Blacula

     He's black, he's beautiful... he's Blacula! Dracula's soul brother. This great blaxploitation film is basically just Bram Stoker's Dracula with black characters. So many successful blaxploitation movies were released in the 1970s like Coffy and Foxy Brown, that few people know that a ton of blaxploitation horror films came out as well, including Abby (The Blaxorcist), and Blackenstein.  And Blacula was definitely the most successful and well-known of the lot.  

     Mamuwalde (great name) is an African prince who along with his wife Luva visits the legendary Count Dracula at his castle in Transylvania. Mamuwalde is bitten by Dracula, turned into a vampire, and locked in a coffin for centuries while his beloved wife Luva is killed. 

      Then in the year 1972, two gay interior designers buy several antiques from the castle, including Mamuwalde's coffin, and bring it back to Los Angeles where he is then unleashed upon the city and is hungry for fresh blood (I guess centuries in a coffin does tend to make one a little peckish). 

      Mamuwalde meets Tina who is the reincarnation of his beautiful wife Luva. He pursues her while dodging her friend Mr. Gordon who discovers that Mamuwalde, despite being one suave sucker, is indeed a dangerous vampire that's been terrorizing the city and is desperate to win over Tina with his unmatchable charm. Gee... a cape, fangs, sleeps in a coffin... how did he ever figure that one out? 

     Blacula is hunted down by both police, Tina is accidentally shot and Mamuwalde knows that the only way to save her is to turn her into one of the living dead, which I'm sure was his plan all along. Mr. Gordon thinks he's got Blacula by the balls when he finds his coffin, but when he opens it and stabs the inhabitant in the chest with a wooden stake, he realizes that he's accidentally stabbed Tina... duh. Blacula having lost his one and only true love for the second time, commits suicide by crawling into the daylight and frying himself. 

      This movie was sincere in its efforts to be a genuine horror film but lacked the ability to frighten due to its blaxploitation overload. Huge afros, seriously groovy disco music, and of course, Blacula himself... whose afro, eyebrows, and sideburns grow huge whenever he vamps out. There are maybe one or two scary moments, but for the most part, this is a totally campy movie and is therefore very amusing to watch. A true cult classic.