Blacula (1972)

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Posted By: brian@brianschell.com October 14, 2021

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

With the tagline “The black avenger, Dracula’s soul brother,” could you expect anything other than hokey blaxploitation? Actually, this was a lot better than we expected– it’s a good vampire tale with an extra level of campy, dated, goofiness on top. What a snapshot of 70s language and styles. We liked it.

Synopsis

In Transylvania, 1780, at Dracula’s castle. Dracula is entertaining Prince Mamuwalde from “the dark continent.” The prince wants to bring his culture into the modern world; he also wants to end the slave trade, which Dracula finds convenient and useful. The prince insults Dracula and says they’re leaving, but Dracula has other plans. Drac’s minions overpower the prince and his wife, biting him. “You shall pay, black prince. I shall place a curse of suffering on you,” says Dracula. “I curse you with my name. You shall be Blacula!” They then lock Blacula into a coffin and Princess Luva into the tomb. Credits roll.

We move to the present day, still in Transylvania. A couple of gay interior decorators buys all the furnishings from Count Dracula’s castle, and the real estate guy explains that Dracula has been dead for 150 years. Naturally, they take the coffin in the basement as well, which they ship to a warehouse in Los Angeles with their haul. They open the coffin, and one guy cuts himself. The smell of blood wakes up what’s inside the coffin– Blacula! He drains both Billy and Bobby, puts on his cape, and crawls back in the coffin.

A day or two later, Blacula goes to Bobby’s funeral. Some mourners come in. Doctor Gordon plans on finding out what happened to poor Bobby. Gordon looks at the wound on Bobby’s neck and notices that the corpse is drained of blood.

Tina is one of the mourners, and Blacula recognizes her as Luva, his lost princess. He chases her for blocks through Los Angeles, until he gets hit by a taxi. The taxi driver gets out and yells at him for being stupid. He angrily bites her. He does, however, find Tina’s purse and ID inside.

Meanwhile Tina/Luva goes back to her apartment. Her sister Michelle comes over, and they talk. Gordon goes to the morgue and talks to Sam, the Coroner. Gordon is there to look over the body of the taxi driver. Then he goes to see Detective Peters for the records for Bobby and Billy’s case, but it’s gone missing.

The whole group goes to a nightclub, where there’s an awesome band performing a great musical number. A less-monstrous-looking Blacula, using the name Mamuwalde, tracks down Tina there and says he found her purse. Gordon gets a call from the funeral home; Bobby’s body has gone missing. Another friend of the group, Skillet, introduces himself. Tina finds Mamuwalde attractive, and the two set a time to meet tomorrow night. A photographer in the club takes everyone’s photo.

We cut to Nancy the photographer at home in her darkroom. She’s getting ready to develop the photos of the people at the club. Blacula doesn’t appear in any of the developed photos, but he does appear in time to kill the photographer. She, in turn, bites a policeman.

Blacula comes to Tina at her apartment. When he says she is his wife, she doesn’t exactly deny it. He gives the backstory to their tribe back in Africa. She asks him to stay with her, which makes him very happy.

Meanwhile, Gordon is in the cemetery digging up Billy, the white kid who was bitten along with Bobby. They find Billy in the coffin, but he’s very not dead. Now Gordon is completely convinced that vampires exist, something he had been suspecting for a while now.

He calls Sam at the morgue and tells him to take the taxi driver out of the freezer and then lock her in the room. Sam opens the freezer, but he forgets to lock the door. Gordon picks up Lt. Peters to go to the morgue, but by the time they arrive, the taxi driver has killed Sam.

Blacula goes back home for the day, and Tina says she loves him. The next night, Gordon and Michelle meet Blacula at the club, and they all talk about vampires. Someone mentions that they haven’t seen Nancy in a few days, so Gordon goes over and sees that there was a struggle in the darkroom. He finds the negatives that show Blacula doesn’t show up on film. Now he knows Mamuwalde is the vampire, and he’s with Tina.

Gordon comes in, and Blacula runs away. Two cops chase him, and one shoots him repeatedly before being drained dry. They tell Tina the story of what he really is, and she doesn’t take it well.

The police and Gordon circle in on the warehouse where this all started. They run into a bunch of vampires. They burn most of them with a convenient crate of filled glass oil lamps and stake the rest. They run into Blacula outside; he’s moved his coffin. Rather than kill them, he turns into a bat and flies away.

They convince Tina to help them trap Blacula. She leaves the apartment, and Blacula, in bat form, follows. There’s a search and a chase in an old chemical factory, and Tina gets shot. He has no choice but to bite and turn her. Gordon and his police friend find his coffin, open it, and end up staking Tina by mistake.

Blacula looks at Tina’s corpse and makes a little speech. Then he goes upstairs and into the sunlight. Without his lost bride, he doesn’t want to live.

Commentary

Blacula is the first black vampire to appear in film, and this film was created about the middle of the blaxploitation phase of the 70s. There’s a load of non-politically correct language and stereotyping around race, gender, and sexuality. Blacula looks dated with those sideburns, but he’s one of the more intelligent, competent vampires.

There are several musical numbers in the nightclub performed by the Hues Corporation. They are really good and fit into the movie perfectly.

It was actually far better than I expected from its reputation, and I have to recommend it.