BLECHHULA

BLACULA (1972)
dir: William Crain

BLECHHULA
Spoof #4, March 1973
w: Stu Schwartzberg
a: Marie Severin & Winslow Mortimer

One of the main genres of the 70s the blaxploitation craze, which began with Cotton Comes to Harlem and Sweet Sweetback's Baaadasssss Song, continuing with film franchises usually centering on one character, like Shaft, Black Caesar, and Cleopatra Jones.

A subset of this was blaxploitation horror, black versions of established characters. There was Blacula, Blackenstein, Abby (The Exorcist), Dr. Black and Mr. White. I'm loath to say anything is “the black version” of something, but this is how they were advertised, so I'm not saying something that hasn't already been said.

As far as I know, this was the only blaxploitation horror movie that was parodied.


There's also a parody of Marcus Welby, M. D. in this issue of Spoof that we'll get to.

(Barnabas was another vampire on Dark Shadows, which we'll also get to.


It begins with a prince visiting Count Dracula 100 years earlier...

...and being bitten by him.

In the present time, a gay couple is buying antiques to bring back to America. In the movie the black man in the couple is played by a white man, I can't figure out why. Prince Mamuwalde a/k/a Blacula (William Marshall) comes back to life out of the coffin. He bites the white man (the real one).

Now loose in the city, Blacula spots a young woman named Tina (Vonetta McGee) who he believes is the reincarnation of his wife and she thinks is a stalker. He chases her and gets hit by a cab and bites the driver.

After chasing Tina into a nightclub (there's a long musical number cut out of this), where she was to meet her sister Michelle (Denise Nicholas) and her boyfriend (Thalmus Rasulala). Tina falls for Blacula and a waitress takes a picture of them. Later when the waitress is at home developing the photo, she discovers that he doesn't appear in the picture.

This wasn't the first, there was also a sequel.