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In 1780, African prince Mamuwalde (William Marshall) comes to Transylvania to
obtain help in his war against the enslavement of his people from Count Dracula
(Charles Macaulay), ignorant to the fact that this man is a vampire. Soon he
finds out though, & is turned into a vampire, dubbed Blacula by the count,
himself, & furthermore walled up in a coffin to spend eternity in this
prison.
In 1972 though, with Dracula long dead, his castle is bought by an American
gay couple, Bobby & Billy (Ted Harris, Rick Metzler), who soon ship all the
stuff they find in the castle to New York - including Blacula's coffin. In a
rundown warehouse, Blacula awakes - rather hungry after almost 200 years
without a bite (or is that sip ?) - & sucks dry his 2 homosexual saviours.
At the wake of one of them, Bobby, though, he sees beautuiful Tina (Vonetta
McGee) - the splitting image of his long lost love Luva - & immediately
falls in love with her. Her brother-in-law Gordon though is the cop/coroner
working on the case of the dead homosexual couple, & he soon feels, there
might be something supernatural involved. At the birthday party of his wife
Michelle (Denise Nicholas) at a funky nightclub, he & Tina meet Blacula -
dressed in the obligatory cape - for the first time, & he seems remarkably
at ease with all the changes that have been going on in the world the last 200
years, as he enters the nightclub as if he owned the place, proves to have
perfect conversational skills & orders "Champagne ... French !"
The fun in the club is only disrupted when photographer Nancy (Emely Yancy)
takes a picture of him, & he has to leave the club to go after her to
destroy the evidence - he can't be photographed you see - & kill the girl
in the process - how on earth the man from 1780 knows the first thing about
photography again goes unexplained.
Gordon meanwhile is confronted with more & more sucked dry bodies
turning up, but also disappearing again before he has the change to make a
thogough post mortem, so he can't but suspect the involvement of vampires,
& there's only one way to prove his theory: he has to dig up Billy - the
only victim that actually did have a funeral before he could start a second
career as a vampire - to see what became of him ... & really, no sooner is
his coffin opened does Billy attack Gordon, but he is staked just in time.
& while Blacula starts a serious - & consensuous - relationship with
Tina, who has no problems believing him that he is a vampire simply because he
says so, & soesn't mind very much either, Gordon finds more & more
clues in his case of vampire murders that lead to Blacula being the head
vampire. & soon Gordon devices a plan to lure Blacula into a trap - but the
plan involves Tina as bait - & she agrees only reluctantly.
It all culminates in a battle cops versus vampires, with the cops winning in
the end, but Blacula & Tina manage to escape.
While making their getaway though, Tina is fatally wounded, & so Blacula
has to turn her into a vampire in order to save her ... But for some reason,
then she immediately lies down in a coffin & Gordon walks by & stabs
her. Upon seeing that, Blacula is overcome by grief & commits suicide by
walking into the sunlight.
The always dependable Elisha Cook jr has a role as morgue attendant
A cool black vampire in cape, an old-fashioned horror pic played to a funky
soundtrack & the title Blacula itself are all ingredients for an
instant camp classic, especially when played straight, & some corny
vampire-attacks only add to that effect. Unfortunately apart from that the
movie is steeped in clichés & the rather thin plot is dragged out
unnecessarily in the least fitting scenes. This all makes the movie a rather
ambiguous affair - one scene makes you shout with joy, only for the next one to
make you cringe in pain.
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