Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. My name
Speaker 1: is Joe McCormick. Today we're bringing you an older episode
Speaker 1: of Weird House Cinema. This was our feature on the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two tragic romantic horror classic Blackula, directed by
Speaker 1: William Crane starring William Marshall. This episode originally aired on
Speaker 1: February two, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: Enjoy, Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3: Hey you, welcome to Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 1: This is Rob Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. And
Speaker 1: today on Weird House Cinema, we are going to be
Speaker 1: talking about the nineteen seventy two tragic romantic horror film Blackula.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, so this is in a sense another Dracula movie.
Speaker 3: We'll get into that in a bit, and I'm generally
Speaker 3: down for any Dracula film. We've covered various Dracula movies
Speaker 3: already on Weird House Cinema. Most recently we talked about
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy two's Dracula Ad nineteen seventy two, in which
Speaker 3: the Count awakens in contemporary London. Today's movie is also
Speaker 3: a nineteen seventy two release, and it also centers around
Speaker 3: a vampire prints awakening in the contemporary world, only this
Speaker 3: time it's Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: Is it Los Angeles? I kept thinking that the exterior
Speaker 1: shots looked like LA, But then I would see, like
Speaker 1: there was a scene at the police station where in
Speaker 1: the background, I'm pretty sure they had a map of
Speaker 1: Staten Island on the wall.
Speaker 3: Well, I didn't notice that. I believe the movie when
Speaker 3: it told me it was Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: Well wait, did the movie even say it was LA?
Speaker 1: I didn't remember that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, our character, doctor Thomas, supposedly works for the Los
Speaker 3: Angeles Police Department.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, then, oh, maybe he's just like a Staten
Speaker 1: Island map hobbyist.
Speaker 3: That's up there.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but you know what. So this movie
Speaker 1: had been on my radar for many years, but I
Speaker 1: hadn't seen it until you picked it for the show. Rob.
Speaker 1: First of all, I really liked it, But second, it's
Speaker 1: a very different movie than I imagined. I think because the
Speaker 1: title is a pun and because I understood it to
Speaker 1: be part of the black exploitation wave, I had always
Speaker 1: expected it would be more of a satirical horror comedy
Speaker 1: that it would be sort of a satirical take on
Speaker 1: American culture from a black perspective, using some using like
Speaker 1: vampire themes to get across some of its like comedic observations.
Speaker 1: But it's really not a comedy at all. Instead, it
Speaker 1: is a I think, very serious and very effective, tragic,
Speaker 1: romantic horror film.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and it's interesting it. We'll be discussing this
Speaker 3: a bit, like the degree to which that transformation seems
Speaker 3: to have taken place, because I think the studio initially
Speaker 3: envisioned something that was more of a comedy and was
Speaker 3: more of a more satire and was just about, you know,
Speaker 3: given the audience a good time. But this was transformed
Speaker 3: by at least two of the key individuals involved, if
Speaker 3: not more.
Speaker 1: Also, I have to say the comparison to Dracula nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy two AD is hilarious because multiple things. So, first
Speaker 1: of all, I think Blacula is a much better film
Speaker 1: than that. But the other thing is that we kept
Speaker 1: joking in that episode that Dracula in nineteen seventy two
Speaker 1: a D did not really put Dracula in nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: two a D. He was almost like he just hangs
Speaker 1: out in and abandoned church the whole time, and then
Speaker 1: victims are brought to him, so he never encounters modern
Speaker 1: culture or anything like that. And we talked about the
Speaker 1: potential for realizing, you know, Dracula as a sort of
Speaker 1: fish out of time character who's running into all of
Speaker 1: the texture of the modern world and having friction when
Speaker 1: interacting with it. You could expect that that Blacula could
Speaker 1: be like that as well, but really there is not
Speaker 1: much fish out of time about it at all. In fact,
Speaker 1: by the time our our vampire hero arrives in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy two, he's like the coolest person in nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 1: He's like more at ease and at home than anybody
Speaker 1: who just normally lives their life here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely so. Yeah, Black Youa is a very well
Speaker 3: known film in the history of horror and vampire movies
Speaker 3: and certainly has a has its place in the history
Speaker 3: of black cinema. So like yourself, Yeah, I've been familiar
Speaker 3: with it for a long time, but I'd never taken
Speaker 3: the time to actually sit down and watch it. And
Speaker 3: and part of, you know, part of that was, like
Speaker 3: I assumed it was more of a comedy, you know,
Speaker 3: I wasn't sure how it might have aged, how it
Speaker 3: was received, and what his legacy was, because you know,
Speaker 3: not everything that is often categorized into the broad label
Speaker 3: of black exploitation is worth a revisit. But I just
Speaker 3: kept seeing more film creators, more artists, more historians, especially
Speaker 3: artists and historians of color, singling it out for its strengths.
Speaker 3: One such artist is Rodney Barnes, an American screenwriter and
Speaker 3: producer whose writing credits include Everybody Hates Chris, The Boondocks,
Speaker 3: and also the TV series Winning Time on HBO. He
Speaker 3: was also apparently and he has an additional crew credit.
Speaker 3: I'm blade. I'm not sure what he did on that,
Speaker 3: but still in nice vampire connection. But I picked up
Speaker 3: his twenty twenty three graphic novel Blacula, Return of the King,
Speaker 3: illustrated by Jason Sean Alexander, and it's really fun. It's
Speaker 3: a modern sequel to the film Blacula, reawakening our central
Speaker 3: Prince character once more in contemporary Los Angeles and on
Speaker 3: a collision course, this time with his vampiric maker. It's
Speaker 3: really again, really good, really fun, and it includes an
Speaker 3: extended intro in which Barnes describes being a horror fan
Speaker 3: as a kid and being at the time mostly dependent
Speaker 3: on a diet of hammer horror films which featured predominantly
Speaker 3: white casts and never a black vampire. So he mentions
Speaker 3: like seeing the ads for the first time. I think
Speaker 3: he says that he saw them during the commercial breaks
Speaker 3: for a Soul Train and he was instantly excited. As
Speaker 3: a child, he was like, you know this, this is
Speaker 3: something different. This is here. Here is a case where
Speaker 3: I get to see like a black vampire character in
Speaker 3: a film. So black Yela the movie called to him
Speaker 3: ultimately helped inspire him to become a creator himself. And
Speaker 3: you know, he acknowledges that the film has its flaws,
Speaker 3: but that its power was undeniable. Now, I want to
Speaker 3: throw into one quick note about the language of the film.
Speaker 3: While the film is rated PG and doesn't really contain
Speaker 3: anything objectionable in terms of gore or sexuality, we should
Speaker 3: stress that a homophobic slur is used at least a
Speaker 3: couple of times, one instance by a key protagonist, and
Speaker 3: once in a really unnecessary and hurtful way. It certainly
Speaker 3: ding's enjoyment of the film, especially since there's so many
Speaker 3: captivating elements of the picture otherwise, so I wanted to
Speaker 3: single that out. I was reading a little bit more
Speaker 3: about this in The Dracula and the Blacula nineteen seventy
Speaker 3: two Cultural Revolution by Lemon and Browning. This was published
Speaker 3: in two thousand and nine's Draculas, Vampires and Other Undead
Speaker 3: Forms Essays on Gender, Race, and Culture. And this article
Speaker 3: makes the case that we also see efforts in the
Speaker 3: movie at challenging homosexual stereotypes, just as the film challenges
Speaker 3: stereotypes of black and African characters, though the authors here
Speaker 3: acknowledged that the film fumbles in this and ultimately quote
Speaker 3: encourage stereotypes and bigotries concerning homosexuality more than they challenged them.
Speaker 3: So I just wanted to throw that out there in
Speaker 3: case anyone was looking to pause the podcast go watch
Speaker 3: the film. I think it's just a good heads up
Speaker 3: to have. All Right, well, at this point, let's go
Speaker 3: ahead and have a little trailer audio. The actual trailer
Speaker 3: for the film is a bit long, but we were
Speaker 3: able to dig up the radio spot here. I love
Speaker 3: a good radio spot, so let's listen to the original
Speaker 3: radio spot for Blackula.
Speaker 4: You Shall Black Prince. I pressure with my name, you
Speaker 4: shall be black Cula, Blackcula, the black avenger rising from
Speaker 4: his tomb to fill the night with horror.
Speaker 5: Blackcula, tracula soul brother, deadlier even than he Blacula. He
Speaker 5: first for your blood, he hung less for your soul,
Speaker 5: more horrifying than Draccular, the Black of anger. Blackcula, an
Speaker 5: American International really rated PG. Parental guidance suggested.
Speaker 3: Now, of note that voice you heard at the beginning,
Speaker 3: that is the voice of Count Dracula, as we'll discuss.
Speaker 1: M You know, that raises another way in which this
Speaker 1: movie I think is different than what some people might
Speaker 1: assume going into it, which you might assume of the
Speaker 1: premise is what if Count Dracula were black, but instead
Speaker 1: our black vampire prints in the movie is very much
Speaker 1: set in opposition to Count Dracula, Like Count Dracula is
Speaker 1: still the villain.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, absolutely complete and utter villain, but then also
Speaker 3: one that will not factor into the film directly after
Speaker 3: after just a few minutes into the film, really.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he disappears after like three or four minutes in.
Speaker 3: Yeah. All right, Well, if you're intrigued, if you're interested
Speaker 3: in watching this one on your own, before proceeding with
Speaker 3: the rest of the episode. It's pretty widely available. We
Speaker 3: watched it on the twenty twenty three Blue from Sandpiper Pictures.
Speaker 3: It's bare bones, doesn't really have anything in the way
Speaker 3: of extras, but the quality is great. We rented it
Speaker 3: from Video Drum here in Atlanta, though I believe it's
Speaker 3: also streaming on Prime and other sources. So again, you
Speaker 3: shouldn't have any problem getting a hold of this movie.
Speaker 3: All right, let's get into the people who made this film,
Speaker 3: starting at the top with the director. William Crane born
Speaker 3: nineteen forty nine, American director in UCLA Film School graduate,
Speaker 3: best remembered for this film and thus his contributions to
Speaker 3: black cinema of the seventies and more broadly, the horror
Speaker 3: genre itself. Prior to Blacula, he'd worked in TV. He
Speaker 3: directed a nineteen seventy one episode of Mod Squad, though
Speaker 3: he apparently worked as an uncredited intern director on the
Speaker 3: nineteen seventies Sydney Quadier movie Brother John, which also features
Speaker 3: Paul Winfield. But anyway, after Blacula, he continued to direct
Speaker 3: episodes of such TV series as Starsky and hutch Swat
Speaker 3: and The Rookies, before returning to the world of black
Speaker 3: centric horror films with nineteen seventy six is Doctor Black
Speaker 3: Mister Hyde, starring Bernie Casey in the lead roles.
Speaker 1: No, I'd be interested to see that one too.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I saw a bit from an interview with
Speaker 3: him where he said he had more freedom in that one,
Speaker 3: So I'm interested to read more about it, see how
Speaker 3: it was received, and potentially watch it now. Afterwards, he
Speaker 3: directed episodes of The Dukes of Hazzard, Matt Houston, and
Speaker 3: Designing Women. There are a lot of interviews with him
Speaker 3: out there. I ran across one from a This is
Speaker 3: a twenty twenty one interview on WBBM News Radio with
Speaker 3: Mike Ramsey. He says, AIP, that's American International Pictures. They
Speaker 3: were doing exploitive movies. The rumor was they were in
Speaker 3: the red and so they were going to do a
Speaker 3: black vampire movie. I happened to be in the right
Speaker 3: place at the right time. The original concept was Count
Speaker 3: Brown's in Town. It was this Shuckin' and jivin and
Speaker 3: I didn't want to do it, but they hired me
Speaker 3: to do this movie. William Marshall said, let's just make
Speaker 3: this straight.
Speaker 1: So William Marshall is the actor who plays Memo Walde,
Speaker 1: the main vampire in the movie, And yeah, this is
Speaker 1: in line with what I've read that he was a
Speaker 1: big force in reimagining the movie as a more serious
Speaker 1: dramatic project.
Speaker 3: Yeah, according to Lemonon Browning in that article, I decided
Speaker 3: when he came on board to star in the picture,
Speaker 3: he insisted on certain changes to Mamalwalde's character and wrote
Speaker 3: or rewrote key scenes concerning Memalwalde's eighteenth century mission to
Speaker 3: Europe as well as his connection to his wife Luva.
Speaker 3: So he seems to have been heavily involved in the
Speaker 3: choices that made this film notable.
Speaker 1: But by emphasizing the tragic romance at the core of it,
Speaker 1: I don't want to undersell the horror elements of this
Speaker 1: film now because, to come back to Crane's approach to
Speaker 1: it as a horror film, I think the scary scenes,
Speaker 1: though it's not wall to wall scares, the scary scenes
Speaker 1: are quite effective. There are some extremely creepy shots in
Speaker 1: this movie, like it does a thing a couple of
Speaker 1: times where a character like a monster, a vampire character
Speaker 1: is just directly approaching the camera, So the camera is
Speaker 1: at a fixed position and the vampire is just gliding
Speaker 1: straight into your face. And I don't know, that's not
Speaker 1: a kind of shot that I think of is very
Speaker 1: common in horror films. But even though it seems like
Speaker 1: it would be, I don't know why it's not. But
Speaker 1: it's very effective here.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, you can imagine these scenes really sizzling on
Speaker 3: the big screen in front of a packed house. And
Speaker 3: it's worth noting that this film was quite a success
Speaker 3: and certainly played an important part in sort of paving
Speaker 3: the way for additional black horror films that came out afterwards,
Speaker 3: though we should also note this was not I think
Speaker 3: sometimes this is described as the quote first black horror film,
Speaker 3: which is not the case. There were earlier examples of this.
Speaker 3: The credited right on this are Joan Torres and Raymond Koenig.
Speaker 3: I don't have dates for them. I don't think dates
Speaker 3: are available, though I believe Joan Torres at least is
Speaker 3: still still around. This and the nineteen seventy three sequel
Speaker 3: Scream Blacula Scream are their only credits. Joan Torres has
Speaker 3: a website, Joan Torres dot com, which details her additional
Speaker 3: work as a playwright and a novelist. Given the subject
Speaker 3: matter the film, it's notable that neither of the credited
Speaker 3: writers was themselves black, But again, the film's black director
Speaker 3: and black lead evidently further crafted the screenplay in this
Speaker 3: more serious direction.
Speaker 1: Just wanted to note you mentioned the sequel Scream, Blacula Scream,
Speaker 1: which does also have William Marshall in it. I don't
Speaker 1: know anything about the reputation of that movie, but I
Speaker 1: wanted to note it does have Pam Greer in it.
Speaker 1: So that's the reason to watch true.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, let's come back to William Marshall again.
Speaker 3: This is our star who plays Prince Mama Walde, the vampire.
Speaker 3: William Marshall lived nineteen twenty four through two thousand and three. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the star of this picture and just an irrefutable central
Speaker 3: force in the making of the film. What it making
Speaker 3: the film what it is bringing dignity, power and complexity
Speaker 3: to a character that otherwise could have unlikely would have
Speaker 3: been a much more shallow exercise in vampire horror. Marshall
Speaker 3: was an American actor, director, and opera singer with impressive
Speaker 3: credits across stage, screen and TV. He studied at the
Speaker 3: Actor's Studio in New York and was I believe had
Speaker 3: some opera training. I'm not as informed about his career
Speaker 3: regarding opera, but he performed on Broadway in the late
Speaker 3: forties and early fifties, and he played the title role
Speaker 3: in Othello in both the US and Europe. There's a
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty one production of A Fellow with him in
Speaker 3: the lead role that was filmed and I believe is available.
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised to hear that he was an opera
Speaker 1: singer because he has an absolutely magnificent voice, just a
Speaker 1: beautiful bass, like a I'm trying to think, what's the metaphor,
Speaker 1: it's like a ship sailing through smooth Is this just
Speaker 1: like an amazing voice. It is the kind of voice
Speaker 1: that every time he speaks, people just turn and listen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's captivating. So his TV credits, he has a
Speaker 3: lot of TV credits, include a second season episode of
Speaker 3: The original Star Trek. This one was titled The Ultimate
Speaker 3: Computer in which he played a brilliant human computer scientist.
Speaker 3: And then he may also be a familiar face from
Speaker 3: his later years for some of you because he played
Speaker 3: the King of Cartoons on Peewee's Playhouse, according to his
Speaker 3: New York Times obit. In nineteen eighty three, he appeared
Speaker 3: in a one hour, one man show for PBS called
Speaker 3: Frederick Douglas, Slave and Statesman, and he adapted this for
Speaker 3: the theater as inter Frederick Douglass, which he performed for
Speaker 3: many years. And yeah, he has a whole bunch of credits.
Speaker 3: I did note that on the old nineteen eighty Spider
Speaker 3: Man cartoon he voiced both the Juggernaut and Tony Stark,
Speaker 3: whoa in cinema. His other credits include nineteen fifty four's
Speaker 3: Demetrius and the Gladiators, nineteen seventy three sequel Screen Blackula,
Speaker 3: Scream of Course, the nineteen seventy four zombie movie Abby,
Speaker 3: seventy seven's Twilight's Last Gleaming, and nineteen ninety four's Maverick.
Speaker 3: So again, yeah, he's absolutely commanding in this role. You
Speaker 3: can see how he was such a powerful force on
Speaker 3: the trajectory of this film as well, first of all
Speaker 3: in pushing for these changes, and secondly, according to Crane
Speaker 3: in that interview, I was looking at in being able
Speaker 3: to deliver on those changes in such a way that
Speaker 3: as the dailies or the raw footage was rolling in
Speaker 3: from the filming the studio like they just followed suit.
Speaker 3: They didn't fight it because they saw that it was
Speaker 3: absolutely working, all right. So moving on to the rest
Speaker 3: of the cast, we have a dual role here of
Speaker 3: Tina and Luva, which we'll get into what that means
Speaker 3: here in a bit. But these characters are played by
Speaker 3: Vanetta McGhee, who lived nineteen forty five through twenty ten,
Speaker 3: American act who'd been in several films prior to this,
Speaker 3: including the Italian western The Great Silence. Her subsequent films
Speaker 3: included nineteen seventy three as Shaft in Africa and Detroit
Speaker 3: nine thousand. In nineteen seventy five, she was in The
Speaker 3: Eiger Sanction opposite Clint Eastwood. I believe that was She's
Speaker 3: like second build on that. She's in nineteen eighty four's
Speaker 3: Repo Man in nineteen nineties to Sleep with Anger, all right,
Speaker 3: now playing Tina's sister in nineteen seventy two. The sister's
Speaker 3: name is Michelle, played by Denise Nicholas born nineteen forty four,
Speaker 3: American actress with extensive television credits, including an episode of
Speaker 3: Night Gallery Love American Style, Different Strokes, The Love Boat,
Speaker 3: and sixty nine episodes of In the Heat of the Night.
Speaker 3: Her film credits include seventy seven's capricorn I, nineteen nineties
Speaker 3: Ghost Dad, in two thousand's Ritual. She won a nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy six NAACP Image Award for her role in Let's
Speaker 3: Do It Again.
Speaker 1: I feel like a big part of Michelle's role in
Speaker 1: the plot is we have to have somebody who is
Speaker 1: skeptical of the vampire stuff, because Tina ultimately is going
Speaker 1: to become wooed by the power of Memo wall Day,
Speaker 1: and you know, she ultimately is like, yeah, Okay, I'll
Speaker 1: be a vampire because I love you. The character we're
Speaker 1: about to talk about, doctor Gordon Thomas, he's pretty much
Speaker 1: from the beginning is like, I think a vampire could
Speaker 1: be responsible for these killings. So Michelle is going to
Speaker 1: be the one who's like, I don't believe this, and
Speaker 1: I do not want to go dig up a grave tonight.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So let's get to doctor Gordon Thomas
Speaker 3: because he's essentially the Van Helsing character yes of the movie.
Speaker 1: He's the investigator, the human hero.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he is played by Thalmus Rassulula. He lived
Speaker 3: nineteen thirty nine through nineteen ninety one American actor with
Speaker 3: extensive TV credits going back to nineteen sixty including Perry Mason,
Speaker 3: The Original Twighlight Zone, All in the Family, Mission Impossible,
Speaker 3: Sanford and Son, The Jefferson Kojak, The Incredible Hulk. He
Speaker 3: also shows up in an episode of Star Trek The
Speaker 3: Next Generation, playing the character Captain Donald Varley. Also notable,
Speaker 3: he pops up on a nineteen seventy five episode of
Speaker 3: Saturday Night Live, specifically in a skit titled Exorcist two
Speaker 3: in which he plays Father Marrin.
Speaker 1: I like that the implied comedy of this skit is
Speaker 1: how ridiculous it would be to make a sequel to
Speaker 1: the Exorcist. But then just a couple of years later,
Speaker 1: they literally did yeh of.
Speaker 3: Note that episode of Saturday Night Live was hosted by
Speaker 3: Richard Pryor, you know, the great stand up comedian, and
Speaker 3: the musical guest was a legendary Gil Scott Heron. Reportedly,
Speaker 3: Pryor only agreed to host the show if both of
Speaker 3: these men were involved, so they were like handpicked. He's like,
Speaker 3: I'll do it. You got to bring in gil Scott
Speaker 3: Heron and you got to bring in Thalmus to be
Speaker 3: in this skit with me.
Speaker 1: He's really effective in this movie. And he has a
Speaker 1: sort of thankless role to play because William Marshall's character
Speaker 1: gets to be the vampire, gets to be the tragic
Speaker 1: prince and at the center of this tragic love story,
Speaker 1: whereas Gordon Thomas Thomas Roussoula's character has to be hunting
Speaker 1: him down and doing so in a like. The character
Speaker 1: is written as an irascible and business oriented man. Like
Speaker 1: he's not fun, and yet it is fun watching the
Speaker 1: character do what he does.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think it's a really solid performance. You know,
Speaker 3: he's like he's a grumpy but smooth Van Helson character. Yeah,
Speaker 3: all right, this is a minor character. But I also
Speaker 3: want to call out that Jaitu Kombuka is in this
Speaker 3: playing the character Skillet. Skillett is a bit comic relief
Speaker 3: character who really likes Memwalde's Kate. Yes, but it's a
Speaker 3: memorable brief bart. He lived nineteen forty through twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3: He was a main cast member on the Spice series
Speaker 3: A Man called Sloan with Robert Conrad and Dan o'hurlehay.
Speaker 3: He was in Roots's. His other credits include Doctor Black,
Speaker 3: Mister Hyde, nineteen seventy one's Brian Song, seventy six is
Speaker 3: Bound for Glory, eighty five Brewsters Millions, and nineteen eighty
Speaker 3: nine's Harlem Knights.
Speaker 1: This character appears multiple times to admire Memolde's cape and
Speaker 1: to comment that he has one strange dude.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's his sole purpose here. All right. We mentioned
Speaker 3: that Dracula is in this movie, and we'll discuss the
Speaker 3: way Dracula is envisioned in this film here in a
Speaker 3: bit in more detail. But Dracula here is played by
Speaker 3: Charles McCauley, who lived nineteen twenty seven through nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 3: an American actor of stage, screen, and TV, whose earliest
Speaker 3: film role is an uncredited part in Roger Corman's horror
Speaker 3: comedy Creature from the Haunted Sea nineteen sixty one. We
Speaker 3: haven't watched this one on Weird House, but it's often
Speaker 3: considered part of a trilogy of horror comedies that Corman did,
Speaker 3: along with Bucket of Blood and The Little Shop of Horrors.
Speaker 3: McAuley also worked with Corman, credited, this time in nineteen
Speaker 3: sixty two's Tower of London. His filmography features a great
Speaker 3: deal of mainstream TV work, along with various entries in
Speaker 3: the horror genre. On TV, he appeared on two episodes
Speaker 3: of The original Star Trek, thirty five episodes of Days
Speaker 3: of Our Lives, He was on Mission Impossible, Night Gallery, Colombo,
Speaker 3: and much more. In film, his credits include sixty eight's Head,
Speaker 3: seventy twos, Twilight People, seventy four's The House of Seven
Speaker 3: Corpses seventy five is the Hindenburg Airport seventy seven, and
Speaker 3: he played the President of the United States in the
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty four Mermaid comedy Splash, which just I haven't
Speaker 3: seen Splash in a while. Watched it a lot as
Speaker 3: a kid, but now I'm just imagining, like President Dracula.
Speaker 1: Uh huh, I've never seen it, but now there's a
Speaker 1: treat waiting for me.
Speaker 3: If I ever get there. Oh yeah, I remember it
Speaker 3: as being fun. More on Dracula in a bit, but
Speaker 3: it is. It's a very memorable Count Dracula. Yeah. This
Speaker 3: is just an aside, I guess mostly for people who
Speaker 3: were big into like the history of stunt work and
Speaker 3: or grappling and so forth. And pro wrestling. But one
Speaker 3: of Dracula's henchmen is played by Jean LaBelle, who lived
Speaker 3: nineteen thirty two through twenty twenty two. Noted grappler, judo practitioner,
Speaker 3: pro wrestler, stunt man. He pops up in a lot
Speaker 3: of things, often in just like really small roles.
Speaker 1: It is funny in this movie that Dracula just has
Speaker 1: wrestlers working for him, Like he calls out his wrestlers
Speaker 1: and they've got the you know, the Lacey cravats on,
Speaker 1: but they're just like these beefy.
Speaker 3: Guys, all right. Get a few credits from behind the
Speaker 3: scenes here. Sandy DeVore is the title designer on this
Speaker 3: film who lived nineteen thirty four through twenty twenty American artist,
Speaker 3: graphic designer, and title designer who worked with some big
Speaker 3: recording artists of the day, including Sammy Davis Junior, and
Speaker 3: went on to create title sequences for such TV shows
Speaker 3: as The Partridge Family. We've actually seen some of Sandy
Speaker 3: Devorre's work on Weird Howse Cinema before, because he did
Speaker 3: the excellent title sequence four The Dunwich Horror, which had
Speaker 3: a very similar style only instead of like red black
Speaker 3: and white, it was like blue and black.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I really like the title design in this movie.
Speaker 1: It's sort of a like an animated bat chasing a
Speaker 1: red outline of a woman around in this abstract landscape
Speaker 1: that almost looks like you've zoomed in a lot on calligraphy,
Speaker 1: and the figures are trying to navigate in the spaces
Speaker 1: between the bars of the letters.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, it's really cool and it's like a nice
Speaker 3: I like how it breaks up the film too, because
Speaker 3: we have a very heavy opening and then we get
Speaker 3: this fun title sequence before Trent's pourting to the modern
Speaker 3: day of nineteen seventy two. And I'll also add that
Speaker 3: there's an excellent website called artofthetitle dot com and they
Speaker 3: have multiple examples of Divorre's work, including the intros to
Speaker 3: Blacula and the intro to The Dunwich Horror. He also
Speaker 3: did one on a nineteen sixty nine film called DSAD.
Speaker 3: This was a Row Roger Corman film starring Kerr Dooley
Speaker 3: as the Marquis de Sade. Also has John Houston in it.
Speaker 3: But it's also like similar style and also very amusing
Speaker 3: to watch the composer on this film on Blackula is
Speaker 3: Gene Page, who lived nineteen thirty nine through nineteen ninety eight,
Speaker 3: American composer and record producer. He also did arrangements on
Speaker 3: tracks for some of the biggest musical acts of the
Speaker 3: time period. He has something like fifteen hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: five writing and arrangement credits on discogs what including Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's like this man works a lot working with artists.
Speaker 3: I can't even list them all, but just as a
Speaker 3: brief overview, people like Barry White, James Taylor, Michael Jackson, Cher.
Speaker 3: It seems to be the main main work that he did.
Speaker 3: This is his most well known film score out of
Speaker 3: only a handful of score composition credits.
Speaker 1: I love the music in Blackula, and it works I
Speaker 1: think on every level. Like there's i'm just non diegetic
Speaker 1: background music that you know, it brings the right horror ambiance.
Speaker 1: But then there is also plenty of funk in the movie,
Speaker 1: and then even some diegetic on screen band performances that
Speaker 1: are fantastic as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we're going to discuss them in just a second,
Speaker 3: but yeah, I all agree, absolutely wonderful score. It's funky
Speaker 3: and soulful, blazingly upbeat in places, but it also does
Speaker 3: get into that what I like to think of is
Speaker 3: like the horror jazz night gallery zone as well, tweaked
Speaker 3: with some synth weirdness in places. It really drives on
Speaker 3: the creepy moments. Now, the musical performances that you mentioned,
Speaker 3: these are performances by the Hughes Corporation. They were a
Speaker 3: pop and soul trio, best known for a hit that
Speaker 3: would come out a couple of years later in nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy four, Rock the Boat. I mean, I don't even
Speaker 3: have to humme it. You all know it. You've all
Speaker 3: heard Rock the Boat. At the time of Black consisted
Speaker 3: of Saint Clair Lee who lived nineteen forty four through
Speaker 3: twenty eleven. This is the vocalist with the headband H. M.
Speaker 3: Kelly born nineteen forty seven, and Carl Russell. I believe
Speaker 3: he left the group after the movie, but also maybe
Speaker 3: returned later during a time period when they got back
Speaker 3: together again. I'm a little foggy on how all that works,
Speaker 3: but they are a lot of fun in their performances
Speaker 3: in Black Law.
Speaker 1: They get at least two on screen musical performances in
Speaker 1: the film, or are there even more.
Speaker 3: They have at least three tracks on the soundtrack. There's
Speaker 3: There He Is Again, which we'll talk about in a bill.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, wonderful. There's What the World Knows, which is
Speaker 3: a more soulful, romantic number, and then I'm Gonna Catch You,
Speaker 3: which is also a really fun song. It's like a
Speaker 3: cheating heart song, but it's really good.
Speaker 1: There He Is Again is my favorite because it's it
Speaker 1: can the lyrics can be read as a song about
Speaker 1: a vampire.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely like it if you're not analyzing the lyrics
Speaker 3: too closely, like, yeah, yeah, of course it's about Mamawaldi,
Speaker 3: it's about this vampire. I also note there are two
Speaker 3: tracks on the soundtrack by the twenty first Century LTD.
Speaker 3: This is or I guess I would say twenty first
Speaker 3: century limited heavy changes and main chance. These are both
Speaker 3: romantic numbers, and I honestly can't remember how they're integrated
Speaker 3: into the film or you know, to what extent they are.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're ready to talk about the plot, let's do it.
Speaker 1: So we open on the exterior of a castle on
Speaker 1: a darkened, stormy night. Rain pours down, battering the castle towers,
Speaker 1: and bolts of lightning cut through the darkness, and a chiron.
Speaker 1: Text on the screen says Transylvania seventeen eighty Castle Dracula.
Speaker 1: So we cut inside the castle to an ornate dining
Speaker 1: room illuminated by candles and a roaring fireplace, and Count
Speaker 1: Dracula is here and he is hosting a pair of
Speaker 1: guests after what seems to have been some kind of
Speaker 1: international diplomatic function meeting with dignitaries. Now, this Count Dracula
Speaker 1: is not exactly of the Bela Lugosi variety. He has
Speaker 1: like longer hairs, kind of grayish brown in color, and
Speaker 1: a goateee. He's wearing a black and gold coat over
Speaker 1: a blue vest with a frilly white cravat, and he
Speaker 1: is immediately unlikable, smarmy palpably untrustworthy, and we will soon
Speaker 1: come to realize racist he is. He's at first kind
Speaker 1: of superficially friendly to his two guests, and the guests
Speaker 1: are Prince mam U Walde and his wife, Princess Luva,
Speaker 1: who are royalty from what is initially an unnamed African country,
Speaker 1: but we will later learn that they are from the
Speaker 1: Ibani nation in the northeast of the Niger Delta. Memoalde
Speaker 1: is dressed in a dark suit with a powder blue cravat,
Speaker 1: and Luva is wearing a beautiful, elaborate multicolored dress with
Speaker 1: beadwork jewelry. So they've just seemingly finished a meeting with
Speaker 1: an array of diplomats and heads of state from around
Speaker 1: the world, and Dracula is pouring cognac all around. Memoalde
Speaker 1: and Luva explained to Count Dracula that they're here for
Speaker 1: a reason. They are on a mission to gain international
Speaker 1: allies in support of what seems to be a treaty,
Speaker 1: a treaty to do what well. Luva pulls out a text,
Speaker 1: a document to present to Count Dracula, and he reviews it,
Speaker 1: and then he recoils from the document in disbelief. Apparently,
Speaker 1: this treaty that they're pursuing would bring about the cessation
Speaker 1: of the international slave trade. Dracula doesn't like this idea.
Speaker 1: He counters that. He says, surely slavery has merit, and
Speaker 1: Memoalde raises an eyebrow. He asks how one would find
Speaker 1: in barbarity, but Dracula says, well, slavery may be barbaric
Speaker 1: from the point of view of the slave, but it
Speaker 1: holds lots of appeal to the slave owner, and then
Speaker 1: he transitions to making revolting comments with sexual overtones about
Speaker 1: how it would in fact be appealing to him to
Speaker 1: own luva.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the overt racism of Dracula is quite fascinating here.
Speaker 3: I think the film delivers the vibe in a way
Speaker 3: that a mere summary doesn't really capture. But yeah, this
Speaker 3: Dracula is, in many respects presented, is almost a kind
Speaker 3: of He's almost the institution of slavery incarnate. You know,
Speaker 3: it's all done in a few short scenes here, but
Speaker 3: you know, he dismisses objections to the practice on economic
Speaker 3: and sort of this is the world grounds, but quickly
Speaker 3: slides into it increasingly overtly racist rhetoric before directly provoking
Speaker 3: Mamma Walde by offering in cruel jess to buy his wife.
Speaker 3: And this then quickly transcends into physical assault, separation, murder,
Speaker 3: and a curse that transcends human lifetimes. And we also
Speaker 3: see his aristocratic mass completely slip from again from this
Speaker 3: like snide aristocrat to just absolute evil, cruelty and hunger.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So at the beginning of the exchange, Dracula is
Speaker 1: condescending and smarmy, but it's interesting to see how it
Speaker 1: just flips to overt hostility as soon as he is
Speaker 1: faced with something he disagrees with. So, of course Mamowalde
Speaker 1: won't tolerate this shocking behavior from Dracula, but he keeps
Speaker 1: his composure. He rises from his seat and he gathers
Speaker 1: Luva and says that they are leaving, but the evil
Speaker 1: Count will not allow it. He summons his minions, his
Speaker 1: hinchman to take hold of them, and then violence breaks out.
Speaker 1: Memowalde puts up a valiant fight. He uses like improvised
Speaker 1: weapons from the room. I think he grabs a torch
Speaker 1: off the wall, and then one of the henchmen grabs
Speaker 1: a saber off the wall and they fight there in
Speaker 1: front of the fire. But eventually Miawalde is outnumbered and
Speaker 1: overpowered by the Count's fighters, and eventually we see the
Speaker 1: Count's side including not just like the muscly wrestlers the
Speaker 1: stuntman we were talking about earlier, but like a whole
Speaker 1: coven of looming ghouls and these wheezing hooded blood drinkers,
Speaker 1: and this whole group approaches Prince Mama Welde and then
Speaker 1: Dracula exposes his neck and bites.
Speaker 3: It's all very well done, but I will note that
Speaker 3: one of the vampires in that scene does look to
Speaker 3: be an actual, actual, actual vampire from the apple she has.
Speaker 3: It's kind of like wide eyed and big, big fangs,
Speaker 3: But that's still it doesn't doesn't attract from the sequence.
Speaker 1: But it goes onto a horrifying escalation here. So there
Speaker 1: is an interment scene. Luva and Mama Welde are walled
Speaker 1: up in a secret room in the castle where Dracula
Speaker 1: is going to doom Luva to die of thirst and
Speaker 1: starvation in the room, while Mamo Walde is locked inside
Speaker 1: a coffin to transform into a vampire and forever yearn
Speaker 1: for blood that he cannot have. And here Dracula he
Speaker 1: places a curse. He says, quote, I shall place a
Speaker 1: curse of suffering on you that will doom you to
Speaker 1: a living hell. A hunger, a wild, gnawing animal. Hunger
Speaker 1: will grow in you, a hunger for human blood. Here
Speaker 1: you will starve for an eternity, torn by an unquenchable lust.
Speaker 1: I curse you with my name. You shall be Blacula,
Speaker 1: a vampire like myself, a living fiend. You will be
Speaker 1: doomed never to know that sweet blood which will become
Speaker 1: your only desire. And then slam slam shut the coffin door.
Speaker 1: They pad lock it, and they close the wall, and
Speaker 1: the curse to Mamowalde and Luva are left trapped in
Speaker 1: this room forever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's heavy stuff, and it's also worth noting here
Speaker 3: like this. We hear the name Blacula here, and we'll
Speaker 3: hear an echo of this later. But Mama Walde never
Speaker 3: in this film self identifies as Blacula, Like this is
Speaker 3: the name uttered by Dracula as he curses him.
Speaker 1: Yes, now, it might seem curious why Dracula is portrayed, Robin,
Speaker 1: I bet you picked up on the same thing. He's
Speaker 1: portrayed not just as being cruel to them, but specifically
Speaker 1: as having an orientation of vengeance. He is vengeful towards
Speaker 1: Mamma Walde and Luva, and they've done nothing whatsoever to
Speaker 1: harm him, Like there's no reason for him to be vengeful.
Speaker 1: But I think it fits. It goes with the theme
Speaker 1: like this is a common posture of racism, like vengeance,
Speaker 1: a feeling of need for vengeance in response to nothing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a great point. I want to
Speaker 3: again mention that Macaulay is really great in this sequence.
Speaker 3: He continues to lay on Dracula's evil very effectively, and
Speaker 3: I love the way that they made him up, so
Speaker 3: blood dripping from his lips after he has fed on
Speaker 3: Mama Walde and he's taunting Luva, but is also draining
Speaker 3: from his eyes, you know, like he's like he's he's
Speaker 3: a vicious beast that's so fatted on blood that his
Speaker 3: body can't contain it all anymore, and it's just kind
Speaker 3: of leaking out of every orifice. And yeah, it's just
Speaker 3: brutal stuff.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and I think the blood running out of
Speaker 1: the eyes, to me, it is a visual signal to
Speaker 1: convey hate. Do you get the same thing?
Speaker 3: I think?
Speaker 5: So? Yeah.
Speaker 1: So here we go to the credits, and again I
Speaker 1: love the design of the credits. There's groovy modern music.
Speaker 1: There's the animated bat chasing a woman around in the
Speaker 1: abstract landscape. It's very cool. After the credits, we return
Speaker 1: to Dracula's castle, but it's the present. Dracula's house is
Speaker 1: undergoing an estate sale, and we've got a couple of
Speaker 1: wholesale antique buyers from America who are here too. They're
Speaker 1: about to sign the paperwork to buy everything from the castle.
Speaker 1: The two antique dealers are the character's Bobby McCory and
Speaker 1: Billy Schaeffer. And these are the characters I think you
Speaker 1: alluded to earlier, rob who are portrayed as very stereotypically gay.
Speaker 1: Apparently they don't find out until the last minute that
Speaker 1: all of the stuff they're about to buy belonged to
Speaker 1: Count Dracula. The seller is worried that this is going
Speaker 1: to endanger the deal and gives them a discount. But
Speaker 1: do they really need one, answer is no, because the
Speaker 1: Dracula thing is a bonus to them. Bobby says, where
Speaker 1: we come from, Dracula is the Krim de la crim
Speaker 1: of camp. We're going to get a fortune for these things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the guy here was worried about, you know, about
Speaker 3: about having a deal with a Dracula refund or a
Speaker 3: Dracula discount. He should have been he should have been
Speaker 3: adding to the price. He should have been asking more
Speaker 3: for all this Dracula stuff.
Speaker 1: Billy also says that he has seen all of Dracula's movies,
Speaker 1: So I think it's interesting that it, like, what is
Speaker 1: the understanding of Dracula in the world of this movie.
Speaker 1: Here's what it seems to be. First of all, in
Speaker 1: this movie, vampires are real. Count Dracula was a real
Speaker 1: historical vampire in the late seventeen hundreds, though some modern
Speaker 1: characters believe he was just a myth. And this character
Speaker 1: is separate from Vladim Paler who lived in the fifteenth century. Also,
Speaker 1: in this universe, Dracula exists as a character known in
Speaker 1: horror films and stories. Presumably the novel Dracula exists.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting to tease all this apart. Rodney Barnes
Speaker 3: in the in blacular Return of the King, the way
Speaker 3: he kind of treated it was okay, Mama Walde had
Speaker 3: knew that this Count Dracula had there were some rumors
Speaker 3: about him about how he might be connected to this
Speaker 3: earlier tyrannical figure, but he just dismissed it as myth. So, yeah,
Speaker 3: there are multiple layers of fiction and history and fictional
Speaker 3: history that you have to juggle in this scenario.
Speaker 1: But it also portrays the historical figure Count Dracula in
Speaker 1: the late seventeen hundreds as having been an influential player
Speaker 1: in international politics, because like the reason Luva and Mama
Speaker 1: Walde are going to his castle is to get his
Speaker 1: support for trying to get allies for an international treaty.
Speaker 1: So he's not just seen as like, you know, a
Speaker 1: reclusive figure of mystery. This is like somebody who has
Speaker 1: influence over the affairs of state.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he is not an evil in the background of
Speaker 3: Europeans aristocracy. He is in the forefront, which which I
Speaker 3: think is key here. But anyway, he's long dad at
Speaker 3: this point.
Speaker 1: Oh that's right. In fact, the guy at the estate
Speaker 1: sale mentions how Dracula died.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he says, you know, don't worry about him. It
Speaker 3: was all over hyped anyway, and Van Helsing destroyed him
Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty years ago. So it's interesting, you know,
Speaker 3: we're set to encounter a reawakened mamal Wal in a
Speaker 3: world where his greatest adversary is him is himself long destroyed,
Speaker 3: but the legacy of his crime still resonate.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: So while going around with the seller, Bobby and Billy
Speaker 1: in the castle here discover an undisturbed coffin in a
Speaker 1: hidden room behind a wall, and we see, we the
Speaker 1: audience know that this is the room where Memo, Wilde
Speaker 1: and Luva were buried alive so they add the coffin
Speaker 1: to their haull and we see it brought back to
Speaker 1: the States via cargo ship. And here we get some
Speaker 1: a little bit of fish out of time texture, so
Speaker 1: we see modern streets and traffic and it's set to
Speaker 1: a funk soundtrack. Get some you know, wuah wah guitar,
Speaker 1: and then we see Bobby and Billy get the coffin
Speaker 1: back to their warehouse and Billy is discussing the idea
Speaker 1: of using it as a guest bed at their house.
Speaker 1: I like this idea.
Speaker 3: Bobby is doubtful, though, He's clearly doubtful of this idea,
Speaker 3: and he's like, okay.
Speaker 1: So they start trying to open the stuff. But before
Speaker 1: Bobby can get the coffin open, I think he breaks
Speaker 1: off the lock, but he doesn't open it yet. At
Speaker 1: the other end of the room, Billy cuts himself while
Speaker 1: prying at the lid of another crate, and it seems
Speaker 1: the smell of fresh blood stirs something inside the coffin,
Speaker 1: and so while Bobby and Billy are not looking, the
Speaker 1: lid creaks open and Mama Walde, now transformed into a vampire,
Speaker 1: begins to rise.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is our first real shot of the awakened
Speaker 3: prince Man Wwalde facing the camera, Dracula's curse audibly resonating
Speaker 3: in his mind. Pretty haunting stuff.
Speaker 1: Right, So he rises from the coffin and he he
Speaker 1: looks almost confused, like he's he's changed now, but he's
Speaker 1: torn between his conscious horror at his fate and his
Speaker 1: immediate thirst for blood. Like the you know, his conscious
Speaker 1: mind is fighting the vampire within him, and here might
Speaker 1: be a good place to discuss memo. Walde's two looks
Speaker 1: as a vampire. So sometimes basically, when he's not about
Speaker 1: to bite someone, he just looks like himself. He looks
Speaker 1: like the regular Prince Mamuelde from before. But when he
Speaker 1: goes into vampire mode, when he is about to bite
Speaker 1: someone or transform into a bat or something, he grows fangs,
Speaker 1: of course, but he also grows an interesting pattern of
Speaker 1: facial hair where it's like his eyebrows become very bushy
Speaker 1: and they sort of connect to the hair on his temples,
Speaker 1: and his mustache grows out longer, and he gains these
Speaker 1: sharply sculpted sideburns, and there's a redness added to his eyes.
Speaker 1: He has a different look when he is about to
Speaker 1: behave more like a predatory vampire, and the fact that
Speaker 1: there is this physical transformation is almost a bit werewolfy.
Speaker 1: I like the visual transformation because it coincides with the
Speaker 1: dual nature of Mamouelde the vampire, so he hasn't been
Speaker 1: changed into just a demon of pure evil. Most of
Speaker 1: the time he is simply like himself, like he was
Speaker 1: before the change, and even in the form of even
Speaker 1: as a vampire, Mema Waldey is shown to be a
Speaker 1: good and moral man. He is thoughtful, kind, suave, even
Speaker 1: tempered charming. But when he goes into vampire mode, he
Speaker 1: thirsts only for blood and it is almost like a
Speaker 1: werewolf transformation.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think the pronounced widow's peak he develops when he's
Speaker 3: in full vampire mode in hunger mode is key. And
Speaker 3: I think the real take home here is if someone
Speaker 3: you know you suddenly encounter them and they have a
Speaker 3: pronounced widow peak that extends further down than their hairline
Speaker 3: originally was, then you need to run because that person
Speaker 3: has become a dracula of some sort.
Speaker 1: So Memo Walde bites and drains Billy and Bobby there
Speaker 1: in the antique warehouse, and next we go to a
Speaker 1: scene at a funeral home where we're going to meet
Speaker 1: our other main characters. So Bobby's body is lying out
Speaker 1: for it's lying out in the coffin for visitation, and
Speaker 1: somehow Mima Walde is there like he's looking on from
Speaker 1: behind a curtain at the back of the room, and
Speaker 1: slowly we see Bobby's hand begin to move from its
Speaker 1: resting place and grip the wall of the coffin, but
Speaker 1: then Bobby stops moving when the living approach, and our
Speaker 1: living characters are Michelle this is Denise Nicholas we mentioned
Speaker 1: her earlier. Michelle's co worker and romantic partner, doctor Gordon Thomas.
Speaker 1: This is Thelmas Resulola. We get Michelle's sister, Tina, who
Speaker 1: is played by Vanetta McGhee, the same actress who played Louva.
Speaker 1: And so Michelle and Tina are visiting Bobby because they've
Speaker 1: known him since childhood. And at first, Tina is wearing
Speaker 1: a hood covering her face when she comes into the room,
Speaker 1: but there's a reveal moment. She pulls it back to
Speaker 1: reveal her face and Mamma Walde sees her and he whispers.
Speaker 3: Luva, the hood is almost too much because I initially
Speaker 3: thought she was gonna be some sort of sorceress or
Speaker 3: cult member or something, but we quickly learned that she's
Speaker 3: just very stylish.
Speaker 1: Well, I would say, by and large, all of the
Speaker 1: modern costumes in this movie are awesome. Like everybody's clothes
Speaker 1: look really cool. I was gonna mention this later, but
Speaker 1: like essentially everything Thalmas rasulil awares looks awesome. He has
Speaker 1: this great collection of coats and jackets. He has this
Speaker 1: cool like a herringbone blazer, and he has a double
Speaker 1: breasted jacket he wears later that looks really cool, often
Speaker 1: paired with a turtleneck. He's got a great look. But Michelle,
Speaker 1: Michelle and Tina also have really cool clothes. Absolutely, and
Speaker 1: I would put the sorceress hood and cloak in that
Speaker 1: category as well. I think it looks great. You know,
Speaker 1: people should dress like sorcerers more often. So anyway, Tina
Speaker 1: and Michelle, they're confused about what happened to Bobby. His
Speaker 1: death doesn't make any sense, and they're asking Gordon if
Speaker 1: he can get any answers for them, because Gordon is
Speaker 1: not just any boyfriend of Michelle. Gordon is some kind
Speaker 1: of science cop. We've talked about science cops on a
Speaker 1: weird House before. He is a forensic investigator. We're later
Speaker 1: told he works for the Scientific Investigation Division I suppose
Speaker 1: of the police, so it seems I think he's supposed
Speaker 1: to be a medical doctor at Core, but he works
Speaker 1: as a forensic investigator. So after Tina and Michelle leave,
Speaker 1: the funeral director is there alone with Gordon, and he explains,
Speaker 1: I worked very hard on that neck wound, trying to
Speaker 1: make it look as natural as I could so it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be offensive to his loved ones. The flesh was
Speaker 1: just torn right out in a big chunk. I've never
Speaker 1: seen a rat bite that size, and Gordon says rat bite.
Speaker 1: He wants to know how deep was the wound before
Speaker 1: it was repaired, and the funeral director says two or
Speaker 1: three inches at least. Gordon his radars pinging. Something is
Speaker 1: seeming off to him, and he's perplexed by what he sees.
Speaker 1: So a rat bite in the neck two or three
Speaker 1: inches deep. He starts looking at other things about Bobby's body.
Speaker 1: He notices that the body is drained of blood, even
Speaker 1: though the funeral director says that no embalming has taken place.
Speaker 1: Gordon points out that the veins collapse under pressure. Why
Speaker 1: would he have been drained of blood? Gordon decides he
Speaker 1: wants to see the body of the other victim. But
Speaker 1: the other victim, Billy, is not at his funeral home.
Speaker 1: He was white and he was sent to a white
Speaker 1: funeral home, the funeral director tells us, So our investigator
Speaker 1: is now on the case. He can tell something weird
Speaker 1: is up. We cut to Michelle and Tina walking outside
Speaker 1: the funeral parlor and they split up because Michelle is
Speaker 1: going to go visit Bobby's family. Tina is tired and
Speaker 1: she wants to go straight home. And while walking alone
Speaker 1: on the sidewalk at night, Tina starts to become uneasy.
Speaker 1: Something doesn't feel right. She picks up the pace. She
Speaker 1: glances around nervously. Then suddenly she comes round a corner
Speaker 1: and runs straight into Mamma Walde. And he's not in
Speaker 1: vamp mode here, but he is in a full vampire costume,
Speaker 1: which he pretty much always wears, so he's in his
Speaker 1: dark suit. He's got the cravat, and he's got this
Speaker 1: trailing black cape and he addresses her hopefully at first,
Speaker 1: saying luva, but Tina doesn't know what he's talking about.
Speaker 1: She tries to back away and he takes hold of her.
Speaker 1: He says, Luva, it's me, but she doesn't know him.
Speaker 1: She screams let go, and he does. She runs away
Speaker 1: in a panic, and she drops her purse in a
Speaker 1: pedestrian underpass tunnel and Mema Walde follows and picks up
Speaker 1: the pocketbook. He's still looking around for where she went
Speaker 1: when suddenly he is hit by a cab.
Speaker 3: I also want to just mention really quickly William Marshall
Speaker 3: a very physically imposing actor as well. I think he
Speaker 3: was like six five, so that's notable in all of
Speaker 3: these scenes where he is either perceived as a threat
Speaker 3: or is an active threat in vampire mode.
Speaker 1: That's right, and he is about to change from pining
Speaker 1: for his lost love to thirsting for blood because he
Speaker 1: was hit by a cab. The cab driver gets out,
Speaker 1: and this is a character named Juanita. She is sort
Speaker 1: of vulgar and starts scolding Memo Walde, telling him that
Speaker 1: chasing Tail could get him killed. Mema Walde is very frustrated.
Speaker 1: He says, I lost her because of you, and they
Speaker 1: trade insults and after she hurls some disrespected him. We
Speaker 1: suddenly see a change come over him. He needs blood
Speaker 1: once again, and he transforms into vampire mode and bites her.
Speaker 1: Now later, Tina makes it back home. She has to
Speaker 1: use a hidden spare key to get into her apartment
Speaker 1: because she lost her purse in the tunnel and she's
Speaker 1: extremely rattled. Michelle comes home and Tina confesses what happened.
Speaker 1: Michelle says, maniacs are running in the streets. And meanwhile,
Speaker 1: mim Waldey goes back to his coffin in the antique
Speaker 1: warehouse dejected. He's broken by the fact that his louver
Speaker 1: ran away from him. Now, the next day we see
Speaker 1: Gordon Thomas on the case. The doctor is paying a
Speaker 1: visit to the city Morgue to check out the body
Speaker 1: of a cab driver found dead the night before, and
Speaker 1: here we meet a minor character, Sam the morgue worker
Speaker 1: played by Elisha Cook Junior, who is a character actor
Speaker 1: you've probably seen in lots of stuff. In this movie,
Speaker 1: he plays a surly mortician with a hook for a hand.
Speaker 3: Yeah. He lived nineteen oh three through nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 3: probably best known for such films as The Maltese Falcon
Speaker 3: the Killing House on Haunted Hill and Rosemary's Baby. I
Speaker 3: found an image here for you Joe from nineteen forty
Speaker 3: four's Phantom Lady, in which he's pulling this shocked face
Speaker 3: that I'm pretty sure he pulls at least once in
Speaker 3: this movie.
Speaker 1: It's his signature. Look, it's his blue steel.
Speaker 3: He's like, oh, and then inevitably he's about to be
Speaker 3: murdered or has discovered a murder, or is about to
Speaker 3: be killed by a monster.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or in these movies from the forties and fifties,
Speaker 1: he just saw a skeleton.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Sam leads Gordon inside. They pulled the victim out
Speaker 1: of the freezer. Sam's just kind of like gabbin at him,
Speaker 1: so Gordon has to get him to leave, leave him
Speaker 1: alone so he can investigate. And what do you know,
Speaker 1: He finds bite marks on the victim's neck. This cab
Speaker 1: driver was also bitten, just like Bobby. So we know
Speaker 1: what he's thinking, and we see him reacting to his
Speaker 1: own thoughts. He laughs and says to himself, come on, now,
Speaker 1: that's ridiculous. But he's still he has to pursue this lead.
Speaker 1: So Gordon goes to consult with police lieutenant Jack Peters.
Speaker 1: Gordon says he needs reports on the post mortem examinations
Speaker 1: of both Bobby and Billy, the first two victims, but
Speaker 1: the department bureaucracy is giving him the run around while
Speaker 1: he's been looking for these reports, and eventually they admit
Speaker 1: that the reports seem to have been lost. They don't
Speaker 1: know where they are, and Gordon says, strange, how many
Speaker 1: sloppy police jobs involve black victims. Peters, who is a
Speaker 1: white police commander, seems to suggest he's like, hey, what
Speaker 1: if all these neck bite murders were caused by the
Speaker 1: black panthers? Think about it? And Gordon is like, get real.
Speaker 1: So Peters promises they will keep looking for the info
Speaker 1: that Gordon needs, and he puts a cop named Watson
Speaker 1: on the job. Gordon explains that if they find the reports,
Speaker 1: he'll need them brought by the club tonight because he's
Speaker 1: going to be at the club tonight with Michelle celebrating
Speaker 1: her birthday. Oh and we also see here Gordon wants
Speaker 1: to do an autopsy on Bobby, so he calls the
Speaker 1: funeral home and says that he's going to send some
Speaker 1: cops over after closing to collect the body. So next
Speaker 1: comes the club scene, a scene that is great for
Speaker 1: multiple reasons, one of which is the awesome performance by
Speaker 1: the house banned the Hughes Corporation, who we already mentioned earlier.
Speaker 1: But this is a full musical number. We get to
Speaker 1: see the entire song, full band playing. There are three
Speaker 1: lead singers like a singing ensemble in the group, and
Speaker 1: they are awesome dancers. They each have their own like
Speaker 1: solos and all that. The song is called There he
Speaker 1: is again, and the Hughes Corporation just rocks. I thought
Speaker 1: the song was killer as we I think we said
Speaker 1: this earlier, but it sounds like the lyrics could be
Speaker 1: about the vampire in the film. So the lyrics are like,
Speaker 1: there he is again looking at me from across the street.
Speaker 1: There he is again, making my heart skip another beat.
Speaker 1: There's some line in there, oh well. The chorus is
Speaker 1: look the other way when he comes by you. There's
Speaker 1: one part where they're talking about how they think he
Speaker 1: can read your mind. There's a line where he says,
Speaker 1: I know he thinks I want his love so much.
Speaker 1: I love the levels of mental simulation in that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is my favorite of the Corporation tracks. And
Speaker 3: if I haven't mentioned it already. The combined score and
Speaker 3: soundtrack is widely available on music streaming platforms, so you
Speaker 3: can definitely dip in and get a taste of this.
Speaker 3: It originally came out on vinyl as well, but I
Speaker 3: don't think it's benefited from one of those awesome modern
Speaker 3: vinyl restorations, which which seems like a missed opportunity.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, this is truly great stuff. It doesn't just
Speaker 1: like work in the movie. I'd love to just put
Speaker 1: this on anytime. So anyway, Gordon, Michelle, and Tina are
Speaker 1: at the club. They're celebrating Michelle's birthday and Mama Welde
Speaker 1: arrives and at first it's like, oh no, But then
Speaker 1: he meets with Tina and maybe she's a little apprehensive
Speaker 1: at first, but he very kindly returns the purse that
Speaker 1: she dropped the night before, and she rethinks her initial
Speaker 1: impression of him, and Tina then surprisingly invites Mama Welde
Speaker 1: to join them at their table. And this is not
Speaker 1: vamp mode Mama Welde, obviously, this is evening attire Mama
Speaker 1: wall Day. He is super charming, at the absolute height
Speaker 1: of debonair sophistication. Now it's been kind of a running
Speaker 1: theme so far that Gordon, despite being our hero in
Speaker 1: a way, he is somewhat brusque and anti social. He
Speaker 1: doesn't exactly play nice with people. He's not polite. The
Speaker 1: more charitable way of putting this that is that I
Speaker 1: think he's very like task oriented and most of the
Speaker 1: time he's all business.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, and sometimes ruffles and feathers for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But his sort of anti socialness comes through in
Speaker 1: this scene as well, because Mama Walde sits down and
Speaker 1: tries to order French champagne, and Gordon is like, that
Speaker 1: won't be necessary, but then the ladies overrule him, so
Speaker 1: they do get the champagne service.
Speaker 3: Now. Side note, this is another scene in a film
Speaker 3: where they're sipping champagne from coop glasses, you know, from
Speaker 3: wide glasses as opposed to flutes. I really need to
Speaker 3: dive into the history of a pro we're at glass
Speaker 3: wear for Bubbley, because I've seen that. I feel like
Speaker 3: we've seen this in some films we've watched on Weird House.
Speaker 3: In HBO's The Gilded Age, which is set in the
Speaker 3: eighteen eighties, they're also drinking all their champagne out of
Speaker 3: coop glasses or something very close to a coup glass,
Speaker 3: and I feel like I've always heard that that argument
Speaker 3: was like, oh no, you want a narrow glass because
Speaker 3: you know the way the bubbles form, and so forth.
Speaker 1: I feel like coop blesses for Champagne have come in
Speaker 1: and out of fashion over time.
Speaker 3: It would seem to be. But my main area of
Speaker 3: research on this is seeing it in movies that sometimes
Speaker 3: have vampires in themselves.
Speaker 1: I don't know well anyway. One interesting thing about the
Speaker 1: scene is that I had expected Mama Welde would be
Speaker 1: more coy about who he is and his relationship to Tina,
Speaker 1: but instead he comes right out and tells, Tina, you
Speaker 1: bear in You bear an amazing resemblance to my wife,
Speaker 1: whom I lost a short while ago. I loved her
Speaker 1: very much. When you left the mortuary, I had to fall.
Speaker 1: I didn't consider that I might frighten you so leading
Speaker 1: with you look like my beloved dead wife. And just
Speaker 1: judging by the way she looks back at him, I
Speaker 1: think Tina is already over whatever apprehension she had previously.
Speaker 1: She is charmed.
Speaker 3: Now. Yeah, the film will stress this later, but it's
Speaker 3: definitely worth noting that she is charmed. But not bewitched.
Speaker 3: We see either and perhaps sometimes both in different vampire movies.
Speaker 3: You know, sometimes a Dracula figure or a vampire lord
Speaker 3: figure is definitely controlling people and overwhelming their senses. Other
Speaker 3: times it is more of a I guess, a pure
Speaker 3: charisma role. So, yeah, he is not controlling her, and
Speaker 3: their connection across time would seem to be legitimate.
Speaker 1: That's right, And she seems to imply in a later
Speaker 1: scene that maybe she feels this is true as well.
Speaker 1: But I guess we'll get there in a few minutes.
Speaker 1: So first of all, there's a cutaway to the funeral
Speaker 1: home where we mentioned that the cops were going to
Speaker 1: go collect Bobby's body. But when they get there, they
Speaker 1: like throw open the lid to the coffin in the
Speaker 1: visitation room and the body is missing. Gordon gets a
Speaker 1: call at the club reporting this. He has to like
Speaker 1: go up to the bar and take a phone call,
Speaker 1: and then for some reason, when he comes back to
Speaker 1: the table for Michelle's birthday party, he shares the news
Speaker 1: that Bobby's body is missing, and Mama Walde says, perhaps
Speaker 1: he wasn't dead. At Gordon is like, what does that mean?
Speaker 1: He was dead? I examined him myself, and Mama we
Speaker 1: Alde says just a passing thought. But then we get
Speaker 1: the arrival of Skillet. This is the guy who keeps
Speaker 1: showing up to admire Mamaelde's cape and to say that
Speaker 1: he's strange. But Mama Walde is suddenly driven away from
Speaker 1: the table because a photographer comes by, and as soon
Speaker 1: as she snaps a photo of their table, Mamaulde stands
Speaker 1: up and abruptly excuses himself, saying that it has been
Speaker 1: a rare pleasure. Tina chases after him, and then near
Speaker 1: the door, she catches him to say that she wants
Speaker 1: to see him again, and they promised to meet again
Speaker 1: at the club the next night. But the photographer comes
Speaker 1: it barges in one more time and takes a picture
Speaker 1: of them a second time. This picture is just Mama
Speaker 1: well Day and Tina, and this drives Mama well De away.
Speaker 1: He seems alarmed at having his picture taken. So here
Speaker 1: I guess we should describe what appears to be the
Speaker 1: photographer's business model. Maybe this is a thing that used
Speaker 1: to happen. I don't know, but it seems what she
Speaker 1: goes around the club taking pictures of people, and then
Speaker 1: she has a house right next door to the club,
Speaker 1: and so she runs out of the club next door
Speaker 1: to her house, develops the photos and makes prints, and
Speaker 1: then brings the prince back to the club the same
Speaker 1: night and sells them to people. Is that how you
Speaker 1: understood it?
Speaker 3: I think so, yeah. I feel like this might be
Speaker 3: something that would have been more clear to the audience
Speaker 3: of the time. And I know, based on conversations with
Speaker 3: my wife, who's a photographer, were you know, there were
Speaker 3: all sorts of practices kind of like this back in
Speaker 3: the day when you had to develop your film. There
Speaker 3: was one in particular that I remember hearing that involved
Speaker 3: like a zipline, Like they had to like take the photo,
Speaker 3: get the film, zipline it down to where it was
Speaker 3: going to be produced. So there are all sorts of
Speaker 3: things like that that had to occur given the limitations
Speaker 3: of film technology. Nowadays, you know, it's all digital and
Speaker 3: so you have an entirely different model and everything moves
Speaker 3: so much faster.
Speaker 1: The only other way I could understand this is if
Speaker 1: she's is if this is not her job and she's
Speaker 1: just like a hobbyist photographer and taking pictures of her
Speaker 1: friends and happens to live next door to the club.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 3: How, but the real take home here is that it
Speaker 3: gives us an excuse for a dark room scene, which
Speaker 3: I absolutely love in my movies.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, this is great. So she runs off next
Speaker 1: door to develop the photos, and here we get a
Speaker 1: vampire attack, and I think a very creepy one at that.
Speaker 1: So she's in her house, she puts on a record.
Speaker 1: Music is playing, but other than the music playing, it's
Speaker 1: very still inside, and she's developing the photos and she
Speaker 1: notices when looking at the negatives that Mama Walday is
Speaker 1: missing from the pictures she took. So it's just like Tina,
Speaker 1: they're embracing with no one. And then she peeks out
Speaker 1: through the curtains of her dark room and suddenly Mama
Speaker 1: Waldey's there in vampire mode, gliding frictionlessly directly toward her
Speaker 1: fangs showing. It's a really scary moment.
Speaker 3: Absolutely yeah, this is this is This is one of
Speaker 3: two really good scares in the picture. This is probably
Speaker 3: my favorite.
Speaker 1: And in fact, this scene develops into a double scare.
Speaker 1: No pun intended on develops with the dark one, but
Speaker 1: it's a double scare because Shortly after this, a cop
Speaker 1: shows up, because remember Gordon was supposed to get those
Speaker 1: reports delivered to him at the club. So this cop
Speaker 1: named Barnes appears to deliver the reports and he's in
Speaker 1: the parking lot of the club and he sees at
Speaker 1: the house next door a woman stumbles out of the
Speaker 1: front door and she appears to be dying, so he
Speaker 1: goes to help her. But when he picks her up
Speaker 1: to carry her inside, fangs it's the photographer and she
Speaker 1: has changed rapidly, so in the the way the mythology,
Speaker 1: the vampire mythology works here, you can change and I
Speaker 1: don't know, it seems like minutes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's very viral.
Speaker 1: So she vamps the cop and Gordon never gets his reports,
Speaker 1: and he tells Peters as much. The next day at
Speaker 1: the police station, Peters is mad about this. Gordon wants
Speaker 1: to get permission to dig up Billy Schaefer's grave to
Speaker 1: do an autopsy. Peters tries to get a permit for this,
Speaker 1: but he can't, so then, in a very funny turn,
Speaker 1: Gordon he explains to Michelle that they're just gonna have
Speaker 1: to go and illegally dig up Billy's body. Themselves that night,
Speaker 1: and Michelle is kind of resistant to this idea at first,
Speaker 1: but he likes sweet talks her into it. He basically
Speaker 1: he kisses her and he's like, come on, do it
Speaker 1: for me, and she's like, okay.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well we'll go violate the graveyard.
Speaker 1: And so that night, while Gordon and Michelle are out
Speaker 1: digging up a grave, Mama Walde comes and visits Tina's apartment.
Speaker 1: He says he couldn't wait to see her and he
Speaker 1: needed to speak to her alone. They've been dying to
Speaker 1: see one another again, and Tina explains her complicated feelings.
Speaker 1: He frightens her, but also when he left the night before,
Speaker 1: she wanted to run after him. So he says he
Speaker 1: needs to speak to her about something and she asks,
Speaker 1: is it about your wife? And he says, you are
Speaker 1: my wife. She says that's impossible, Mama al Day and
Speaker 1: he says, and yet you believe it, and it seems
Speaker 1: like she does. She's a bit confused, but he explains
Speaker 1: as if she is Luva reincarnated. He explains who they are,
Speaker 1: that they come from the Abani people and were sent
Speaker 1: as diplomats to Europe to gain allies who would support
Speaker 1: their protest of the slave trade. And then Mama Walde says,
Speaker 1: on that mission, I myself was enslaved, my wife murdered,
Speaker 1: and I was placed under the curse of the Undead.
Speaker 1: Our assassin was the vampire Count Dracula. Now Tina protests
Speaker 1: that Count Dracula is a myth, he wasn't real, but
Speaker 1: Mama Walde explains he was real. Quote as real as
Speaker 1: I am now, as real as you are, and as
Speaker 1: real as my need for you. You are my luva recreated.
Speaker 1: So she asks again what he wants, and he says
Speaker 1: that he wants her to rejoin him. And it's not
Speaker 1: spelled out exactly what that means, but it seems that's
Speaker 1: understood as join him in undeath. Now she seems torn.
Speaker 1: She wants to, but she's afraid. She says I can't,
Speaker 1: and then he says, you must come to me freely,
Speaker 1: with love or not at all. I will not take
Speaker 1: you by force, and I will not return. I have
Speaker 1: lived again to lose you twice, and he rises to leave.
Speaker 1: He goes to the door, but she stops him and
Speaker 1: asks him to stay. They embrace. It seems she does
Speaker 1: want to reach join him whatever the cost.
Speaker 3: It's a pointed scene.
Speaker 1: It is, and it's emotionally complex because you can see
Speaker 1: in his performance that when they embrace and kiss that
Speaker 1: it's not just that he loves her, it's not just
Speaker 1: that he desires her, but there is a feeling of relief,
Speaker 1: of like of a burden being lifted, and because, I guess,
Speaker 1: because he won't have to be like this alone. And
Speaker 1: so meanwhile Gordon and Gordon and Michelle are doing their
Speaker 1: grave digging. Gordon digs up Billy's grave in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night while Michelle holds a flashlight. They open
Speaker 1: the coffin and what do you know, Billy pops up
Speaker 1: a full vampire. He attacks Gordon. Gordon throws some really
Speaker 1: good punches some haymakers, beats him up with a shovel
Speaker 1: and stakes him. And now it seems Michelle and Gordon
Speaker 1: have both seen the proof. They are definitely dealing with vampires.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's no denying it now.
Speaker 1: And Michelle is like, oh, all those books you've been reading.
Speaker 1: Apparently Gordon has been doing a lot of vampire research.
Speaker 1: But Gordon quickly realizes that the other vampire victims will
Speaker 1: also rise from their slumber and attack, including the cab
Speaker 1: driver at the morgue, So he calls Sam from a
Speaker 1: payphone that Sam was what's his name? Elisha Cook Junior
Speaker 1: calls him from a payphone and tells him to take
Speaker 1: her body out of the freezer so he can come
Speaker 1: and perform an autopsy with Peters, but also to leave
Speaker 1: her in a locked room, lock the door, and stay away.
Speaker 1: And then Gordon goes to pick up Peters to show
Speaker 1: him the evidence of the vampire menace. What's going to happen?
Speaker 1: Of course, there is a vampire attack, So vampire Juanita
Speaker 1: rises from her frozen slumber to attack Sam.
Speaker 3: And this is another really well done vampire attack sequence.
Speaker 3: The music is really great. This is this is awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a creepy, unusual shot where the door opens
Speaker 1: and we see from Sam's perspective, he's like at the
Speaker 1: phone in the hall and she's running directly at the
Speaker 1: camera in slow motion, just eyes wild, fangs out.
Speaker 3: You can imagine this whole sequence playing really well in
Speaker 3: the theater too, because you get that moment where he
Speaker 3: almost he has the keys out right, He's almost gonna
Speaker 3: do it. He's almost gonna gonna lock the body in
Speaker 3: the room, but then the phone rings. So yeah, it's
Speaker 3: like you can imagine like the energy in the theater.
Speaker 1: Right, No, no, no, So back at Tina's apartment, we
Speaker 1: see Tina and Mama weel day in bed and she
Speaker 1: expresses a desire to join him, but he says that
Speaker 1: can wait now. He has to leave before daylight because
Speaker 1: daylight would be fatal to him, and she tells him
Speaker 1: that she loves him. Gordon and Peters arrive at the
Speaker 1: morgue and they are attacked by the vampire. But Gordon,
Speaker 1: he's got the he knows what to do now. He
Speaker 1: subdues the vampire with a big, chunky silver cross. I
Speaker 1: like this cross. It looks really substantial.
Speaker 3: It's really huge, like as it's not one that you
Speaker 3: would normally just carry on your person, and it would
Speaker 3: look ridiculous on like a chain around your neck. I'm
Speaker 3: not sure where you got this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Gordon explains to Peters that vampires multiply geometrically.
Speaker 1: He's done the math. They have to stop this fast,
Speaker 1: so they put out an APB to look for dead
Speaker 1: people who have gone missing, like Bobby, and then we
Speaker 1: get another club scene. I guess it's the next night
Speaker 1: and they're at the club again. The Hues Corporation is
Speaker 1: playing again. It's another jam and Gordon, Michelle, and Tina
Speaker 1: are sitting around at a table and Mama Welde joins
Speaker 1: them once again. He cheekily orders a bloody Mary and
Speaker 1: then Gordon is like, hey, Mama Weldey, can maybe you
Speaker 1: can help me? Are you into the occult? It seems
Speaker 1: kind of out of nowhere, but I think maybe it
Speaker 1: means like he's asking him because he wears the cape,
Speaker 1: so he, you know, looks like a vampire.
Speaker 3: I guess because of the I and the follow up question,
Speaker 3: how about the heavy stuff?
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly which craft all that? And this is so
Speaker 1: it turns into a general quiz on the subject of
Speaker 1: the occult, vampires and the devil, and Mama all Day
Speaker 1: is like, oh, yeah, vampires are the most interesting of
Speaker 1: all that stuff. We get another visit from Skillet and
Speaker 1: when he arrives, mamualde leaves and takes Tina with him.
Speaker 1: More talk about how he wants the cape. But there's
Speaker 1: a little tip off here. What happened to the photographer
Speaker 1: who was here the night before or I guess two
Speaker 1: nights before. Maybe Gordon decides to investigate. He goes next
Speaker 1: door to her house and there he finds the photos
Speaker 1: where Mamaualday is missing. Gordon realizes that he is the
Speaker 1: vampire he's been looking for, and of course this makes
Speaker 1: him worried for Tina, who just went home with him,
Speaker 1: so Gordon and Michelle rushed to Tina's apartment to rescue her.
Speaker 1: They bust in. Gordon and Mama Alde fight and Mama
Speaker 1: Alde runs off, and the police arrive on the scene,
Speaker 1: and then there's like chase. The people are running around
Speaker 1: through alleyways trying to find the vampire, and then he
Speaker 1: finally appears. He gets one cop isolated and he appears
Speaker 1: in vampire mode and kills the cop. So now Gordon
Speaker 1: and Peters know who the King Vampire is, but they
Speaker 1: don't know where he is, so they begin an investigation
Speaker 1: to find his coffin because, in accordance with standard lore,
Speaker 1: the way you can destroy him is to destroy his coffin,
Speaker 1: destroy his resting place.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, especially I hunt him out during the day.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I guess that's the other way is find
Speaker 1: him during the day and stake him while he's sleeping.
Speaker 1: So from here on out, the film becomes a lot
Speaker 1: more action oriented. Like there's a scene where they find
Speaker 1: vampire Bobby and trace him back to the antique warehouse,
Speaker 1: and there's like a raid on the vampire nest there
Speaker 1: at the warehouse, and there's a big fight with Gordon
Speaker 1: and the other police getting ambushed by vampires and in
Speaker 1: the sort of maze of crates and bobs boxes and
Speaker 1: they end up throwing these oil lanterns to fight them off.
Speaker 1: There are a bunch of like a person in a
Speaker 1: fire suit stunts. Oh yeah, there's a scary moment where
Speaker 1: you remember the cop Barns who went to help the
Speaker 1: photographer at her house. He of course we saw it
Speaker 1: in Bitten, but he's like one of their investigating party,
Speaker 1: and of course he turns on them. At the end
Speaker 1: of this fight, Mama Walde appears and then escapes in
Speaker 1: bat form by transforming into a bat.
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course this is a classic bit, right, vampire
Speaker 3: transforms into a bat. But from an effects standpoint, it's
Speaker 3: kind of a daring vampire movie trope to include, because
Speaker 3: I think we've all seen examples of it that look
Speaker 3: a bit silly, right, you know, you can imagine like
Speaker 3: here's here's a human poof of smoke, and then a
Speaker 3: floppy bat on a string.
Speaker 1: Right, it almost always looks silly. I'm trying to think
Speaker 1: of a movie where the transformation into a bat does
Speaker 1: not look silly.
Speaker 3: And you know, maybe I'm being super generous here because
Speaker 3: I like so many other things about the picture, but
Speaker 3: I thought this one looked reasonably good considering what the
Speaker 3: effect is.
Speaker 1: This is one of the better ones. I like it.
Speaker 1: But anyway, this all leads up to a big final
Speaker 1: showdown a set piece at a chemical factory, which is
Speaker 1: where Mamaelde's coffin is stored now, so he Mamaelde takes
Speaker 1: Tina there and the police give chase. And then tragically,
Speaker 1: while the police are running around in this place looking
Speaker 1: through them through these like mazes of pipes and you know,
Speaker 1: chemical tanks and things, they see the two of them,
Speaker 1: and then a cop shoots at them and Tina is killed.
Speaker 1: Horrible tragedy Tina. And then of course Mama Weelde turns
Speaker 1: Tina into a vampire because at that point it's the
Speaker 1: only way to save her. But he is now of
Speaker 1: course furious, and he he yells at the at all
Speaker 1: of their pursuers through and it like sort of echoes
Speaker 1: throughout the entire building. Is sort of a curse of vengeance.
Speaker 1: He says, this will be your inglorious tomb.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then follows it up with your tomb, your tomb,
Speaker 3: your tomb. And I have to say this bit just
Speaker 3: keeps playing through my mind because on one hand, just
Speaker 3: an absolutely great moment in the film that drives home
Speaker 3: just the vengeful power of vampire Prince Mama Walde. You know,
Speaker 3: his enemies here are clearly doomed. They have crossed the line.
Speaker 3: But it's also one of those bits of dialogue that
Speaker 3: on paper or coming from a lesser actor, it might
Speaker 3: have come off a bit silly, a bit fake, but
Speaker 3: Marshall absolutely imbues it here with Shakespearean power.
Speaker 1: It's strong. You can feel his rage. And then it
Speaker 1: becomes even worse because so he turns Tina into a
Speaker 1: vampire because it's the only way to save her at
Speaker 1: this point. And then Gordon and Peters come across the
Speaker 1: vampire's coffin. They think they've discovered his coffin and they're
Speaker 1: going to stake him to end this. They rip the
Speaker 1: lid off, throw the stake down and then they realize
Speaker 1: they have staked Tina by accident. I guess they would
Speaker 1: have had to stake her either way because she is
Speaker 1: a vampire now. But yeah, it wasn't what they were
Speaker 1: intending to do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but at this point, Mamalalde shows up. He sees this,
Speaker 3: and this takes the fight out of him, you know,
Speaker 3: because this was his whole reason for being, and he
Speaker 3: says as much. There's this great moment where Gordon reaches
Speaker 3: in to get that big chunky cross out of his jacket,
Speaker 3: you know, like he's pulling a gun or something, and
Speaker 3: Mamalde says that won't be necessary.
Speaker 1: Right. It's an incredibly sad turn. You could see he's
Speaker 1: just given up now and with his love gone, he
Speaker 1: surrenders himself to his ultimate fate and decides that he's
Speaker 1: going to walk out into the daylight, which he does.
Speaker 1: He like struggles, you can see the pain in him,
Speaker 1: but he walks up the staircase under the roof of
Speaker 1: the building and bathes himself in sunlight, and then Collapse
Speaker 1: is dead. And then we see like his skin rots
Speaker 1: away and turns to worms, and it's a very bleak
Speaker 1: and tragic ending. There's not really anything. There's not really
Speaker 1: anything happy to redeem it that comes back. You just
Speaker 1: end on this moment of absolute loss, and yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know what to say about that. It's one of
Speaker 1: the bleakest endings I can think of.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't want it any other way.
Speaker 3: You could imagine cuts of the film where you could
Speaker 3: have had something different, like, you know, the sort of
Speaker 3: like police chummy chummy having that moment where they're like, hey, well,
Speaker 3: well at least we stop the vampires. It's sad, but
Speaker 3: the good guy's won. Or you could have gone in an
Speaker 3: entirely different direction. It also wouldn't be out of keeping
Speaker 3: with other films and just just cut back to the
Speaker 3: Hughes Corporation doing another number, you know, and just sort
Speaker 3: of almost like insisting on a change of pace. But
Speaker 3: they stick to the ending here, and the last thing
Speaker 3: we see is the skull of Mamma Walde. Now a
Speaker 3: quick note about the fate of Mama Walde. Here in
Speaker 3: the film, the main hoster for Blacula features an image
Speaker 3: of him being staked, an image that appears to be
Speaker 3: very manipulated, like it's not I don't think it's a
Speaker 3: shot from the film, And this, of course is dumb,
Speaker 3: but in line with plenty of other vampire movies and
Speaker 3: trailers that show the movie's main vampire being staked.
Speaker 1: If that were true, it would seem to be a spoiler.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but again, it wouldn't be out of line with
Speaker 3: marketing for other vampire films.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's not even true. In this case. He
Speaker 1: does not get staked. He just surrenders himself to death
Speaker 1: by the sun.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it makes me wonder, Like was just like,
Speaker 3: I'm wonder of what stage in production the poster was
Speaker 3: made and maybe at one point he was the character
Speaker 3: was going to be staked, and William Marshall was like, no,
Speaker 3: that's not going to work for me. And if that's
Speaker 3: the case, I applaud him for sticking to his guns
Speaker 3: and going and pushing for this ending.
Speaker 1: So I guess that's Blacula. A really good tragic romance
Speaker 1: and a really good horror movie too.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, I was really impressed with it on the whole. So,
Speaker 3: as always, we'd love to hear from folks out there
Speaker 3: if y'all have any thoughts on the film, any memories
Speaker 3: of seeing it originally for the first time, or revisiting it,
Speaker 3: and so forth. Everything is fair game. Just want to
Speaker 3: remind everybody that's stuff to blow your mind. Is primarily
Speaker 3: a science podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Speaker 3: We do a listener mail episode. On Mondays, we do
Speaker 3: a short form episode on Wednesdays, and on Fridays we
Speaker 3: set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a
Speaker 3: weird movie on weird House Cinema. If you want to
Speaker 3: see a complete list with thumbnails or posters of all
Speaker 3: the movies we've considered so far on weird House Cinema, well,
Speaker 3: you can go over to letterbox dot com. It's l
Speaker 3: E T T e r box d dot com. Our
Speaker 3: username is weird house. We have a fabulous list there.
Speaker 3: You can see everything we've done. Sometimes there's a peak
Speaker 3: ahead at what's coming next, and you can sort by genre. Now,
Speaker 3: I don't think you can go so specific as to
Speaker 3: just say, show me only the vampire movies, but you
Speaker 3: know you could. You can set it to are and
Speaker 3: then figure it out on your own. I don't know
Speaker 3: how many vampire movies we've done at this point, but
Speaker 3: we've done a few and we'll do a few more.
Speaker 3: I'm sure.
Speaker 1: Here's thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 1: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 2: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.