Blacula (William Crain, 1972)

Cursed with bloodlust by Dracula, Prince Mamuwalde (William Marshall) returns from the dead in seventies LA.

Enraptured by a young woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to his wife (Vonetta McGee), Mamuwalde sees an opportunity to end his immortal loneliness…

Blaxploitation is a genre I have not really dived in before. I’ve watched a couple of movies like Coffy, but most of my knowledge comes from reading about the genre.

Since Halloween was coming up, I decided to check out Blacula, one of the more famous titles I have never seen before.

The prologue is great - Mamuwalde has visited Europe to stop the slave trade, and has met with Count Dracula as part of his mission. The count has other designs and attacks Mamuwalde, cursing him with vampirism.

It is a great opening sequence (Charles Macaulay is pretty good as Dracula), but it is also the best scene in the movie. 

I wonder why that is, and I think it might be a combination of the production value of the castle setting and the juxtaposition with the modern-day sequence which follows. The setting of the prologue is fairly modest in scope - it is three people around a table - but it creates a mise-en-scene that reminded me of Hammer films. The scope of the Christopher Lee-Terence Fisher era of Dracula films is probably not much bigger than Blacula, but I think this film’s prologue creates a similar atmosphere.

The period setting separates it from the rest of the movie, and the following sequence is such a sinkhole that it feels separate from the film which follows.

The portrayal of the gay couple who unknowningly buy Mamuwalde’s casket is so over-the-top and meanspirited it took awhile for me to get back into the movie. It feels like the movie is trying to externalise and eject the queer subtext associated with vampire fiction - this vampire is a one-woman vampire! 

Once Mamuwalde awakens and starts to wander, the movie does lose a little momentum and focus.

The movie ultimately wants the audience to be invested in the tragedy of Mamuwalde, but once he is a vampire, the movie aligns more with the perspective of his victims and pursuers. 

While it flirts with a degree of moral ambiguity - Mamuwalde never comes across as an out-and-out villain - the story mechanics are standard: vampire attacks interspersed with vampire hunters slowly realising what is going on.

What makes the film compelling are the cast, starting with William Marshall’s towering performance as the undead prince.

More of a tragic figure than Dracula, he is driven by his love for his dead wife, who bares a striking resemblance to a woman he meets in contemporary times (both played by Vonetta McGee, who spaghetti western genre fans will know from the super-bleak The Great Silence). 

 

Apparently Marshall was responsible for re-working the main character’s backstory, and he gives a tragic pathos to the character that overcomes the ropey elements of the production. There is the whiff of the stage about his performance, but that layer of unreality adds to the character’s detachment from the seventies milieu. It is also well-documented that threats of vengeance are more impressive when bellowed in a Shakespearean baritone.

I was also impressed by our heroes, Doctor Thomas (Thalmus Rasulala) and his girlfriend Michelle (Donna Denise Nicholas). 

With exploitation and low-budget genre movies, the acting can be variable. But Blacula benefits from putting Marshall against a performer who holds his own. Rasulala commands the scenes he is in, and I was frustrated that the film did not give him more to do. The role is pretty generic, but Rasulala gives Dr. Thomas an intelligence and weight that is not on the page. 

While Marshall and Rasulala provide the movie with a centre, Donna Denise Nicholas delivers the most naturalistic performance in the movie - she reacts to all the supernatural goings-on like a real person, and her interactions with Rasulala give a sense of intimacy and history that is not present in their dialogue.

The weak link is McGee, but I put that down to the script - she has a threadbare character to work with - she is an object and motivation for Mamuwalde, but the character does not have any life outside of that function.

While the script is fairly cookie-cutter, the biggest issue with the movie is the direction. The coverage of the action is closer to television, with the focus on individual close-ups and mid-shots. This means that the movie feels a little cramped and small-scale. Aside from the prologue,  the locations are not that eye-catching or well-photographed. 

A few sequences work - Mamuwalde’s attack on the nightclub photographer (Emily Yancy from Sharp Objects) is claustrophobic, and her later attack on a cop is also good (her head is shielded from view until she turns and lunges into his neck, played in a well-timed cut to a close-up of her snarling face). I also liked the first vampire attack in the morgue - the slow-motion shot of a vampire running down a hallway toward the morgue attendant (Elisha Cooke Jr.) is creepy.

The vampire makeup is not bad but there are a few scenes where its limitations are accentuated by lingering close-ups that dissipate the effect. 

Overall, Blacula reminded me a lot of the first time I watched the 1931 version of Dracula - an exciting prologue is followed by stagey scenes of characters talking in enclosed spaces. 

Rather like that movie, Blacula was a disappointment. The cast are the strongest element of the production, but otherwise I found the movie slow and the central romance underwhelming - whatever emotion the movie stirs is mostly down to William Marshall.

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