Return of the Prince - SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM

Themes are important.  It’s nice to have something deeper to talk about than what silly movies I enjoy.  Don’t get me wrong, I love talking about silly movies, great and not so great ones.  I’m not knocking it.  Linking my love of silly movies to larger issues, though, lets me talk about what’s on my mind without getting too heavy.  I try to keep a light touch, although Mr. Trump might disagree.  Fox and Friends would have to bring up Schizocinema for him to ever find out, so I think I’m safe.

On the other hand, themes can be exhausting.  I always try to stick with the big ones, horror movies in October, women directors for March, highlighting African American actors in February.  Nowadays, though, we have more categories to honor than we have months.  We’re having to double or triple up.  Not only is February Black History Month, it has now been designated Women in Horror Month.  That means movie selection becomes narrower, but there is still overlap. It doesn’t stop there, because smack dab in the middle of February is Valentine’s Day.  I have to triple theme that week!

Last year, I found the perfect trifecta with BLACULA. The Blaxploitation classic covered all my bases and was more nuanced and dignified than seemed possible with a movie titled BLACULA.  Best of all, it had a sequel.  I had a built-in fall back in case I hadn’t found another film that hit all three marks by next year.  Good thing, since I forgot to look for anything else.  Now, I usually don’t write about movies on a first watch, because I don’t want to waste my time taking notes on a movie that I might not be into.  My success rate has been fair (DEAD KIDS) to delirious (CONQUEST), so I rolled the dice.  Besides, this movie already had points added for the crazy title, and because it stars PAM FUCKING GRIER!  There is a short list of people in this universe as cool as Pam Grier, and none of them are in a black themed romantic horror movie.  All in all, Bob Kelljan's SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM seemed like a sure bet.

Let me say now, sorry everyone.

The Capsule

When last we left Prince Mamuwalde, the titular Blacula (William Marshall), he was dead—really dead, not just vampire dead.  Rather than spending eternity without his beloved, he chose to rest in a pile of sun dried bones instead.  Wouldn’t you know, his rest gets interrupted when a spoiled voodoo priest wannabe, Big Willis (Richard Lawson) resurrects him to get revenge on his more popular sister, Lisa (Pam Fucking Grier).  Predictably, Mamuwalde doesn’t give a damn about Willis’ hurt feelings and promptly turns the fool into the first recruit of his new undead army.  The regal vampire lord has his own plans for Lisa, and if her ex-cop boyfriend, Justin (Don Mitchell) can’t piece together all those mysterious exsanguinations around town, the voodoo priestess could hand Mamuwalde his ultimate desire.

Let’s start with the good.  The very best thing about this movie can be summed up in two words, Big Willis.  Richard Lawson’s Willis is a loud talking, loud dressing, funky little weasel who chews up every scene he’s in.  The moment his voodoo queen mommy kicks it, he loudly announces that he is the rightful Papa-loa and would be a better leader than his “jive-ass bitch” adopted sister, Lisa.  Once angry Justin pins him to the wall, Willis’ righteous indignation instantly fizzles and he plays it off like it was all a misunderstanding.  He adds a smarmy “you good people take care” before slinking out from the funeral with his tail between his legs.

Willis doesn’t get any more respect after becoming a vampire.  The first thing he does is whine about not being able to see himself, or his fine threads, in the mirror anymore.  Then, Mamuwalde grounds him like a teenager and forbids him to go to the swank African artwork party.  As if to throw salt into his wound, Mamuwalde goes to the party in his place.  Afterward, he probably told Willis how much fun it was, and how all the foxy ladies were all over him.  

His new-found powers of darkness can’t score him any points, either.  His lady, Denny (Lynne Moody), laughs at his fangs when he’s going in to bite her.  That is the last thing an already insecure vampire wants to hear.  At least he managed to seal the deal.  I’m surprised he didn’t get blood sick and have to run to the bathroom halfway through.

The best bit is when he is boasting to Denny that he is going to get Lisa, even though Mamuwalde just announced that none of his vampire posse were permitted to harm her.  He goes on and on, making the dark lord out to be some chump who is just crashing at his pad. The entire time Mamuwalde is standing right behind him.  It’s like the black vampire version of an old Daffy Duck skit.  Oh, Willis!  In the end, he was probably happy to get shot in the heart by a crossbow.  It least it ends the humiliation.

Just like in the first one, the heroic boyfriend is pals with an oblivious white police chief, in this case Sheriff Dunlop (Michael Conrad).  Against expectations, he isn’t particularly racist (by 1970s standards), but he´s super down on voodoo.  In fact, when people start ending up drained of blood, he wants to arrest Lisa, because he has literally mixed up voodoo with vampires (‘that’s something they do, right?).  Voodoo in general gets a bad rap in the movie.  Even Justin calls Lisa’s congregation a cult, to her face, and he’s part of the congregation!  Dunlop must keep an open mind, though, because despite laughing at Justin for handing out stakes to the cops before the raid on Mamuwalde’s mansion, the movie cuts to him a few minutes later immediately staking a dude without a second thought.  Maybe he was just excited to try out a new kind of police brutality.

They are only there for a second, but I have to give props to the random old white couple sitting awkwardly in the middle of the hip African Studies college party.  No explanation about who they are or why they are there.  My guess is they owned the house and just wanted to be in the movie.

It's nice to see William Marshall back as Mamuwalde, bringing an unexpected nobility to what should be a very exploitive role.  His African prince is suave, charming, and just as irresistible to the ladies as last time (chicks still dig a man in a cape).  That familiarity is part of the problem, though.  The sequel follows the original plot a little too closely.  Mamuwalde returns, becomes obsessed with one woman, the woman’s boyfriend works with the cops to find him, there is a big cops vs. vampires confrontation, etc., etc.  The voodoo angle doesn’t add as much as it could have (more on that later).

Plus, Mamuwalde is less sympathetic here.  He is a tragic figure in the original, cursed by Racist Dracula, imprisoned for centuries, deprived of his one great love.  Most of that sorrow is missing here, so there is nothing to soften his image of being a bully and a rampant cop killer (incidentally, the surest way to kill cops back then was to throw them through doors, even louver doors work).  And you can’t help but see the hypocrisy when Mamuwalde berates a couple of pimps for behaving like slave masters to the sisters.  It’s a fine sentiment, except that he has a half-dozen vampire toadies waiting back at his mansion who are forced to obey his every command.  Glass houses, dude.

It’s not until we find out his plan in the last act that he is redeemed, somewhat. [Spoiler]  Mamuwalde doesn’t want Lisa to be his bride or to increase his power, he wants her to cure him of being a vampire.  He just wants to return home and live out his life as a normal, cape loving human being.  And she almost succeeds, until her lunkhead boyfriend busts in on them at the very last moment, ruining the whole ceremony and sending Mamuwalde into a rage.  Nice timing, Justin.  A few minutes later and you could have just arrested him.  All those cops and doors could have been saved.

The unforgivable sin, however, is utterly wasting Pam Grier.  Her ass kicking boots are nowhere to be seen.  The knock down voodoo power struggle hinted at in the opening goes nowhere fast, and all Lisa is left with is a bit of charming party banter and cringing with fear at the first sign of horror.  Pam Grier does not cringe, unless it’s at what a mess she made with her shotgun.  I guess she portrays a voodoo priestess in a positive light, despite what that jerk Dunlop might think.  She is compassionate enough to try to free Mamuwalde from his demons, but she rejects him after witnessing his bloodlust (or cop throwing lust).  This leads to the most tragic moment, when a dejected Mamuwalde gives up and tells Justin, fuck it, call me Blacula.

Lisa saves the day, maybe.  Right before he can kill Justin, she stabs an arrow into the chest of her ceremonial Mamuwalde voodoo doll, causing Blacula—as promised—to scream.  What he doesn’t do, however, is die.  In perhaps the most confounding horror movie ending ever, the film just stops on the frame of his anguished face and the credits roll.  Is he dying or just uncomfortable?  There were no more sequels, so we’ll never know.  He might still be roaming the streets, badass cape billowing behind him, with his eyes on Jada Pinkett Smith or Angela Bassett.  Hopefully someone can make that movie before next Valentine’s Day.

C Chaka

REPRESENT - BLADE II

I don’t talk much about all those Marvel movies around Schizocinema, but I dig them.  I’m too much of a geek not to get absorbed into the massive world building.  They are a lot of fun, even if they aren’t on the level of important works like GRIZZLY or MALIBU HIGH.  The soon to be released BLACK PANTHER is a big deal.  It represents a tremendous precedent, the first blockbuster level superhero movie with a predominately black cast.  It focuses on an African nation where the most technologically advanced society is fully entwined with traditional African art, style, and design.  This scale of positive representation has never been seen before in an American movie of this type, and it is damn well worth praising.  Since I don’t get to see it for another week, though, I’ll give praise to Marvel’s first African American cinematic superhero, represented in a smaller, but still thoroughly badass way.  I’m speaking, of course, of BLADE.  II. 

The Capsule:

Half-vampire Blade (Wesley Snipes) continues his crusade against the evil full-blooded variety which rules with world in the shadows.  Lately, he’s been shooting, slicing, and staking his way through the bloodsucking ranks with a more personal goal in mind.  He´s been on the trail of his kidnapped mentor, Whistler (Kris Kristofferson), who the vampires have been torturing for two years because they are total dicks.  Before he can even celebrate breaking the old guy free, Blade is hit with a surprise.  Damaskinos (Thomas Kretschmann), the marble faced head of the vampire aristocracy, offers him a truce in exchange for his help.  The Old World vamps are running scared because of the Reapers, a freaky new strain of supervamps who feed on normal vampires (suck on that irony, jerks).  Normally, Blade would welcome that shit, but he knows that once the Reapers guzzle their way through the bloodsuckers, humans will be next.  So, Blade joins forces with The Bloodpack, an elite vamp super team, headed by antagonistic asshole, Reinhardt (Ron Perlman).  Can Blade take on the mysterious Reaper leader, Nomak (Luke Goss), and watch his back for the inevitable vampire betrayal?  

I have to admit, I wasn´t  the biggest Wesley Snipes fan.  He was just a little too cocky for my taste.  Then BLADE came and smacked my taste in line.  Snipes plays the Daywalker with just the right balance of gravitas and swagger.  His Blade is disciplined about his mission, but not too grim to crack a smile when the occasion warrants.  Snipes has the martial arts training and physical skill to handle his own stunts and let the fight scenes play wide.  Guillermo del Toro’s BLADE II only upped my appreciation.  While it doesn’t have as many great lines as the first film (“Some motherfuckers are always trying to ice-skate uphill.”) Snipes delivers them all with unrelenting cool.  This man was born to be Blade.

Though the films are obviously more vampire action movies than superhero, BLADE represents the dawn of the Marvel movie (Dolph Lundgren's PUNISHER is pre-dawn, around 3:30A.M.).  One thing above all others sets the Blade series apart from the well tooled MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe).  It's not the interconnected stories.  It’s not the technology (clunky CGI vs. photo-realistic).  It’s not the violence or the language (hard R vs. solid PG-13).  The clearest difference is that Blade takes absolutely no shit.  

MCU characters must all wrestle with complex moral issues.  They have doubts.  They exist in a grey area, where there are no simple answers.  Blade kills vampires.  A lot of vampires.  Period.  He has a very defined purpose which he has not only accepted, but embraced.  The blood thirst that wells up from his vampire half isn’t a curse, it’s a motivator.  Blade’s war is righteous, and it is entirely his choice.  

As BLADE II clearly and nonchalantly shows, Blade has a straight-up cure to vampirism.  He completely de-vamped Whistler in about 5 minutes.  That means he has the option of curing himself, or curing other vampires non-violently.  This opens a huge ethical and existential conundrum; which Blade completely ignores.  He kills vampires because vampires are jerks.  He is totally cool with that.

To make the point clear, we get another peek into a vampire club.  It turns out that Eurotrash vamps are even more decadent motherfuckers than their American counterparts.  There is no blood shower like in the first movie, but we get clubgoers slipping razor blades in their mouths before making out, snorting powdered blood, and one lady is getting an open spine piercing or tattoo or something.  That might be the kind of place Trent Reznor would have dug back in the day, but most people would find it a bit excessive.

The morality may be simplified, but Blade isn’t simply a vamp hating zealot.  He keeps an open mind, he can make exceptions.  Take Nyssa (Leonor Varela), the sexy ninja vampire who brings him the offer of truce.  He recognizes that she is a decent person, and he doesn’t hold being a vampire against her, even though her dad is Damaskinos (she must favor her mother, since her head doesn’t look like it was carved from moldy cheese). Like Blade, she was born into this life (un-life?), and she’s trying to do the best she can.  Even if there wasn’t a truce, I think Blade would give her a pass.  Her partner, Asad (Danny John-Jules) seems cool, too.  I think they could have all hung out together, if the situation had been different.  

The same can’t be said for the rest of the Bloodpack, however.  Del Toro gives each member of this elite vampire squad a distinct look and weapon, but with a douchy vibe. Like they are trying too hard.  It is especially obvious when standing beside someone as effortlessly cool as Blade.  Even their name is something a bunch of Eurotrash vampires would think was awesome, but is really kind of lame.  I bet they all have hats and windbreakers with the Bloodpack logo.  

The roster includes a bunch of dudes we know are not going to last long, like the big guy with Māori tattoos (Daz Crawford, not Māori), his pink haired girlfriend (Marit Velle Kile), and the bland, long haired guy with oversized shades (Tony Curran).  Then there is the bleach blonde, roid raging, second in command, Chupa (Matt Schulze).   He is the kind of aggressively dickish asshole who’s death is saved for a more impactful moment (perhaps going up against Blade’s number 2 guy?).

Snowman was another Bloodpacker who faded into the background the first few times I saw this.  He stands out this time because, oh shit, it Donnie Yen!  This was way before his breakout role in IP MAN (at least in the West, he’s been in Hong Kong cinema since the mid-Eighties), so to me he was just the quiet guy with the samurai sword.  He gets a couple of memorable fights against the Reapers, and some nice sword work, but unfortunately, he goes out like a punk.  Yen was a fight choreographer and martial arts coordinator for the film, so at least he continued in spirit.

There is no mistaking Ron Perlman’s distinctive mug, of course.  Perlman is akin to Lance Henriksen, one of those badass character actors who completely energizes any scene he’s in.  With his intimidating stature and massively expressive face, he can go from lovable lug to gleefully evil son of a bitch with ease.  Bloodpack head honcho Reinhardt falls into the latter.  He is in Blade’s face from the moment they meet, making it clear this truce deal is not going to hold.    Blade is constantly winding him up, calling him Adolf and implying that he is a Nazi.  There is no indication he is or once was a Nazi, but I’m pretty sure the way he asks Blade “can you blush?” is some racist bullshit.  That line comes back to haunt him, though, right before receiving the best kill of the movie.  

Going on in the background is the power struggle between Blade’s grizzly old mentor, Whistler, and the insufferable, weed smoking whiz kid, Scud.   It’s funny seeing Norman Reedus looking so fresh faced after being so used to his world weary, Whistler-esque character in The Walking Dead.  Scud is such an annoying character that you are clearly supposed to side with Whistler, who feels the little turd has usurped his position as tech tinkering sidekick.  While Scud supplies Blade with fancy new gadgets and casts shade on his rival, Whistler seems to be left out grumbling in the cold.  

Now, we all know that Blade wouldn’t play his boy Whistler like that.  Sure enough, [spoiler] turns out Scud was a narc working for Damaskinos, and Blade was on to him from the jump.  It was all part of the Daywalker’s plan all along.  Except maybe for the part where he’s captured by the vampires and almost drained of all his blood.  He gets to wipe the smirk off Scud’s face with a bomb, though, which makes it all worth it.

This was one of del Toro’s earlier films, before he became a prominent name with HELLBOY and PAN’S LABYRINTH, but his fantastic touches to the franchise are obvious.  None more so than the monstrous Reapers.  The design and detail of their bifurcated jaws and toothy tongues really sells them as creatures that vampires (or anything) would be scared of.  He even goes so far as to have an autopsy scene showing all the crazy innards, one of which appears to be an asshole in place of the stomach.  It’s weird, del Toro weird.

Ultimately though, Nomak and his Reapers are born of tragedy, and the real villainy lies squarely with The (Vampire) Man, Damaskinos.  He is so focused on creating a master race that he willingly sells out his own children.  Admittedly, his plot—involving Blade, Nomak, and candied vampire fetuses—gets a little convoluted, but it climaxes in Damaskinos’ crazy lair (think Willy Wonka’s factory if you replaced chocolate with blood), so it’s all worth the ride.

BLADE II isn’t the cultural phenomenon that BLACK PANTHER will be, but it was successful enough to keep Marvel in the movie business during the bleak years before the MCU.  And as much as I love King T’Challa, I’ll always have mad respect for the Daywalker who came before him.  Let´s raise our sunglasses to our man Blade.

C Chaka