{"id":11855,"date":"2025-05-08T09:53:49","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T13:53:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=11855"},"modified":"2025-05-08T09:53:49","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T13:53:49","slug":"blacula","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/05\/08\/blacula\/","title":{"rendered":"Blacula"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Blacula <\/strong>(1972)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 American International\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 93 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (violence, language including slurs, suggestive content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: William Crain\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Joan Torres, Raymond Koenig and Richard Glouner\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Gene Page\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: John M. Stephens\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 25, 1972 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $1.9M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0You have to admire a movie that contains dialogue like this:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cYou 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s delivered in all seriousness by Count Dracula himself (Macaulay, Three O\u2019Clock High) in Blacula<\/strong>, a semi-campy blaxploitation horror piece offset by a dignified performance from William Marshall (The Boston Strangler) as the titular bloodsucker.<\/p>\n

\u00a0A prologue set in 1780 introduces us to African prince Mamuwalde who\u2019s come to Transylvania in hopes of convincing Dracula to help end the slave trade. Instead of support, the Count offers to buy Mamuwalde\u2019s wife Luva (McGee, Detroit 9000). The offended prince objects and tries to leave, but is subdued by Drac\u2019s minions. He\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0About 200 years later (1972 to be exact), Dracula\u2019s 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\u2019t realize it comes with an occupant until it\u2019s too late. Blacula is awakened from his slumber and immediately attacks the couple turning them into vampires.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It sounds like a premise for a comedy, an 18th<\/sup> century vampire finds himself in the 20th<\/sup> century, a much different world from the one he once knew. Director William Crain (Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde) doesn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0From 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\u2019s understandable that a guy fresh from the late 1700s doesn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Blacula tracks Tina down at a nightclub the next night while she\u2019s celebrating Michelle\u2019s 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<\/sup> century African prince knows vampires don\u2019t 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\u2019t even faze her when he tells her about his affliction- i.e. vampirism.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Meanwhile, Thomas is looking into the killings and the disappearance of Bobby\u2019s body. Unfortunately, he can\u2019t 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\u2019s 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?<\/p>\n

The following is an exchange between the cab driver and Blacula. It takes place just after their run-in.<\/p>\n

Cabbie: \u201cS***! You ain’t hurt, man, but you lucky. Chasing tail could get you killed, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blacula: \u201cI lost her because of you, imbecile!\u201d<\/p>\n

Cabbie: \u201cImbecile? 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!\u201d<\/p>\n

I love dialogue like this. You can only hear it in goofy blaxploitation movies from the 70s. To be honest, I\u2019m a little surprised to hear it here. Blacula<\/strong> seems to take itself a little more seriously than other films of its ilk. It has humorous moments, but it\u2019s 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\u2019s not wholly successful. He struggles with tone throughout, trying to keep a straight face amidst the silly goings-on. I\u2019m sure it was a chore on the actors\u2019 parts to not burst out laughing.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Marshall, a noted Shakespearean actor who played the title role in six productions of Othello, brings the same gravitas to Blacula<\/strong> as Mamuwalde, a man driven by love and bloodlust as he navigates his way through a world he understands surprisingly well for somebody who\u2019s 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\u2019s true love, McGee does fine work. Rasulala, one of my favorite black actors, is quite good as this movie\u2019s answer to Van Helsing. He\u2019s 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\u2019s best lines: \u201cDid you see the rags he had on? That’s a bad cape. I’d like to beat him out of that cape.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0Producer and AIP (American International Pictures) co-founder Samuel Z. Arkoff, a kindred spirit to New World\u2019s Roger Corman, knows how to make a low-budget picture look good. Blacula<\/strong> cost only $500,000 to make, yet it doesn\u2019t look cheap. Sure, the sets look like sets. They\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I wouldn\u2019t say Blacula<\/strong> is one of my favorite blaxploitation horrors. Its tonal issues make it less than a smooth ride. That doesn\u2019t make it any less fun. It\u2019s definitely dated, but isn\u2019t that part of the appeal of 70s blaxploitation films? Only a jive turkey wouldn\u2019t know that.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blacula (1972)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 American International\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 93 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (violence, language including slurs, suggestive content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: William Crain\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Joan Torres, Raymond Koenig and Richard Glouner\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Gene Page\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: John M. Stephens\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 25, 1972 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: William Marshall, Vonetta McGee, Denise Nicholas, Thalmus Rasulala, Gordon Pinset, Charles Macaulay, Emily Yancy, Lance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11878,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movies","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Blacula-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11855"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11880,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11855\/revisions\/11880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}