The Brides of Blacula

First I want to apologize because if you've seen these films you know that "the brides of Blacula" technically don't exist.   At least not in the manner as it does in the Dracula franchise.  With that being said, in the United States February is black history month so I've been doing my part by including films with black vampiresses for a majority of the month.  With two days left I'm going for broke with my contributions to teach a little black history (centered around sexy vampiresses of course) each day.

Today's entry as you can see revolves around the 1970's blaxploitation franchise "Blacula".   First a little background.  "Blaxploitation" is the nickname given to the film genre from 1970 to 1979 which revolved mainly around black main characters.  Basically in the 70's people in the US got so tired of seeing the same "type" of people in films that film makers made a killing just by putting ethnic characters as the stars of their films (not just with blaxploitation as Kung Fu films also rose in popularity at this time as well).  Even the James Bond franchise had a blaxploitation flavored film with 1973's "Live and Let Die" (which marked the debut of Roger Moore). It was so successful that the Blaxploitation era basically ended because black characters became so popular that main stream film and television almost required them in most scripts by the 1980's destroying the need for a separate genre (though directors like Spike Lee, John Singleton and Tyler Perry have done their part to keep the "urban" film genre alive). 

Blacula (which obviously comes from a mash-up of Black and Dracula) would be the first blaxploitation horror film and is incorrectly credited as the first horror film of any type to feature a black vampire (The actual first film to feature a black vampire would be Jacqueline Sieger in the Jean Rollins film "Rape of the Vampire" which came out in 1968, a full 4 years before the first Blackula film).  The title, along with some of the more infamous low budget craptacular blaxploitation horror movies which followed this franchise turns a lot of younger audiences away from it as you automatically think of one of those bad movies you'd see on Mystery Science Theater 3000 where you would have a jive talkin pimp-like Dracula running around some place like Harlem slapping people (a caricature actually used in the 90's cartoon "The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy").    That's why so many people are surprised if they do give it a chance and they find that it's the very opposite.

 Blacula is the story of an African prince named Mamuwalde who is attacked, turned and imprisoned in a coffin by Count Dracula.  Two centuries later he is released from his coffin prison where he spends the movie lusting after a girl named Luva (Vonetta McGee) who looks exactly like the wife he had prior to his imprisonment (making her his Mina) and the rest of the time is him trying and failing miserably at holding back his blood lust.  That latter making the film a true vampire horror film as unlike many others, bloodlust trumps better judgement every time thus making vampirism somewhat like the werewolf curse where all is fair game when the wolf takes over (not to mention he gets VERY hairy when he is in vampire mode to help with the scare factor).

My one problem with the franchise came down to the makeup used for the creatures of the film.  There was so much the undead were almost blue.  They in some cases were whiter then some of the actual white people in the movie after they died which wasn't flattering.

The above female wasn't bad looking at all when she was alive but as a vampire she looked HORRIBLE and that goes for all of them.  Weird makeup, crazy hair the whole nine yards.

 This problem gets slightly fixed in the followup film, 1973's Scream, Blacula Scream.  Mamuwalde is brought back to life via a voodoo ritual in order to do a voodoo priests dirty work but it ends up being turned around and the priest as well as anyone else who crosses his past get turned into a vampire.  In other words Mamuwalde pretty much becomes Count Yorga at this point creating an army of undead vamp women (and a couple guys) with bad makeup and frizzy hair.

  To make it even more memorable the film also pretty much lifts the casket scene from "Brides of Dracula" where we have an undead Gloria (Janee Michelle) pleading with a freaked out Lisa to join her as one of Mamuwalde's brides.

This gets stopped by Mamuwalde just after the groping but right before the biting.  Sadly preventing us from seeing a vampire Pam Grier!

If you don't understand how horrible the idea of not having a vampire Pam Grier in her prime is, I've provided a picture of what she looked like back then below.

Now here's the thing, what do you do when the first films were great but technology and skill could make it so much better.  A REMAKE!  They've remade Shaft so why couldn't someone write a retelling of the Blacula story (under a better name of course)?  Who wouldn't want to see top black actresses like Halle Berry, Beyonce Knowles or Vanessa Williams fanging out under Mamuwalde's spell and no I don't count Vampire in Brooklyn (though it was pretty obvious that's what they were going for). 

Come on Hollywood.... lets make it happen!

Vampiress Review: "Vampira" (Old Dracula)

The Gist: After an experiment to bring Count Dracula's wife back to life goes wrong and turns her black, Dracula travels to London in an effort to "cure" her.

Clarification: Basically Count Dracula had turned his home into a tourist attraction where people could stay the night in a vampire themed castle. There he would drug them and drain them of their blood and bottle it while they slept hoping to find a rare blood type that would cure his wife "Vampira" of a blood disease that resulted in her having to be frozen to prevent her death.  One evening a group of Playboy Playmates stay at the castle and one of them happened to have the magic blood type to cure Vampira.  That blood ends up getting mixed with the blood of one of the black playmates resulting in "Vampira" being cured and brought back to life but now as a black woman.

This film is a British attempt at capitalizing on the Blaxploitation craze which had taken over the US film industry in the 1970s.  The running joke of the film revolves around how much Vampira loves being a black woman in the 1970's and how ridiculously uncomfortable Count Dracula is about being married to a black woman.   Dracula spends the entire movie trying to keep Vampira from being seen in public with her "condition" but Vampira takes to the 1970's party lifestyle so well the last thing she wants to do is stay cooped up inside. 

Selling Point: The movie is funny and you FINALLY get to see Linda Hayden with fangs no thanks to Hammer!

Female Vampire Factor: We have two in this film...

Linda Hayden (Helga)

As I have stated in the past, the fact that she wasn't turned in "Taste the Blood of Dracula" irked me to no end.  This film makes that snub a little less painful even if her time as a bloodsucker was only temporary.  Helga was a student who was working part time at Dracula's castle as Dracula's sexy vampire bride during the tourist attraction.  One day she shows up and tells Dracula's servant (who plays Dracula during the attraction) that she's turning in her resignation because she's tired of spending the day in a coffin.  He then tricks her into going to the wine cellar with him but actually locks her up in a cell.  Dracula is then asked to bite her in order to keep her there long enough for her to work the attraction for the playmates coming in but he ends up drinking too much and turns her into a full vampire (top scene).  Dracula ends up having to host the dinner himself as the now vampire Helga tries to bite every neck she goes near (bottom scene).  Sadly after the dinner Drac has her destroyed with a crossbow.  

Teresa Graves (Vampira)

It's never said when exactly Vampira was turned but by the way she acts I highly doubt it was that long before she went under which according to the movie was 50 years prior to the present day of the time which would put it around 1924.  She is obviously much younger than Dracula and she is definitely in 1920's attire when we first see her and begins to listen to 20's style flapper music when she wakes up.  This is in complete contrast to Dracula who seems stuck in stereotypical Dracula ways.  With her overly positive response to changing races it also eludes to the fact that she was definitely brought up in a much more open minded time period than that of Vlad the Impaler.  Anyway it doesn't take her long to blend end to the 70's London vibe and by the end of the movie we find that she's bi-sexual as well.  Honestly don't see the problem here Drac.

I'm a huge fan of this film and an even bigger fan of the late Teresa Graves portrayal of Vampira.  The one complaint I have is that even with her name being the title of the film it wasn't really about her but Dracula and his problem with her.  In the US they fix the issue by naming it "Old Dracula" but I just believe the movie would have been much more entertaining had it been about the sexy black vampire going crazy and feeding on everyone in the London party scene (which seemed to be what the character wanted to do).  Either way there is still enough of her for the film to get a Vampire Beauty Rating of 4 out of 5.