Only Laughs Are at Stake With 'Blacula' Vampires

By Emerson Batdorff

It is pleasant to run across a picture that was made for pleasure possibly simple-minded pleasure

and attains it. No message here. No protest, no ax to grind. Only teeth.

The picture i s "Blacula." Except for the fact that the principal characters are black, it could fairly easily have been made back in 1936 when movies were made mostly to entertain.

"Blacula"

is slickly

done. It starts about 200 | years ago in Transylvania with an African prince visit-

'Blacula'

Directed by WIlliam Crain. Screenplay by Joan Torres and Raymond Koenia. Produced by Joseph T. Noor. Mature.

Blacula

Tina

Michelle

William Marshall .Vonetta McGee ..Denise Nicholas

Gordon Thomas ..Thalmus Rasulala

Lt. Peters

Dracula

Gordon Pinsent ..Charles McCauley

ing Count Dracula in his effort to enroll the intelligentsia against the slave trade.

DRACULA lusts after the prince's wife, and also the prince's blood. After his snack. Dracula dubs the prince Blacula, condemns him to living death, and installs him in a comfortable coffin.

Now we come to today. Blacula's coffin is in a warehouse in Los Angeles. where it has been taken by a pair of homosexual interior decorators who bought all the furnishings of Dracula's Castle to use in their trade.

Blacula has a few snacks. which alerts a small segment of the community when the drained bodies are found. A doctor. played straightforwardly by Thalmus Rasulala. figures what's happening.

"Vampires multiply geometrically," he muses, setting out to stop the outrage with a cross in his hand. What you do for Jewish vampires is not explained.

There are lots of good bits. Blacula knocked down by a taxicab, whose driver he bites, is one. Blacula getting photographed in a highclass saloon is another. A vampire casts no reflection. As an extension of this. he can not be photographed either and it's a sure sign of vampires when you take a picture of a fellow and he refuses to show up on the print.

BLACULA goes around in his attire of 200 years ago including his cape. He is not too out of place in today's peculiar raiment

i

For the first time in many a vampire picture. the vampire takes advantage of being able to turn into a bat.

This being a modern movie. events have been speeded up no end. This is the world of instant vampires. Once you get bitten, you are able to bite back in a matter of 10 to 15 minutes. It's kind of threatening, at that.