Tonight, we watch Blacula, a film by American International Pictures. This is one we have heard and discussed last year in Intro to Film. This is probably the best example of Blaxploitation or at least one of best I can think of.  This may fall into a Blaxploitation, but for most it is seen as black empowerment. Due to the fact it is the first time that a film was dominated mainly by an all-black cast. Another great thing about this film was it was produced by AIP. So far, I have seen two films by AIP, and both have been great. I wish I could have been around for the release to go see them in the drive ins. I think it would be such a cool experience, especially since I have never been to a drive in.

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I think my favorite part of the film is the first real jump when the cab driver comes running out of the room at the coroner. I found this to be the best one because Pat jumped so hard. He may try to play if off that that alarm was just perfectly timed, and it was what got him. All I know, is that he jumped, and it was awesome.  He may try to say that he didn’t, but we all saw it.

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We talked about how almost all the vampires in the film were African American with the exception of the one office and bobby or Billy, I can’t remember which one it was. I think this was the main idea of really allowing this to be a great blaxploitation film. Everyone that Blacula transferred his curse to was of African descent other than the beginning. This just shows how the goal was not to take advantage of these actors, but to impower them. All the characters were very sophisticated with the exception of Skillet. He was the only one who seemed to play into a stereotype, but I felt that was for more of a comic relief.

Also, how come when Blacula is about to attack his next victim, he grows extra hair on his face. I just thought it was strange, but maybe it was a way to make people understand the difference. Guess this is a way to show when he is Blacula or Mawuwalde. Glad to be back to movies that I can actually enjoy. Good way to bounce back from last week’s showing.

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We then went into the cult movie of Paranormal Activity and how this is considered a cult film. I felt as if this was a too well-known franchise, but similar to Saw a few weeks earlier there was more to this film than we knew. I have always known these films to play great into the Hollywood system because they are high grossing and low budget films. What I did not know, was how they came to actually be shown on the big screen.  I did think it was interesting to compare this to the Blair Witch Project.  How these two films all came from a simple idea and were very simplistic to make. If I didn’t learn what it took to get this film to theaters, then I may never have considered this a cult film.

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