One of the biggest differences between the 1970s and today is that back then, when they made a black vampire movie called Blacula, they actually played it straight. This ain’t Rudy Ray Moore in a cape. This is a horror film. There have been people on Earth who’ve gotten scared and covered their eyes because of Blacula.
Yeah, there are some funny moments here. The well-to-do interracial gay couple who buy Dracula’s old castle in Transylvania are played for laughs in that old school way. In between prancing around, they ship all of the antiques found at chez Bloodsucker back to modern-day Los Angeles, including a coffin that houses an African noble whom Dracula cursed with vampirism back in the 1700s after they had a heated disagreement about slavery.
Needless to say, this guy gets out and then starts suckin’ blood all over El Lay in honest-to-gosh horror kill scenes. The story is the same thing as Dracula, but this time with lots more wah-wah guitar and bass and horns on the soundtrack. A suave, magnetic vampire who wears a cape and can turn into a bat does his thing and becomes fixated on a woman (Vonetta McGee, who also plays his wife from three hundred years previous). There’s no Van Helsing here, but there is an open-minded police detective (Thalmus Rasulala) who starts thinkin’ outside the box while he follows this strange trail of blood-drained corpses.
I like how this movie takes it seriously. This is entertaining. Sure, novice director William Crain can’t always keep the camera in focus, but William Marshall gives his all in the lead role. Marshall was an old school stage actor, nearly 50 years old at the time, who did everything from Carmen Jones to Shakespeare. He’s got instant screen presence and a booming voice that causes mild tremors in the earth every time he speaks. Marshall’s got a job to do here and he’s dead set on being a professional no matter how silly some of his lines might be.
Let’s also mention the small role from character-actor great Elisha Cook Jr. as a police mortuary attendant who has an unexplained hook for a hand.