Accepting an invitation to Castle Dracula, proud African prince Mamuwalde and his lovely bride Luva head into the Transylvanian forest to meet the eccentric Count Dracula and discuss the issue of slavery. Once Dracula sees the beautiful Luva however, the jealous count steals her away from Mamuwalde and curses the mighty prince forever. After taking his new bride, the count seals Mamuwalde in a coffin where the prince will rest for nearly 400 hundred years, until he is awakened, by accident, in Los Angeles in the year 1972, and the funk is about to hit the fan.

Exploitation or blaxploitation, you be the judge, but other than the awful title, Blacula is a solid vampire film anyway you look at it.

Although there is not a lot of spin on the plot, other than the interesting beginning, Blacula follows the mourning prince as he begins to look for his reincarnated love Luva. The prince believes the essence of his lost love resides in the body of Tina, a young woman who the prince falls for immediately. The only problem for the prince is Tina's friend Dr. Thomas Gordon, who is basically the Van Helsing character of the film. So very quickly you find Gordon trying to stop the prince and convince Tina of what her new admirer really is and everything comes to a head at the ending.

What gives Blacula it's soul, shut up I don't want to hear it, is the performance of William Marshall who plays Mamuwalde/Blacula. By the end of the film you really feel for the character, as you start to see his is really not the bad guy. Yeah, he has some bad-ass sideburns and a funky fro, but the acting is done really well and the ending only makes you like the character even more, or at least it did in my case. Also, and this hit me like a ton of bricks, Marshall also played the King of Cartoons on Pee Wee's Playhouse, not quite sure why I mentioned that, but just thought it had to be said.

Released in the time of Shaft and Dolemite, Blacula was a chance to catch on to the blaxploitation craze at the time, but it comes off much better than the rest. A good film with an excellent ending and a great and moving character, Blacula should be discovered by anyone who has never seen it. And besides that, seeing a pimp say "Hey man that's a bad cape." to a vampire prince is priceless.

6 of 10