Blaxploitation Education: Blacula

Is cheap schlock the mark of success for a genre?

Blacula
Written by Joan Torres and Raymond Koenig
Directed by William Crain
1972

Blaxploitation was a genre that encompassed a variety of other subgenres, from comedy to spy thrillers to at least a few examples of horror. I think Blacula was the first foray into the latter field, and it also seems to be when Roger Corman’s American International Pictures decided to jump on the trend of making movies targeted at Black audiences. It definitely seems to fit alongside other similar cheap horror movies, given its cheesy effects and a plot that’s kind of slapped together to give an excuse for people being killed by monsters.

However, the movie does feature some hallmarks of Blaxploitation, with an awareness of race and a few mentions of issues that affect Black people, including unfair treatment by police. It takes a bit of an on-the-nose approach to telling a story about a Black vampire, starting off in 1780 when an African prince named Mamuwalde (William Marshall) and his wife (Vonetta McGee, who would later appear in movies like Shaft in Africa and Thomasine & Bushrod) visit Dracula’s castle in Transylvania. They’re trying to eliminate the slave trade, although starting their campaign by getting a little-known Romanian count on board doesn’t seem like an especially effective strategy. And of course it doesn’t work, because in addition to being an undead bloodsucker, Dracula is a racist. When Mamuwalde states that the slave trade is barbaric, Dracula (Charles Macaulay) replies that it’s only barbaric from the viewpoint of the slaves, but he thinks slavery has its merits. In an all-too-familiar example of white people trying to claim they’re not bigoted while spouting racist attitudes, he says that he would be happy to have Mamuwalde’s wife join his own household as a slave, as if that’s supposed to set the prince’s mind at ease. When Mamuwalde acts as expected and tries to leave, Dracula decides to detain him, and after he fights back, he gets bitten in the neck and locked in a coffin in the crypt for his trouble, with Dracula cursing him with a thirst for human blood and stating that he will share his name as…Blacula!

Fast forward to the 1970s, and a couple of gay interior designers have traveled to Transylvania to purchase the decor in Castle Dracula. One says, “Where we come from, the legend of Dracula…that’s the absolute creme de la creme of camp!” They’re especially excited to be shown a secret room with a locked coffin, which they bring back to the United States with them, hoping to use it as a coffee table. But while they’re unloading their cargo in a warehouse and busting open the lock, one of them cuts himself, and the smell of blood wakens Mamuwalde, setting him loose on Los Angeles to bite more people and turn them into undead creatures that stalk the city.

Mamuwalde almost immediately stumbles across a young woman named Tina who he’s sure is his wife reincarnated, since she looks just like her, being played by the same actress and all. After freaking her out by chasing her down the street, he sets about romancing her, first by returning the purse she dropped and then by using his vampiric charms. He’s a gentleman though (at least to the woman he loves, if not his victims), and he won’t bite her and grant her immortality until she gives him permission to do so. However, Tina’s sister Michelle (Denise Nicholas) is married to Gordon (Thalmus Rasulala, who would later show up in a few other Blaxploitation movies, as well as the TV miniseries Roots), who is a forensic scientist who is investigating the rash of murders throughout the city involving victims with the blood drained from their bodies and distinctive puncture wounds in their necks. Gordon spends a lot of time confirming that yes, there is an actual vampire running around, but somehow he doesn’t suspect the effete, cape-wearing gentleman who is romancing his sister-in-law.

So, there are various vampiric shenanigans, including a scene in which Gordon and his cop partner fight off a horde of feral vampires by setting them on fire with exploding gas lanterns. They have a final face-off with Mamuwalde, who gets what is apparently meant to be a tragic end, even though he killed a dozen people or so. It’s all enjoyable enough, in the manner of low-budget schlock horror, although due to the cheesiness, it’s not exactly horrific.

It might be possible to tease out some notable themes, including the way Mamuwalde gains his curse through a near-sexual violation by Dracula, and the first victims he passes the curse on to are some gay men. This could be seen as a look at how people who have been exploited pass the harm on to other marginalized communities. That’s probably a stretch though, and given the way several characters in the movie refer to the gay couple using the F-slur, it seems that they’re meant to be comic relief, and the audience is not supposed to care (or perhaps even cheer) when they get slaughtered. I did get a laugh about how a cop, on the lookout for one of the gay vampires, says that he’ll never be able to find him since [F-slurs] all look alike, even though the audience knows that the guy in question has a very distinctive giant afro.

The occasional nods at racial oppression are more effective, probably because they’re just commentary on modern American life that slips in whenever you have Black characters in a story. Gordon notes that the police don’t seem to be too interested in solving crimes when the victims are Black, and that institutional indifference makes his investigation more difficult. There’s also a climactic moment in which Gordon and the cops have cornered Mamuwalde as he’s trying to hide with Tina in the tunnels under a chemical plant. At one point, a cop sees them running through a corridor, and he fires his gun blindly, striking and fatally wounding Tina. It was probably unintended, but it comes off as an example of how police will often spray dozens of bullets at Black suspects, not caring who might be caught in the crossfire.

This isn’t an especially great movie, but it has enough of interest to be worth watching, at least for people like me who are trying to fully immerse themselves in the ins and outs of the Blaxploitation genre. Come for the silly horror tropes, stay for the social commentary that probably snuck into the movie under the filmmakers’ noses!

Blaxploitation Education index:

UpTight
Cotton Comes to Harlem
Watermelon Man
The Big Doll House
Shaft
Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song
Super Fly
Buck and the Preacher