This week’s screening of Blacula was a horror film I can say I enjoyed! There were some parts that genuinely freaked me out. Despite being made with a small budget Blacula has a lot of good quality fight scenes and jump scare scenes.
Blacula’s success had a lot to do with William Marshall aka Mamuwalde. By taking the role seriously and really throwing himself into the character it shows in the movie. A lead black character who was not ignorant was saying a lot at the time. According to our reading Deadlier Than Dracula, American International Pictures (AIP) thought that with “the emergence of the blaxploitation movement and their prior experience with horror films,” they could test the black film audience (4). Four years after the release of Dead, Blacula portrayed the first African American horror monster. This “inclusion of blackness” revises the horror genre (4). William Marshall was collaborated with the producers to ensure that Mamuwalde was portrayed with a level of dignity. He removed the stereotype of an ignorant black lead and instead gave the character a life of nobility. Producers were hesitant to his suggestions because they were afraid that by portraying him like that it wouldn’t sell. Marshall combats their criticisms by claiming that the whole movie was an experiment anyways so let’s experiment. Thanks to Marshall, Mamuwalde was the first black vampire who emerged as a regal character.
In our reading Rethinking Blacula, it discusses how Mamuwalde challenges stereotypes. The easiest stereotype to start with is when he fights off all the WHITE cops in the end. First of all, AMAZING. When he throws the barrel at the one guy I damn near lost my mind. Mamuwalde throughout the movie is challenging white authority. The movie is also trying to reverse the stereotype of the black character needing to be a monster. Although Mamuwalde is a vampire and technically a monster, he isn’t a monster on the inside. Mamuwalde’s heart is pure and frankly innocent. He was all in all just an innocent man who got screwed by a WHITE BAD man. He loved his wife, and he loved Tina. By loving these women he is straying further away from the normal vampire trope of being an all around monster. The OG Dracula was a total monster and by giving Mamuwalde a love interest it shows a soft side to him. It kinda makes you root for him! He can’t help that he keeps feeding on people he doesn’t mean to it’s just how he has to live now poor guy. All that is almost overlooked by how much he cares for Tina and wants nothing but her well being. Most importantly he wasn’t going to force her to go with him at all. Even though that part is low key debatable at the end when he was like bird calling to her telepathically. To me it seemed that he was controlling her it was a strange vibe.
Cult Movies 
People like to go the movies to either see things that they see in everyday living enhanced or they like to have their true fantasy come alive on screen. In this case, they are seeing a little bit of both because they are seeing a little of both. The reality is a black man is put in a position that he did not ask to be in which is being a monster and craving blood but he was dignified and didn’t do more then he had to. The fantasy part is that he is a monster that feeds on blood but never did Blacula hurt anyone because he just wanted to. His monstrous character was created to just find a way to survive and find love. And the black cop was the savior in the case which is rare for the time that it was released.
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I loved all the weird aims in the movie, and I also lost it when he throws those barrels at the cops. It’s so cheesy to just have that in the middle of a totally serious fight scene, like how did they film that and go YES that’s the take, totally believable. It’s one of my favorite parts of action movies, it makes them a little less aggressively masculine and more parody.
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I loved the barrel scene and it reminded me of Donkey Kong. I find it interesting when people say a film was creepy because I didn’t find the film that creepy, then again, I think I have tried to watch every good horror movie and some stuff just doesn’t freak me out anymore as much as it should.
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I absolutely loved the cop fight scene. It was so funny because it really was just extra and obviously he wouldn’t do any harm in a real life situation but they really pulled out the stops for that scene, I enjoyed it a lot. It’s interesting to see the parallels between different blacksploitaion films and how they deal with racial issues such as white authority. Despite the theme of the film weather it be a vampire or a film like shaft the underlying ideas and themes are always the same.
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