hear it here. Blacula seems to take itself a little more seriously than other films of its ilk. It has humorous moments, but it’s not completely jokey like its premise would suggest. Crain, working from a screenplay by Joan Torres, Raymond Koenig and Richard Glouner, plays it straight for the most part. Or he tries to anyway. He’s not wholly successful. He struggles with tone throughout, trying to keep a straight face amidst the silly goings-on. I’m sure it was a chore on the actors’ parts to not burst out laughing.
Marshall, a noted Shakespearean actor who played the title role in six productions of Othello, brings the same gravitas to Blacula as Mamuwalde, a man driven by love and bloodlust as he navigates his way through a world he understands surprisingly well for somebody who’s been locked away for two centuries. Nothing seems to faze him. He exudes class and dignity as he romantically pursues Tina/Luva. As the vampire prince’s true love, McGee does fine work. Rasulala, one of my favorite black actors, is quite good as this movie’s answer to Van Helsing. He’s the one who ultimately has to lead the fight against Blacula and his army of ghetto bloodsuckers. Ji-Tu Cumbuka, the toothless gambler from Harlem Nights (1989), shows up as a cat named Skillet. He gets off one of the movie’s best lines: “Did you see the rags he had on? That’s a bad cape. I’d like to beat him out of that cape.”
Producer and AIP (American International Pictures) co-founder Samuel Z. Arkoff, a kindred spirit to New World’s Roger Corman, knows how to make a low-budget picture look good. Blacula cost only $500,000 to make, yet it doesn’t look cheap. Sure, the sets look like sets. They’ve probably been used before in other AIP productions, but such is the nature of B-movies. The makeup effects are well done. Blacula looks sufficiently scary when the occasion calls for it. Arkoff has a way of getting the most for his money.
I wouldn’t say Blacula is one of my favorite blaxploitation horrors. Its tonal issues make it less than a smooth ride. That doesn’t make it any less fun. It’s definitely dated, but isn’t that part of the appeal of 70s blaxploitation films? Only a jive turkey wouldn’t know that.
