This week I really enjoyed our viewing and readings. I had heard of Blacula but I had never seen it before Monday night. I very much enjoyed the film too. It is not something I would necessarily watch again but I wouldn’t tell someone to not watch it. I think there was a lot of things we could learn from Blacula regarding cult films. The film’s story is about a Prince named Mamuwalde. Mamuwalde ends up getting bit 1780 by Dracula, and gets the curse put on him that he will crave the thirst of other peoples blood and will be called Blacula. He ends up being let out of the coffin by a couple all by accident after they purchased it in the year 1972 and starts his spree on biting people and turning others into vampires also. Dr. Gordon Thomas tries to figure out why all these people are dying and eventually figures out there is a vampire somewhere in their town. He then runs into a woman named Tina who looked like his old wife Luva. He ends up falling in love with Tina but still continues his biting spree. At the very dramatic end when Tina ends up dying, even though he tried to revive her he said there was no reason for his living after she was killed.

There are a lot of things that we can discuss regarding Blacula and the readings. One thing in the readings that we talked about was how race plays a big factor in this movie. One thing that we discussed was that really the curse Mamuwalde was placed under could relate to him being enslaved again. Mamuwalde was discussing with Dracula the slave trade at the beginning just to be put into this slave like trance of becoming Blacula. Another thing we discussed was that all of Mamuwalde’s victims were a group of the oppressed. All of his victims were black minus the one man at the beginning. With this being said, you could come to the conclusion because he was cursed because of his race that he tried to start a a group that could show they could have control.

One thing I also liked that we discussed this week was copy culture and piracy. I know many movies are copied over and over but I completely forgot about piracy in all honesty until we brought it up. When I was younger and wasn’t sure if I actually wanted to go spend money on a movie or if it would be worth it (or I went and saw it and it was so good I wanted to watch it again) I would look movies up on the pirated sites. Copy culture helps these movies get out there to others. Even when a movie goes scarce, you can almost always find it pirated online. This helps bring about cult movies and having them get the audiences they do. Without copy culture some movies would not get a cult following.

I also very much appreciated Sam’s presentation on Paranormal Activity. While he was presenting the movie I could tell how much he really did enjoy how Paranormal Activity got it’s cult following. I remember when I first watched Paranormal Activity which was right after it came out on DVD, I was young and actually scared. But while he was presenting I realized that this movie might have been the ones that sparked my love for horror movies as I did see it at a young age. It was very cool to learn more information on the movie that I did not know before he presented!