The Blacula Duology

BLACULA – (1972)

 

Just from hearing the title, you know what you’re getting with Blacula. A trashy horror movie mixed with the blaxploitation genre.  And thanks to this classic, we got other blaxploitation horror movies to follow such as Blackenstein and Abby (the black version of The Exorcist (also with William Marshall).

The story involves an African prince named Mamuwalde, who gets turned into a vampire by Dracula and is given the title of ‘Blacula’. Mamuwalde’s wife dies while he sleeps, and about 200 years later he is awakened and finds a woman identical to his old wife. Naturally, being the ladies man he is, he plans to take her for himself and make a small army of vampires to serve him.

Obviously this movie is pretty dumb, and is complete with black and gay stereotypes that you resist laughing at if you’re with others. Decent stuff but this movie has one aspect that’s absolutely amazing, and that’s William Marshall as Mamuwalde/Blacula. He’s so cool and refined that pretty much everyone who watches this must concede that he is the man. One weird thing is that he always shouts like Pee-wee Herman or Kermit the Frog when he bites someone’s neck, which never ceases to get a laugh out of me.

With a funky soundtrack as you’d expect, this is trashy classic is a fun movie; check it out with the right crowd.

 

SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM – (1973)

Not even a year later, Blacula got a sequel in Scream Blacula Scream (a wonderful title I might add) which thankfully brought back William Marshall as Blacula. But it also added blaxploitation superstar Pam Grier, one of my favorite actress’. That, plus a much more exciting finale then the original, make this sequel better than the original.

The plot naturally involves Blacula being resurrected, this time by a voodoo priest named Willis who believes he should take over the cult, instead of his rival Lisa (Grier). His plan was for Blacula to solve his problems, but naturally he’s not having any of that. After building up another small vampire army, Blacula wants Lisa to use her voodoo to free him from his vampirism so he can return to his homeland in Africa.

One repetitive thing about this movie is that we still have the boyfriend to the female lead slowly find out Mamuwalde is a vampire, which was in the first movie. Could’ve just been the same character from the last movie so we just skip that part. But I really love the addition of Richard Lawson as Willis. He’s just a loudmouth who obviously gets on Blacula’s last nerve, so any scene with him and William Marshall is just golden.

 

The finale involves the police against the vampires, with tribal African music blasting the whole time, as Blacula tires to overcome his vampirism. After that fails, Blacula goes full on crazy, and that's when you know he's not joking around anymore. Pretty awesome ending for an awesome movie, check this one out.

Even with all the horror remakes nowadays, it’s unlikely that Blacula would be remade. And that’s a good thing, because these are 70’s to the core, trashy, dumb, politically incorrect, and pretty entertaining. And of course genius, because Blacula equals “Black Dracula”; Genius!

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari - (1920)

 

 

‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’ is often called the first horror movie ever made, which is somewhat impossible to accurately claim, but if it isn’t, it’s certainly the first notable horror movie. It’s also called the first film to feature a twist ending, and one of the first and most famous German Expressionist films. And it's very easy to tell that director’s like Tim Burton are hugely influenced by it, either through it’s style or themes. But, all that technical stuff is irrelevant when you’re actually watching a movie, and is more interesting to read about. A movie with a lot of historical relevance could come across like a technical demo for the future rather than an actual form of entertainment.

 

Thankfully, ‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’ is still a really good movie, and one of the best of silent era. Germany was far and beyond the masters of the silent era, and because they were so ahead of their time, movies like this can still be watched by those with a love for horror movies and surreal style.

 

The story is told by a man named Francis, who retells his experience with a insane asylum director named Dr. Caligari who had the powers of hypnotism, and control over a being named Cesare. Caligari used Cesare to kill his enemies, but eventually Cesare falls in love with a woman, and that’s when things go wrong for the doctor.

 

The twist ending is that none of this actually happened. Francis is an insane asylum inmate who’s under the delusion that it’s all true. This ending was actually pushed by the studios; they said that the reality that so many people were killed was too dark, so they said it should be in Francis’ mind, and in the process, the cinematic twist was created.

 

The real strength of the movie are the visuals, which are mesmerizing to this day; it’s all severe, angular, and creepy. It remains the best looking silent movie, besides ‘Metropolis’ I suppose. The music is also very atmospheric and fits perfectly for the horror movie blueprint that this is.

 

Is this the best German Expressionist horror movie? No. That honor belongs chiefly with ‘Nosferatu’, but this is one of the best silent movies ever made, and as I said, if you’re a movie history buff, a horror enthusiast, or love silent movies, then it’s required you see this movie.

 

TRIVIA:

 

Most of the people who worked on the film escaped Germany during Hitler’s rise to power, although not Dr. Caligari himself, a very vocal supporter of the Nazi Party and its ideology. After the war he was banned from performing. Both him and female lead Lil Dagover (who also stayed in Germany (who made anti-Nazi films later in life) were named Actors of National Importance by Joseph Goebbels.

Ironically, Cesare's portrayer was Jewish. He escaped Germany and went to the United States.

The Atomic Submarine - (1959)

The Atomic Submarine is a movie that is for B-movie fans only, as if you couldn’t tell from the title. It involves a crew in the North Pole searching for the cause of the destruction of several of their ships. Pretty quickly they find out it’s an alien, who dwells in the sea.

 

(Spoilers) So they ram their sub into the UFO, climb aboard and find the alien who looks very similar to the aliens from The Simpsons. He says his plan is to take over the planet, but first take several humans back to his home for experimentation…basically, the world’s most typical alien plan. Also like every other alien movie, the UFO tries to return to his planet, but is blasted away before it can leave orbit. And everyone’s happy, forgetting that there’s an entire planet of these things that will probably check up on the absent scout. But the movie’s over, so who cares. (Spoilers end)

The characters are pretty basic, but the two main characters have a difference of world views. The scientist Dr. Neilson, is a pacifist, and doesn’t want anymore nuclear weapons to be made. In contrast, Lt. Commander ‘Reef’ Holloway gives all the typical pro-military patriotic speeches, and is disgusted with Neilson’s pacifism. The movie portrays both sides in a fair portrayal, until the end where Neilson basically says pacifism doesn’t work on hostile alien monsters. I don’t know if he viewed the communists in the same light, but it was probably the director’s intention. I don’t know about the message, but it’s some character development, which is appreciated.

 

The direction is very typical of the genre and era. Slow placed, lots of techno babble in rooms filled with fake computers, and then all the action happens in the last 10 minutes. But that’s what you pay for, plus you get a great ending when they finally get on the UFO. The alien effect is great, because it’s just a big eyeball with tentacles. Classic. The music is also classic 50’s sci-fi, which it refers to as “Electro-Sonic” in the credits. If any of this sounds good to you, or just the title is appealing, you’ll like it. Get a bunch of B-movies, throw this in the middle of the marathon, and enjoy.

Congo - (1995)

Jurassic Park is a great movie, one of my faves, a classic, and the best Michael Crichton movie. The sequels on the other hand, were lame. The Lost World: Jurassic Park was mediocre, and Jurassic Park III was *highly* mediocre, and you could feel the complete lack of caring from everyone involved. Congo, also based on a Michael Crichton novel, is not nearly as good as the first Jurassic Park, but is much more enjoyable than the sequels, and is the rare B-movie to get a wide release much to everyone’s (just mine) joy.

It’s about a talking gorilla armed with a Power Glove, a treasure hunting Eastern European Tim Curry, a former Ghostbuster (Ernie Hudson) turned smooth mercenary, and a expedition sent out by Joe Don Baker (Mitchell!) to find his son Bruce Campbell (Hail to the King) and a diamond that can power a super laser, which comes in handy against bloodthirsty 1,000 year old albino gorillas. Also, hippos that eat people…bet you didn’t know they do that.

Congo is well paced, and moves from one fun adventure moment to another. It’s dumb, and it knows it, all it cares it about is moving on to the gorilla on man action, which is the problem for most people. Everyone says the special effects for the gorillas are obviously just puppets and people in suits. And past the old albino gorillas which are supposed to look monstrous and different, yeah, all the gorillas aren’t convincing. The talking gorilla Amy is downright laughable. Except when she talks, then it’s just scary. But that’s part of the entertainment value. And don’t get me wrong, this is from Stan Winston, perhaps the greatest special effects artist of all time, he can do better, but for this movie, the dumber, the better. Many say they should’ve done CGI, to which I say “Hell no”. There’s nothing magical or charming about bad CGI, usually even good CGI. I hear a lot of people say this “ruined” the book, but the book was pretty dumb too folks, it still had evil gorillas.

Special credit goes to Ernie Hudson, who steals the show. Many people have said it before, but he’s kind of like a black Clark Gable, it’s awesome. Also, he was the coolest Ghostbuster, no debate. Also props to Tim Curry, who is incapable of not entertaining. Yeah, I recommend Congo. Just note most people hate it.

The Dungeonmaster - (1984) ... or Ragewar: The Challenges of Excalibrate - (1984)... or Digital Knights - (1984)

The Dungeonmaster is a science fiction/fantasy movie that has yet to see a release on DVD, Blu-Ray, or even Laserdisc. It can be seen on Netflix, but as it stands, you can only own it on VHS. And for many reasons, this is a movie that demands to be seen on VHS quality picture. It actually has seven different directors, which include special effects artist David Allen, B-movie God Charles Band, and Steven Ford, the son of Gerald Ford (yes, that’s true). If you’re not intrigued yet, then there’s no hope for you.

It’s about a dweeb named Paul with a pair of computer powered glasses (this is never really explained) and his girlfriend Gwen, who are enjoying their boring simple life (past the glasses) until one night they’re whisked away to an alternate dimension by a sorcerer named Mestema, who decides Paul is Earth’s greatest warrior or something, and puts him through seven challenges. And that’s pretty much it, until the end where Paul fights Mestema and kills him, they go home, and the movie ends right there.

Each challenge has a different writer and director, all of whom are credited at the end credits, despite no credit to the director or writers of the beginning or ending. The challenge segments include a murder mystery, a Mad Max-esque world, zombies, giant monkey statues, and the glam metal legends W.A.S.P., who try to kill Paul with the power of metal and face meltingly awesome rock! This movie is pretty disjointed and very repetitive, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like it. I love the low budget effects (still better than CGI), Richard Moll is hilariously over the top as the villain, and some of the segments can be entertaining for the 5 to 10 minutes they last. But a movie like this feels incomplete without some Mystery Science Theater 3000 silhouettes at the bottom. If anything of this 80’s cheese sounds entertaining to you, you’ll probably wind up enjoying it.

But note, it’s called “The Dungeonmaster” to trick Dungeons and Dragons fans into seeing it, and it has pretty much nothing to do that. Seriously, that was the goal with the new title, because this was originally called Ragewar (sounds like a W.A.S.P. cover band) and Digital Knights. I guess it’s like Dungeons and Dragons mixed with Tron (not as awesome as it sounds thought) and it is better than the actual D&D movie. But I had to just call out its deceptive marketing. Again, if this sounds cool (and it DOES sound cool) then please, check it out, and let the power of metal take you away.

Time Bandits - (1981)

Director Terry Gilliam was always more of a behind the scenes guy on Monty Python, providing all the weird animated segments. Since then he’s become a very famous director, most notably directing one of the greatest science fiction/fantasy movies of all time, “Brazil” (at least if you ask me) and of course one of the greatest comedy movies of all time, “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” (just ask anyone). And although I can see some kids (and adults) being weirded out by “Time Bandits”, I just love it, and I’d say it’s a great family movie…for certain families.

It’s about a little boy named Kevin, whose ignored by his technology obsessed parents, while he’s really into history. Then one day, some dwarves come through his closet with a map, which they stole from God. The map can transport you through time, and the boy is dragged along with them when God bursts into his room looking for the map. Along the way he meets Napoleon Bonaparte, Robin Hood, Agamemnon, and Evil. Evil wants the map for himself so he can escape from the dimension God trapped him in, creating the conflict, as if being chased by God isn’t enough. I love it, it’s so epic, and the ending, which may seriously bother some people and be nightmare fuel to children, is perfect. I always liked sick kid’s movies, like “Gremlins” and Tim Burton’s “Batman” movies, and I’m sure plenty of kids can handle the movie, and would even love it. Some kids may find it dated nowadays, being raised on CGI vomit and other crap, but forget about the kids for a second, if you’re interested in this premise, then you’ll love it. If you think it sounds too weird or silly, then you probably won’t like it, but it’s your loss because it’s a really awesome movie.

This movie also has the absolute greatest movie cast assembled ever in any movie. It has Sean Connery, John Cleese, David Warner, Tony Jay, Michael Palin, Ian Holm, Jim Broadbent, and Kenny Baker (you know, R2-D2 from “Star Wars”). Most of these people are only in one part, but that what makes it awesome. John Cleese is only in one scene as Robin Hood, and it’s easily the funniest part of the whole movie. Sean Connery is Agamemnon, and actually gets some touching moments with Kevin. David Warner, one of the greatest actors ever, is completely awesome as Evil. The movie deserves credit just for getting such an awesome cast together. They could’ve just all sat on a toilet for 2 hours, and it still would’ve been great. But of course, the main character is the little boy, Kevin, played by Craig Warnock, who actually does really good, and went to go on to do no movie ever again.

The song featured in the film is “Dream Away”, by producer and ex-Beatle George Harrison, and it’s pretty good. The special effects are also amazing, as they’re *actually* special effects, using models and stop-motion animation. The good ol’ days. Overall, I love this movie, if any of this sounds appealing you’ll love it, and overall it’s a reminder of how good movies can be.