BLACULA (1972)

Day #Whatever

Another blizzard. The whiteout contrasting completely with my dark, dark thoughts.

My depression - deep and black - takes hold swiftly and I find myself questioning my very existence.

Who was I? Who am I? Why am I The Igloo Keeper?

Do I even exist at all, or am I merely the result of someone else's imagination - a lame, half-hearted pastiche of The Crypt Keeper and the premise of MST3K?

Who knows. But hallo! I see the TV flicker on, and my hopes are raised! What I need is something to make me forget these dark thoughts and my black, black mood...


BLACULA (1972)

I think I like the idea of Blacula more than the movie itself. It’s a great concept with a truly righteous and iconic title and yet… it’s kinda clunky. Clunky but funky. Put it this way - the trailer is much more fun than the film itself.

Forgive me Blacula, but at times I became distracted by having to dodge the plot-holes and illogical behaviour of the characters as they struggled to move the plot along to the next stage. Now, plot holes and illogical behaviour don’t actually bother me a great deal. All I’m saying is that they do prevent Blacula from being a bona fide classic – and from me giving it a 5-star rating (which reminds me, I don’t actually do ratings. Forget I mentioned it).

Although Blacula’s funkiness ultimately transcends its clunkiness, I still think they coulda and shoulda have turned up the funk-o-meter a couple of clicks.

Blacula himself is great, and is portrayed as a rather noble, sympathetic creature by the renowned, classically trained actor William Marshall. Not sure about his hairy cheekbones though.

Dr. Gordon Thomas - the hero - is not so great. For my Blacula hero, I want a hard-living, hard drinking, wisecracking dude that would give Shaft a run for his money, with threads so sharp they’d make Bootsy Collins cry and a line of chat so jivetastic that he causes booties to bounce at the mere mention of his name.

But what we get instead is a slightly humourless, miserable, rude and brooding hero. You’ll remember my reservations on brooding heroes from my review of The Tattooist.

Anyway, none of this really matters because we’ve got some gorgeous chicks with awesome Afros to enjoy. I’ve always been in awe of Afros – If I wasn’t a short, fat bald honky I’d probably get one – and the ones on display througout Blacula are great. None more so than that on the drop dead gorgeous Denise Nicholas. I mean, just look:

The plot is fairly recognisable to us horror movie buffs - Blacula turns up in the modern day and just happens to bump into the spitting image of his long lost love. He wants her. He makes her want him. But the hero wants her and wants to stop him. He wants the hero to stop wanting to stop him. And she wants to stop the hero from stopping him. All this makes for a thrilling finale, aided and abetted by those wonderful trigger-happy cops from the LAPD. Who kill her. But not him. So he tries to get her to be him, erm, to be his… I’ll shut up now, I’m actually starting to annoy myself.

Dig the trailer: