Blacula (1972)

User Rating:

5.4/10   

Director:

William Crain

Writers:

Raymond Koenig (writer)
Joan Torres (writer)

Release Date:

25 August 1972 (USA)

Genre:

Horror

Tagline:

Blacula! - Dracula's Soul Brother!

Plot:

Interior decorators buy the coffin of an African prince bitten by Dracula centuries before and bring it back to Los Angeles...

Plot Keywords:

Prince | Dracula | Vampire | Reincarnation | 1790s

Awards:

1 win

Cast

William Marshall	...	Mamuwalde / Blacula
Vonetta McGee	...	Luva / Tina
Denise Nicholas	...	Michelle
Thalmus Rasulala	...	Dr. Gordon Thomas
Gordon Pinsent	...	Lt. Jack Peters
Charles Macaulay	...	Dracula
Emily Yancy	...	Nancy, Photographer
Lance Taylor Sr.	...	Swenson, Undertaker
Ted Harris	...	Bobby McCoy
Rick Metzler	...	Billy Schaffer
Ji-Tu Cumbuka	...	Skillet
Logan Field	...	Sgt. Barnes
Ketty Lester	...	Juanita Jones, Cabbie
Elisha Cook Jr.	...	Sam (as Elisha Cook)
Eric Brotherson	...	Real Estate Agent

Runtime:

93 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Sweden:15 | UK:15 (re-rating) | USA:PG | Australia:M

Company:

American International Pictures (AIP)

Trivia:

The group performing in the club is The Hues Corporation.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: Part of the plot hinges on the fact that Mamuwalde's image does not show up in a photograph and its negative, but he and other vampires in the film cast obvious shadows.

Quotes:

Dracula: You shall pay, black prince. I shall place a curse of suffering on you that will doom you to a living hell. I curse you with my name. You shall be... Blacula!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Welcome to Eltingville (2002) (TV)

Not as scary as I remembered

I saw Blacula in the theatre when I was 5 or 6 years old. It scared the bejeesus out of me!!! I had nightmares for weeks, and my mother was very angry at my cousins for taking me to see it. I wasn't allowed to watch a horror flick again until I was old enough to go on my own and buy my own ticket (and even then I stayed away for a while. . . the next one I saw was Nightmare on Elm Street when I was in highschool!!!).

Anyway, I saw the movie for the second time two nights ago, 29 years later.. . and it was not as scary as I remembered. However, I can see how my young mind was terrified at the time. AND, I can see how my teenaged cousins loved it so much. In 1972, this movie was at the early end of the blaxploitation era, and besides the fact that the main character was a bloodsucker, the characters were generally positive (i.e. no pimpin' drug-dealin' gangstas) You'll be hard pressed to find another early seventies black movie that can say that!

I think, for the time, it was a pretty good low budget horror movie. They deserve their own category, you know.