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Blacula is the antagonist of the blaxploitation horror series of the same name - he was originally designed in some ways to be an African version of the famous/infamous Dracula, but was wildly different in behavior, looks and general exploits. Though in the original film, his creator was revealed to have been Dracula himself, making Blacula, in many ways, a worthy inheritor of the title.
Plot[]
In 1780, African prince Mamuwalde goes to Transylvania to seek the help of Count Dracula in suppressing the slave trade. Dracula refuses, however, and insults Mamuwalde by making a pass at his wife, Luva. After a scuffle with Dracula's minions, Mamuwalde is bitten by Dracula and transformed into a vampire. Dracula then curses him with the name "Blacula" and imprisons him in a sealed coffin in a crypt hidden beneath the castle while leaving Luva to die in the chamber (from either suffocation or starvation) with Blacula.
In 1972, two interior decorators, Bobby McCoy and Billy Schaffer, purchase the coffin and ship it to Los Angeles. Bobby and Billy open the coffin, only to become Blacula's first victims. At the funeral home where McCoy's body is laid, Blacula spies on mourning friends Tina Williams, her sister Michelle, and Michelle's boyfriend, Dr. Gordon Thomas, a pathologist for the Los Angeles Police Department. Blacula becomes infatuated with Tina, believing her to be the reincarnation of Luva due to her identically resembling the latter. Thomas notices oddities with McCoy's death that he later concludes to be consistent with vampire folklore. Blacula follows Tina after leaving the funeral home but unintentionally frightens her. Tina runs away from him, and Blacula loses her when he is hit by a cab. He then kills the cabbie, Juanita Jones, turning her into a vampire.
Thomas, Michelle, and Tina celebrate Michelle's birthday at a nightclub, and Blacula shows up to return Tina's purse she dropped the night before. Thomas answers a phone call from the funeral director, who informs him that McCoy's body has gone missing. Blacula asks Tina to see him again the following evening, but they are interrupted by Nancy, a photographer who takes a photograph of them together. Soon after, Blacula kills Nancy and destroys the photo she just developed, which shows Blacula conspicuously absent. The next evening, Blacula visits Tina at her apartment and shares how Dracula enslaved him and Luva and how he was cursed with vampirism. He and Tina then spend the night together.
Thomas, Lt. Jack Peters, and Michelle are meanwhile following the trail of murder victims, as Thomas begins to suspect a vampire of being the perpetrator. After Thomas digs up Schaffer's coffin, the corpse rises as a vampire and attacks Thomas, who fends him off and drives a stake through his heart. Thomas calls the morgue and alerts Sam, the attendant, to take Jones' body out of deep freeze and leave. Sam rolls her body out but neglects to lock the door due to a distracting phone call. Suddenly the door opens, and an undead Jones rises and immediately attacks and kills him. Moments later Thomas and Peters arrive at the morgue to find blood smeared on the corridor wall near the payphone where Sam answered the call, but no sign of Sam himself. They walk into the exam room by the freezer, where Peters sees a sheet-covered body lying on a gurney and pulls the sheet back to reveal Jones rising to attack him. Thomas keeps her at bay with a Christian cross long enough to open the window blinds and expose her to sunlight, destroying her.
That evening, Thomas, Michelle, and Tina are enjoying drinks at the club when Blacula arrives to pick Tina up. Thomas questions Blacula about vampires and makes it known that the police are planning a search for the vampire's coffin, provoking an uncomfortable Blacula and Tina to leave. Soon after, Thomas searches Nancy's house and finds a photo of Tina standing in front of a invisible Blacula. He correctly deduces that Blacula is the vampire they seek and that Blacula and Tina are together. Thomas rushes to Tina's apartment, finding them embracing. Thomas and Blacula briefly struggle, but Blacula knocks Thomas unconscious and flees, killing a police officer in a nearby alley as he escapes. After McCoy is seen walking the streets of Los Angeles, Thomas, Peters, and several police officers track Blacula to his warehouse hideout. They locate a nest of several vampires there, including McCoy, and destroy them, but Blacula escapes.
Blacula hypnotizes Tina into going to his new hideout at a nearby underground chemical plant while Thomas and the police pursue him. Blacula dispatches several of the officers, but one of them accidentally shoots and mortally wounds Tina. To save her life, Blacula transforms her into a vampire. Blacula fights the police, one of whom locates the coffin and alerts Thomas and Peters. However, Peters kills a newly turned vampiric Tina with a stake, having believed Blacula would be in the coffin instead. Devastated and feeling he has no purpose to live after losing Luva again, Blacula commits suicide by climbing the stairs to the roof where the morning sun destroys him. Thomas and Peters witness Blacula's flesh melting away with maggots coming out of his face until all his flesh is gone and he is a skeleton.
Cast[]
- William Marshall as Prince Mamuwalde / Blacula
- Denise Nicholas as Michelle Williams
- Vonetta McGee as Tina Williams / Luva
- Gordon Pinsent as Lieutenant Jack Peters
- Thalmus Rasulala as Dr. Gordon Thomas
- Emily Yancy as Nancy, The Nightclub Photographer
- Lance Taylor Sr. as Swenson, The Funeral Director
- Logan Field as Sergeant Barnes
- Ted Harris as Bobby McCoy
- Rick Metzler as Billy Schaffer
- Ketty Lester as Juanita Jones / Taxi Cabbie
- Charles Macaulay as Count Dracula
- Ji-Tu Cumbuka as "Skillet"
- Elisha Cook, Jr. as Sam, The Morgue Attendant
- Eric Brotherson as Real Estate Agent
- The Hues Corporation as Themselves, The Performers At The Nightclub