Scream Blacula Scream

As awesome as Blacula was it was missing a couple of things... Voodoo and Pam Grier.
Thankfully, Samuel Z. Arkoff saw how well Blacula did and figuered the best way to fix that problem was to do a sequel- and cleverly addressing the Return problem.

Prince Mamuwalde was dispatched at the end of Blacula in a classic manner, but his bones are used in a Voodoo ritual at the beginning of Scream Blacula Scream by Willis, a practicioner, to take revenge on the cult that rejected his leadership.

Since leadership in the cult had to go to someone, it goes to Lisa, played by Pam Grier, who, despite that fact that Mamuwalde's reincarnated love died at the end of the last movie, is the reincarnation of his bride.

Lucky for her she's involved with Justin, a police officer with an interest in ancient African artifacts.

Again, William Marshall bring so much to the role- the tormented gentleman, revolted by what he was to do to survive. There weren't enough seventies Blaxploitation horror films, but the Blacula films are at the top of the list- even making more contemporary films like Vampire in Brooklyn pale in comparison.

The Return of Count Yorga

The best part of sequels is that once upon a time they didn't have to justify the return of someone who died in a prior movie. Like The Return of Count Yorga. Yes, he perished at the end of Count Yorga, Vampire.

But he's back, still rocking the red smoking jacket.

This time, he's got his sights set on a pre-James Garner Mariette Hartley as Cynthia Nelson, a teacher at an orphanage.

One scene of note is where Yorga's followers attack Cynthia's family- it's reminiscent of the Sharon Tate killings, something still in the public conscious just two years after the fact.

There's a cute touch when Yorga's watching television and an Italian language version of Hammer's The Vampire Lovers is on.

I'm not really keeping track, but this is the third film Michael Pataki has been in for the project- Grave of the Damned and The Bat People are the two others.

One more thing- Yorga get's a special shout out in Kim Newman's Anno Dracula short story "Castle in the Desert: Anno Dracula 1977," as Khorda, the Deathmaster, formerly known as General Iorga of Dracula's Carpathian Guard. In the Anno Dracula series, Newman takes figures from history and mixes them with characters from pop culture (literature, movies, television) and builds a world where Van Helsing and company weren't triumphant at the end of Bram Stoker's Dracula, but where Dracula becomes consort to Queen Victorian and vampires rule the world- sort of. Anno Dracula, the first book in the series, is being reissued in March 2011 by Titan Books.

Planet of the Vampires

You ever see a movie and think "Wow, I've got to see every movie this director has ever made?" and when you do, you eventually find the one that disappoints you?

I saw Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace and that was when I got hooked. Killer at a fashion house killing models.

Then his Bay of Blood- a grisly tribute to Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None that inspired the original Friday the Thirteenth.

I finally got around to seeing Planet of the Vampires for this project.

Two space ships receive a distress signal from an unexplored planet.

The crew of the first ship go insane and there are casualties. The crew of the second ship must discover the why they went insane and the source of the signal... oh, yeah, the dead from the first ship are buried, and climb from their graves to menace the second ship.

Badness ensues.

Up til they came back, I kept thinking that the guys from Alien must have taken notes because if I didn't know better I'd call Alien a homage to Planet of the Vampires.

That said...

It's got a great color palate. Very colorful. And their snug black leather space suits wouldn't look out of place at a fetish party.

I mean, can't you see that woman with a riding crop in her hand? Better yet, you didn't before, but you do now, don't you?

It really wasn't very good. But it was fun. It's not something for the Bava novice.

Start with Blood and Black Lace. Check out the trailer here:

The Bat People

I'm always scanning netflix's listings for vampire movies.

I see the word "bloodthirsty" in the synopsis and the word "bat" in the title, well, heck, "The Bat People" sure sounds like a vampire movie to me.

Well... sort of.

A man is bitten by a bat while touring a cavern on his honeymoon and the consequences are unpleasant.

He goes on a killing spree while cracking up- is his hand really changing into a claw or is he having an allergic reaction to the rabies medicine?

He does drink blood though.

Turns out he was changing. Into a um... bat man person.

Stan Winston makeup sort of saves the day, making the man look like something out of Planet of the Apes, but with Bats instead.

It's a goofy movie, trying to hard to be "serious" on an AIP productions budget- apparently it was goofy enough that Mystery Science Theater 3000 used it on one of their programs under the alternate title It Lives By Night.

Count Yorga, Vampire

Mysterious Count Yorga has come to California to steal beautiful women away from their husbands. Played by the dashing and seductive Robert Quarry, Yorga does this because he's a vampire.

That's not a spoiler.

The title Count Yorga, Vampire sort of gives away the twist.

He's a red-velvet-smoking-jacketed charmer, set up in an old Los Angeles mansion in the hills, using his vampire hypnosis to seduce his victims under the guise of seances.

Their husbands don't take too this idea. Lead by a blood specialist doctor, the men take on the role of the angry villagers.

You'd think LA would be a little too sunny for a vampire, but there's a California Gothic atmosphere to the movie, especially in the wake of the Manson murders- Yorga is as much groovy psycho cult leader as he is the vampire prince of Los Angeles.

Blacula

Blacula.
In a less capable hands, this movie could have been some cheap exploitation piece; despite being made during the golden age of Samual Z. Arkoff's AIP studio, it's got a smart script and a great leading man.
William Marshall brings a nobility and tragedy to the character of Prince Mamuwalde, who was turned into a vampire by Dracula in 1780 while appealing to the count to help end the slave trade. Dracula not only denies the appeal, the turns Mamuwalde into a vampire while entombing his wife, Luva, with him.

Nearly two hundred years later, Mamuwalde's coffin is taken back to America by two gay interior decorators. They free him and his rampage through early seventies Los Angeles begins.

He encounters the re-incarnation of Luva, Tina. Tina's sister Michelle is the girlfriend of the police scientist, Doctor Thomas, who's investigating the rash of strange deaths hitting the city.

The movie is surprisingly forward thinking for its time- the interior decorators are a bi-racial couple and not played for camp value. After they've been killed, their deaths are considered inconsequential by the police, a reflection of the contemporary LAPD's attitude toward minorities.

Unlike most of the vampires I've seen so far, Mamuwalde's story and demise has the depth to raise Blacula from a simple exploitation horror movie to a complex Blaxploitation tragedy.