| Blacula | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | William Crain |
| Screenplay by |
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| Produced by | Joseph T. Naar[1] |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | John M. Stephens[1] |
| Edited by | Allan Jacobs[1] |
| Music by | Gene Page[1] |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by | American International Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 93 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $1,980,000[3] |
Blacula is a 1972 Americanblaxploitation horror film directed byWilliam Crain. It starsWilliam Marshall in the title role about an 18th-century African prince named Mamuwalde, who is turned into a vampire (and later locked in a coffin) byCount Dracula in theCount's castle inTransylvania in the year 1780 after Dracula refuses to help Mamuwalde suppress the slave trade. The film co-starsVonetta McGee,Denise Nicholas,Gordon Pinsent andThalmus Rasulala.
The film was released byAmerican International Pictures on August 25, 1972.Blacula was released to mixed reviews in the United States, but was one of the top-grossing films of the year. It was the first film to receive an award forBest Horror Film at theSaturn Awards. It was followed by the sequelScream Blacula Scream in 1973 and inspired awave of blaxploitation-themed horror films.
In 1780, African prince Mamuwalde goes toTransylvania to seek the help ofCount Dracula in suppressing theslave trade. Dracula refuses, however, and insults Mamuwalde by making a pass at his wife, Luva. After a scuffle with Dracula's minions, Mamuwalde is bitten by Dracula and transformed into avampire while dead. Dracula then curses him with the name "Blacula" and imprisons him in a sealed coffin in a crypt hidden beneathhis castle while leaving Luva with Blacula to die in the chamber.
In 1972, twointerior decorators, Bobby McCoy and Billy Schaffer, find the coffin and are informed that the coffin was previously owned by Count Dracula, who was killed byVan Helsing in the late 1800s (much like in theoriginal Dracula novel). After purchasing the coffin and shipping it toLos Angeles, Bobby and Billy open the coffin, only to become Blacula's first victims. At the funeral home where McCoy's body is laid, Blacula spies on mourning friends Tina Williams, her sister Michelle, and Michelle's boyfriend, Dr. Gordon Thomas, a pathologist for theLos Angeles Police Department. Blacula becomes infatuated with Tina, believing her to be thereincarnation of Luva due to her identically resembling the latter. Thomas notices oddities with McCoy's death that he later concludes to be consistent with vampire folklore. Blacula follows Tina after leaving the funeral home but unintentionally frightens her. Tina runs away from him, and Blacula loses her when he is hit by a cab. He then kills the cabbie, Juanita Jones, turning her into a vampire.
Thomas, Michelle, and Tina celebrate Michelle's birthday at a nightclub, and Blacula shows up to return Tina's purse, which she'd dropped the night before. Thomas answers a phone call from the funeral director, who informs him that McCoy's body has gone missing. Blacula asks Tina to see him again the following evening, but they are interrupted by Nancy, a photographer who takes a photograph of them together. Soon after, Blacula kills Nancy and destroys the photo she just developed, which shows Blacula conspicuously absent. The next evening, Blacula visits Tina at her apartment and shares how Dracula enslaved him and Luva and how he was cursed withvampirism. He and Tina then spend the night together.
Thomas, Lt. Jack Peters, and Michelle are meanwhile following the trail of murder victims, as Thomas begins to suspect a vampire of being the perpetrator. After Thomas and Michelle dig up Schaffer's coffin, the corpse rises as a vampire and attacks Thomas, who fends him off and drives a stake through his heart. Michelle now realizes the truth and that McCoy could still be out there. Telling Peters won't work, because they need to show him what's going on, and to do this, they'd need to thaw out the corpse of Juanita Jones. Thomas calls the morgue and instructs Sam, the attendant, to take Jones' body out of deep freeze and leave the room and lock the door. Sam rolls her body out, but neglects to lock the door due to a distracting phone call. Suddenly the door opens, and an undead Jones rises and immediately attacks and kills him. Moments later Thomas and Peters arrive at the morgue to find blood smeared on the corridor wall near the payphone where Sam answered the call, but no sign of Sam himself. They walk into the exam room by the freezer, where Peters sees a sheet-covered body lying on a gurney and pulls the sheet back to reveal Jones rising to attack him. Thomas keeps her at bay with aChristian cross long enough to open the window blinds and expose her to sunlight, destroying her.
That evening, Thomas, Michelle, and Tina are enjoying drinks at the club when Blacula arrives to pick Tina up. Thomas questions Blacula about vampires and makes it known that the police are planning a search for the vampire's coffin, provoking an uncomfortable Blacula and Tina to leave. Soon after, remembering that Nancy never gave Michelle her birthday photos, Thomas searches Nancy's house and finds a photo of Tina standing in front of an invisible Blacula. He correctly deduces that Blacula is the vampire they seek, and that Blacula and Tina are together. Thomas rushes to Tina's apartment, finding them embracing. Thomas and Blacula briefly struggle, but Blacula knocks Thomas unconscious and flees, killing a police officer in a nearby alley as he escapes. After McCoy is seen walking the streets of Los Angeles, Thomas, Peters, and several police officers track Blacula to his warehouse hideout. They locate a nest of several vampires there, including McCoy, and destroy them, but Blacula escapes.
Blacula hypnotizes Tina into going to his new hideout at a nearby underground chemical plant while Thomas and the police pursue him. Blacula dispatches several of the officers, but one of them accidentally shoots and mortally wounds Tina. To save her life, Blacula transforms her into a vampire. Blacula fights the police, one of whom locates the coffin and alerts Thomas and Peters. However, Peters kills a newly turned vampiric Tina with a stake, having believed Blacula would be in the coffin instead. Devastated and feeling he has no purpose to live after losing Luva again, Blacula commits suicide by climbing the stairs to the roof where the morning sun destroys him. Thomas and Peters witness Blacula's flesh melting away with maggots coming out of his face until only his skeleton remains.
According to directorWilliam Crain,Blacula was born byAmerican International Pictures' financial troubles in the early '70s. "The rumor was that they were in the red, and so they were going to do a Black vampire," he said.[4] The original script was calledCount Brown's in Town, and was "full of 'shuckin' and jivin.'"[5]
Horror scholar Dani Bethea noted the film's similarities with the 1819 short storyThe Black Vampyre: A Legend of St. Domingo.[5]
AfterWilliam Marshall was cast to play the lead, he worked with Crain and the producers to heavily retool the main character of Blacula, who was initially more of a straightforward villain.[5] His character name was changed from Andrew Brown to Mamuwalde, and his character received a background story about being an African prince who had succumbed to vampirism from the originalDracula.[6]
Many members of the cast and crew ofBlacula had worked in television. William Crain had directed episodes ofThe Mod Squad.[7] William Marshall had previously worked in stage productions and in episodes ofThe Man from U.N.C.L.E.,The Nurses,Bonanza,Star Trek andMannix.[7]Thalmus Rasulala, who plays Dr. Gordon Thomas, is best known for roles in episodes ofThe Twilight Zone,Perry Mason andRawhide.[7]
Blacula was in production between late January and late March 1972.[1] It was shot on location inLos Angeles, with some scenes shot inWatts and the final scenes taken at the Hyperion Outfall Treatment Plant inPlaya del Rey.[1]
The music forBlacula is unlike that of most horror films as it features afunk soundtrack,[8] as opposed toclassical music.[9] The film's soundtrack features a score byGene Page and contributions bythe Hues Corporation.[8]
Blacula opened inWashington,Dallas,Seattle andOklahoma City on August 25, 1972, and inChicago two days later.[2] Prior to its release, American International Pictures' marketing department wanted to ensure that black audiences would be interested inBlacula; some posters for the film included references to slavery.[10] American International Pictures also held special promotional showings at two New York theaters; anyone wearing a flowing cape would receive free admission.[10]Blacula was popular in America, debuting at #24 onVariety's list of top films. It eventually grossed over 1 million dollars, making it one of the highest-grossing films of 1972.[11]
Scream Factory released the film on Blu-ray as a double feature withScream Blacula Scream on March 2, 2015.[12]
Blacula received mixed reviews on its initial release.[11]Variety gave the film a positive review praising the screenplay, music and acting by William Marshall.[10] TheChicago Reader praised the film, writing that it would leave its audience more satisfied than many other "post-Lugosi efforts".[11]Gene Siskel of theChicago Tribune awarded three stars out of four, calling it "well-made and quite frightening."[13] A review fromRoger Greenspun inThe New York Times was negative, stating that anyone who "goes to a vampire movie expecting sense is in serious trouble, andBlacula offers less sense than most."[14] InFilms & Filming, a reviewer referred to the film as "totally unconvincing on every level".[11] TheMonthly Film Bulletin described the film as "a disappointing model for what promised to be an exciting new genre, theblack horror film." and that apart from the introductory scene, "the film conspicuously fails to pick up on any of its theme's more interesting possibilities–cinematic or philosophical."[15] The film was awarded theBest Horror Film title at the1st Saturn Awards.[16]
Among more recent reviews,Kim Newman ofEmpire gave the film two stars out of five, finding the film to be "formulaic and full of holes".[17]Time Out gave the film a negative review, stating that it "remains a lifeless reworking of heroes versus vampires withsoul music and a couple of good gags."[18]Film4 awarded the film three and a half stars out of five, calling it "essentialblaxploitation viewing."[19]AllMovie gave the film two and a half stars out of five, noting thatBlacula is "better than its campy title might lead one to believe...the film suffers from the occasional bit of awkward humor (the bits with the twohomosexual interior decorators are the most squirm-inducing), but Joan Torres and Raymond Koenig's script keeps things moving at a fast clip and generates some genuine chills."[20]The Dissolve gave the film two and a half stars, stating that "The placement of an old-fashioned, Bela Lugosi-type Dracula—albeit much, much sweatier—in a modern black neighborhood is a great idea, but the amateurish production leaves Marshall as stranded in the film as his Mamuwalde is stranded in the times."[12]
OnRotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 46% based on28 reviews, with aweighted average rating of 5.3/10.[21]
Blacula is notable for featuring the first Black vampire in film history.[7][5][1]Robin R. Means Coleman, in her bookHorror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to Present, writes that the film reimagines classic horror archetypes to a contemporary Black experience[5] Lea Anderson, inFangoria, described it as "anti-adaptation,"
Blacula not only does the work of, as Dr. Robin Means-Coleman describes, “reimagining the classics” to “[reinvent] the [horror] genre from the vantage point of Blackness,” but accomplishes this so effectively as to transform the narrative into a wholly original piece of Black art, tricky as that may be to articulate. The brilliance of Crain's adaptation is that it's actually an anti-adaptation. It doesn't seek out narrative minstrelsy (when Blackness is casually splashed on a white story as the film's title suggests) but rather uses that familiarity as a red herring to tell a different story altogether.[5]
Means-Coleman states the film allegorizes theAtlantic slave trade.[22]
In the film, the name “Blacula” is a curse bestowed upon Prince Mamuwalde by the Count (Charles Macaulay); “aslave name,” as Coleman notes. Dracula transforms him into a monster in the same gesture as this attempt to “[rob him] of his (African) identity”—and make no mistake, Mamuwalde does become a monster, sympathetic as he may be. After centuries incarcerated in a coffin, he “makes a much-belated trip through the Middle Passage” and “finally makes his appearance in the new world—enslaved by vampirism and auctioned off” as part of an estate sale to the interracial queer couple who become his first victims.... As a byproduct of centering Black perspective, Crain actually deepensStoker's characterization of Dracula by placing him in an eighteenth-century context that characterizes the slave trade and chattel slavery as parasitic institutions. The Count of [Bram] Stoker's imagination would be a slaveowner (complicated as that legacy is for its xenophobic, antisemitic coding). As such, Mamuwalde's disgust for both him and the slave trade offers a counternarrative to common misconceptions about pre-colonial African culture, demonstrates Black resistance to enslavement without completely revising that history, and complicates the binary of hero/monster that is so often taken for granted.[5]
Horror scholar Dani Bethea said in aFangoria interview:
The story of Mamuwalde is such a poignant and heartbreaking one that truly has an incontestable tether to theCandyman mythos—Black men in the prime of their lives, caught betwixt and between insidious white supremacist structures that wield some sort of damnation (vampirism in this case) as an everlasting punishment. It's chilling and brings to mind thezonbi narratives and folklore I learned about as a child that spoke of' the walking dead', its connection to slavery (which the film delved into that Mamuwalde was trying to stop), and the horror of a non-afterlife where one is cursed to walk the earth forever.[5]
The box office success ofBlacula sparked a wave of otherBlack-themed horror films.[11][23] American International was planning a follow-up film titledBlackenstein, but chose to focus on a direct sequel toBlacula instead.Blackenstein was eventually produced by Exclusive International Pictures.[24]
Other, similarly themed films produced in the wake ofBlacula includedGanja & Hess (also featuring Black vampires),Abby (also starring William Marshall), andSugar Hill.[25]
The film's portrayal of a Black vampire influenced the creation of theMarvel ComicThe Tomb of Dracula and its breakout character,Blade.[25]Troy Brownfield noted Marshall's portrayal of the title character influenced later Black horror antagonists in films likeCandyman (1992),Tales from the Hood (1995), andBones (2001).[25]
In the animated television seriesThe Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, the depiction of Dracula (voiced byPhil LaMarr) is inspired by Blacula.
Blacula appears briefly inThe Simpsons episode "All's Fair in Oven War" (season 16, episode 2), voiced byKarl Wiedergott.
Comics writer John Jennings said "[Blacula's influence is] immeasurable. Because it was one of the first really serious, very slick, very nicely done [Black horror films]."[5]
A sequel to the film titledScream Blacula Scream was released in 1973 by American International. The film again stars William Marshall in the title role, along with actressPam Grier.[23] It failed to recapture the financial success of its predecessor.
A graphic novel adaptation,Blacula: Return of the King, was published in 2023 by Zombie Love Studios.[5] It was written byRodney Barnes and drawn by Marshall Dillon.[5]
On June 17, 2021, it was announced that areboot was in development. The film will be a co-production betweenMGM,Bron Studios and Hidden Empire Film Group withRoxanne Avent producing andDeon Taylor and Micah Ranum co-writing. Taylor will also direct the film.[26]
...opens for the first time Wednesday (26) in Washington, D.C., Dallas, Seattle and Oklahoma City...
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