| Scream, Blacula, Scream! Released: 1973 MPAA Rating: PG Genre: Vampire Nuts and Bolts: The big bad mo’fo is back, Sucka! And he ain’t gonna quit ‘till he sucks yo jive-ass honky blood, Blood! Can you dig it? Summary: Okay, I’m not sure where this is supposed to take place, but I’m pretty sure it happens in Louisiana; likely New Orleans (And this was BEFORE Anne Rice started polluting bookshelves with endless supplies of vampires sired in the Crescent City). An old Voodoo priestess has just recently died, and the members of the voodoo community gather around to pay their respects. But a tough guy named “Bad” Willis Daniels decides that he wants to be the new ganjamon for the local cult. He starts talking tough with a girl named Lisa Fortier (Pam Grier) until Lisa’s boyfriend Justin Carter interrupts and threatens Willis. Willis returns to his home, which happens to be an old Spanish style plantation house. Don’t ask me where he gets the bread to pay for the thing. He finds some old man who gives him the bones of the late vampire Manuwalde (aka Blacula). Willis performs a voodoo ritual where he spreads the blood from a bird across Blacula’s bones. In the middle of the ritual, the bones ignite and become engulfed in flames. By the time the fire dies down, we find that Blacula has risen from the grave! Wait a minute…isn’t that another movie? Anyway, Blacula is looking for a bit of that good ole neck-juice and puts the bite down on Willis, turning him into a vampire. Now Willis is a pretty silly looking vampire. He has a zombified ashen face, a big-ass afro and an ugly-as-sin tweed seersucker suit. He reminds me of the homeless guy I used to see playing a trombone for change off the corner of Baltic Avenue in Atlantic City. Except this guy only had three teeth and he smelled of three-day old cat piss. Ironically, Willis doesn’t see anything wrong with his appearance. In fact, he can’t see his appearance whatsoever. One of the anti-perks of being a vampire is that you can’t see your own reflection. So he starts giving Blacula lip over the fact that he can’t check himself out in the mirror. Blacula entertains his flunky’s musings for a few minutes, but ultimately tells him to shut the fuck up or else he’s going to rip his heart out of his chest. Now we get a flashback of Blacula’s origin. We see the infamous Count Dracula cursing Manuwalde with his own dark perversions and turning him into a vampire. He also curses him with the name Blacula, which in this PC era is probably more offensive than the notion of being turned into a vampire. Regrettably, the flashback is criminally short and was illustrated with greater aplomb in the first Blacula movie. Later on in the evening, a brother named Louis and his honky girlfriend Elaine stop by the mansion to pick Willis up for a party. They call out Willis’ name, but no one answers. Louis decides to explore the upstairs while Elaine remains downstairs delicately trying to maintain her center of gravity while juggling a pair of tits bigger than my goddamn car. From the landing, Blacula strikes. He chucks Louis halfway down the staircase and then descends upon him to bite him on the neck. Elaine begins screaming her fool head off and begins running around in circles. Bad Willis creeps out and begins chasing Elaine all around the house. But Willis is more aerodynamic than Elaine since he doesn’t have an extra 60 lbs worth of tit slowing him down. She simply can’t angle the corners as well as he can. He pounces on her and wrestles her to the ground and begins slurping the blood out of her neck. Damn. The white chicks ALWAYS get it in these flicks. Now this party they were supposed to go to is being hosted by Justin Carter. Justin used to be a police detective but struck out on his own and is now a well-to-do entrepreneur dealing in African antiquities. Blacula crashes the party and introduces himself as Manuwalde. In his Manuwalde guise, he looks moderately human and doesn’t have the fangs or the nasty smears of black makeup across his face. He hobnobs with Justin and a few other partiers and eventually meets Lisa Fortier. He discovers that Lisa is fairly proficient in the arts of Voodoo; a fact that Blacula finds very enticing. As Manuwalde starts putting the moves on Lisa, another guest named Gloria cuts her hand, dripping blood all over the place. Manuwalde tries to maintain composure, but his lust for blood forces him to vacate the house suddenly. Gloria goes upstairs to clean her hand. Manny meanwhile, transforms into his Blacula motif and sneaks into the upstairs window. He attacks Gloria and drinks her damn near dry. Gloria, barely conscious, manages to stumble downstairs amidst the party guests before falling over dead. Meanwhile, Blacula turns into a bat and flies off. Halfway home, Blacula decides to assume human guise again and take to the streets. He brushes off some ugly street-ho who’s sweatin’ his ding-a-ling and runs afoul of two obligatory pimps. The pimps try and fuck with the big B and one of them even calls him a faggot. Funny that. Why is it that whenever somebody fails to express sexual interest in an ugly person they are automatically assumed to be either a faggot or a dyke? Could it be that they are 100% straight and simply don’t cotton to doing it with ugly people? Regardless, the two nitwits think they can take Blacula on and begin punching him. This of course does nothing except incur Blacula’s wrath. He slams both of these clowns into the wall of a nearby building and eventually drains their blood as well. Damn. We’re barely even twenty minutes into the movie and Blacula has already macked on five people. Talk about your over achievers. Back at Justin’s place: Detective Harley Dunlop arrives and begins grilling everyone at the party in regards to the death of Gloria. He’s really putting the screws to Lisa because of her voodoo background when all of a sudden he gets a call concerning the two dead pimps. Back at Casa de Blacula, Willis’ girlfriend Denny comes over. Yeah, her name really is Denny. I guess she wasn’t always a young woman. She starts getting in Willis’s face about not coming to Justin’s party, but they eventually make up and Willis gives her a back massage. That isn’t all he gives her though. After groping her shoulders for a little bit, Willis leans down and puts the bite on her. Nothing wrong with that, I figure. I enjoy an evening dining at Denny’s once in a while myself. Meanwhile, Lisa has taken it upon herself to watch over Gloria’s body at the funeral home. Gloria rises from her casket as one of the undead. She begins using her vampiric powers of hypnosis on Lisa, but before she can convince her to get into a wild lesbian mud wrestling match with her, Blacula enters and spoils all the fun. He warns Gloria not to fuck with Lisa. Returning to Willis’ mansion (Which he has since adopted as his own), he warns all of his vampire brood that anyone who fucks with Lisa shall unlive to regret it. Now by this point, Justin is really freaking out over Gloria’s death and decides to do a little investigating. He goes down to the local library and begins researching the occult. He decides that Gloria’s death (As well as the deaths of the pimps) is the work of a vampire. He reveals his theories to Detective Dunlop, but Dunlop just thinks Justin is acting crazy. According to Dunlop, the possibility of the deaths being vampire related are completely ludicrous, since it is obvious that they are in fact the result of Voodoo magic. Naturally. What other conclusion could be drawn? But Justin is determined to prove his theory and so, he invites Manuwalde over to his place for cheese and wine. During the repast, Justin dances around the fact that he’s been reading up on vampires. He drops Dracula’s name a few times and makes reference to the fact that red wine looks like red blood (????). Manuwalde doesn’t come right out and say he’s a vampire, but he does warn Justin about fucking with things that he doesn’t understand. Which, in effect means that he’s a vampire. Now here’s where the plot actually becomes interesting. Blacula ditches Justin and decides to go scope out Lisa. Finding her, he reveals his vampiric nature to her and confesses to how much of a curse it is, having to wrestle with this inner demon all the time. He wants Lisa to use her knowledge of Voodoo mysticism to try and exorcize the vampiric elements out of Blacula’s body. Lisa agrees and begins invoking an elaborate ritual. Moaning some old chant, she tries channeling Blacula’s “evil” energy into a voodoo doll made in his likeness. Meanwhile, Justin convinces Detective Dunlop to go and raid Manuwalde’s place. He even has them arm themselves with wooden stakes fashioned from the remains of a broken fence. As they bust up into Blacula’s crib, Manuwalde is busy having his demon exorcized. But he’s got his whole vampire posse downstairs guarding his shit. All the other vampires begin doing battle with the cops. The fight is pretty evenly matched, as some vampires prove victorious by nailing some 5-0, while the rest of the Fuzz manages to stake some of the Bloods. Justin even manages to use some of the medieval weaponry decorating Manuwalde’s walls against the vamps. He kills Willis with a crossbow bolt, while another cop nails Willie’s girl Denny from behind. I bet she likes it from behind. She strikes me as being a freaky bitch anyway. Justin then busts up into Blacula’s love-shack, interrupting the ritual. This really pisses Blacula off, as the ritual was working and he was slowly transforming back into a human. Flying into a rage, he begins freaking out and kills four police officers. Lisa begins screaming trying to calm Blacula down claiming that they can perform the ritual again. Blacula slams Justin into a wall and is prepared to throat him. Lisa cannot allow this to occur, so she performs the only act left open to her. She grabs a wooden stake and begins stabbing the voodoo doll that she had been using in her ritual. Since the doll and Blacula are still mystically tied to one another, whatever affects one, affects the other as well. After repeated stabbings at the hands of Lisa, Blacula dies. Or does he? Acting / Dialogue: Welcome to the age of Black Exploitation Cinema. The 1970s were replete with films crafted by white film producers, featuring black actors that were designed to entertain young black audiences. The most popular among these movies was Richard Roundtree’s Shaft (Which was later re-made with Samuel L Jackson) and of course Miss Foxy Brown herself, Pam Grier (Who also starred with the afore-mentioned Jackson in Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown). What makes these flicks so memorable, especially to suburban middle-class crackers like me, was the cool jive lingo, the four-foot afros and the stylin’ pimp clothes. Because of these out-dated trends, many golden performances can often be missed. There are two notable thespians featured in this movie, Pam Grier and William Marshall. Now Pam hadn’t really cut her teeth yet film wise, so her performance here is not especially memorable. But William Marshall proves to be the second coolest black man that ever stepped out of the 1970s (The first of course was Darth Vader. Duh). He slides in like a breeze, his lines falling from his mouth with the smoothness of a Barry White song. It’s a shame his performance doesn’t command more respect historically, because truthfully, he’s pretty kick-ass. He only has one painful moment of dialogue as will be indicated later on, but Willie Marshall is just so damn slick, that he could talk about ass-raping a wildebeest and it would sound smooth. Gore: Typical vampire fare. We get the expected bloody snakebites on the necks of Blacula’s victims, but that’s pretty much it. Although minimal, the bite effects aren’t really that good. The blood is way too thick and bright to be convincing. Maybe I’m just spoiled by all those British vampire flicks where the bite marks always looked authentically badass. Guilty Pleasures: Elaine has a wrack that would knock your aunt Matilda’s socks off. She doesn’t take her top off, but that’s okay. Sometimes its better to simply fantasize about the unseen, then be spoiled by what we actually see. The Good: Imagine if you will; It is late at night; I am teetering on the edge of the ripped up cushion of my ultra-comfy recliner. My bottom jaw having long ago fallen and taken root in the floor – my black dachshund sniffing about it as if deciding whether it would be more prudent to gnaw on it, or simply use it as a convenient pissing spot. Upon the television screen before me, Blacula’s face, a contorted mass of anguish as he raises his pain-wracked hands to the sky; the screen filters into red and finally to black before the credits begin scrolling up the right hands side. My finger gingerly passes over the “stop” button on the Tivo remote. I rise from my station, picking my jaw up just as the pesky pooch begins readying her ass for a squat. Like Blacula in his final moments, I raised my clenched fists to the sky, shaking them furiously while gleefully screaming, “This movie did NOT suck!” I haven’t been that giddy with delight since I first discovered what a boner was. I’m not shucking you either. This movie really isn’t that bad. If there is one thing that can be said for these Blacula flicks, is that they are definitely trend setting. Firstly, the original movie, while crappy, did balance the racial scales a bit by finally portraying a prominent African character as a feature vampire as opposed to the androgynous Eastern European honkies that we usually get. Granted, the notion didn’t really advance much beyond that, as all we have had since then in the way of African-American vampires is the cheesy Vampire In Brooklyn with Eddie Murphy. But Scream, Blacula, Scream likewise raises the bar by showcasing a vampire who is struggling with his own inner bloodlust. Prior to this, most movie vampires relished their monstrous existence and sought for nothing more than to become the most fearsome nightmare in the land. But SBS humanizes the Manuwalde character a bit by showing the lengths he is willing to take to get rid of his vampiric side. Think about it – this guy comes completely out of the closet to a chick he barely even knows in the hopes of finding a resolution to his dietary dysfunction. That’s pretty fucking ballsy eh? We also see an interesting new evolution in the vampire personality dynamic. Here, there seems to be a noticeable distinction to be made from the Manuwalde character and that of the Blacula character. Firstly, there is the obvious physical difference. Blacula has shadowy eyes, stark cheekbones, a frizzed out widow’s peak and some shoe polish smeared across his face. And of course he has the fangs and the all-night-martini eyes. He also creates new vampires with feverish intensity even though he is disgusted by the company that keeps. But the Manuwalde persona cuts a pretty good jib. He’s calm, cultured and seems amicable enough to want to genuinely mingle with modern society. This isn’t really a guy who is trying to cover up for his more dark nature, but rather is one who is warring with himself, striving to overpower his own sinister urges. Sound familiar? It oughta. This neo-vampiric quality has been popularized in the late WB hits Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and its subsequent spin-off, Angel. Who knew that the one and only Blacula unconsciously inspired Joss Whedon’s trendy ultra-hip pop-star Californian vampires? I’m sure if he were cornered with this dissertation, he would probably deny it, but it remains a fact nonetheless. Modern audiences are down with Big Black. The Bad: Well, let’s start with the name. Blacula. Say it a few times out loud, just so you can get the proper enunciation. Blaaaa-cuuuu-lalalalala. “Bleah, bleah, bleah. Hi I’m Blacula!” Nope. No matter how hard you try, it is simply a lame name. More so by the fact that it is a bastardization of Dracula. I mean…at least with Dracula, he was using his own name. It’s not like his real name was Fred and he all of a sudden decided to start calling himself Dracula. Now granted, Manuwalde didn’t come up with the insulting name Blacula all by himself. But he damn sure decided to keep it. In the final moments of the film he can be heard snarling, “The name is…BLACULA!” I guess it could be worse. He could be Blackenstein (And yes sadly, that’s the name of an actual movie). So on top of being cursed with a shitty name, the poor guy’s character is further sullied by having an even cornier sounding sequel. Scream, Blacula, Scream? Why not, The Return Of Blacula? Or The Curse Of Blacula? Or Back In Blacula? Or maybe even The Bold And The Blacula? Any of these would have been better than what they eventually went with. I think this movie likewise puts the kibosh on the old tradition of vampires turning into bats. Between the Blaculas and the Christopher Lee stuff, I don’t think we have really seen too much of the classic rubber bats on strings gig. We seem to have evolved vampires to the point that they now transform into were-bats. In Fright Night for example, Jerry Dandridge turned into a flying bat-demon. In the Night Flier, the creature was more of a were-bat, than a vampire. In Coppola’s Dracula, Drac transformed into a bipedal bat-dude and we even saw some naked titty bat bitches in Van Helsing. And I’d like to think that Scream, Blacula, Scream is partly to credit for this. Why? Because vamps turning into little black bats is fucking stupid. For starters, they can’t fly worth a damn. They’re not very fast, and they have the directional acumen of a moth on crack. There’s a really hysterical scene in SBS where B transforms into a bat and we can see him flittering side by side with cars and buses on a busy metropolitan highway. Realizing that there are old men with walkers who are making more progress down the street than he is, Blacula decides to forego this embarrassing foolishness and turn back into a human. This goofy scene alone knocks my rating down a notch on this flick. Then of course, there’s the lingity. In 1973, it was pretty common to hear people say, “Wassup Blood!” And “Outta mah way you jive-ass motha!” And of course the errant, “Whatcha be doin’ sucka!” That coupled with the out-of-control afros and the awful clothing styles negates us from being able to view this movie without feeling as if we just drank from some elderly ladies’ colostomy bag. I’m sure that 20 or 30 years from now, people will look at modern films like Dude, Where’s My Car and You Got Served and laugh at the ridiculous slang phrases that we, both black and white alike tend to utilize. What I also find humorous with this movie is watching the black people at Justin’s party dancing as if they were white people. I mean…these guys were bloody awful. No style at all. If nothing else, the film serves to permanently eradicate the stereotype that all black people know how to dance from infancy. Which is good, because I’ve always been a bit skeptical about that particular urban legend. But don’t worry if you think that this means that all of the globally recognized African-American stereotypes are being dashed upon the rocks. You black fellas still have bigger shlong-a-longs than us puny underdeveloped white boys. Great Lines: “If there’s one thing you should have discovered in your studies, it is that the intelligence of man is pathetically inadequate when pitted against the forces of the unknown.” –Blacula to Justin. “If a man came face to face with a vampire…he would most certainly be at its mercy.” –Blacula to Justin. “The name is…BLACULA!” – Blacula to Justin. Overall Rating: Six out of ten severed heads. |
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