by Ben Ohmart
The only difference between a good movie and a bad movie is if you like it. Camp, schlock, tat, indie, dated, whatever you want to call the greatness that is Scream Blacula Scream, it’s just a wrong label. Stylish, daring, trying to do something different, interesting is how I tag this one. It verges right on the border between comedy and drama and I’ve got no idea where to put my hands in case it falls.
William Marshall is The Man. The Reason. William Marshall is the Presence that carries you from casual fan to Fan of this movie. Hell, when he looks right at you after his first meal before the credits roll, you just want to get out of there. He’s looking right at you, honky! Run away like a girl!
“Hey, blood.” It’s really Marshall’s voice that’s the true, hands down star of this film. His majesty and deep diaphragm seem to pull from the very soles of his feet and gathers more Thurl Ranvenscroft all the way up through his throat. Kenneth Branagh and Laurence Olivier and you and me and Morgan Freeman and Leonard Nimoy all wish we had his voice. It was one of the great voiceboxes of cinema. (And wouldn’t Star Wars have been a different film if Lucas had been a smarter caster?) And, alas, his voice is sadly underused here, yes….
Perhaps Scream Blacula Scream is not as good as the original Blacula. But there are a couple of things for me personally that give this sequel an edge over the first flick.
First of all, my friend Bill (son of Harpo) Marx wrote the score to this. I love Bill. When we visited him in Palm Springs, he let me wear Harpo’s original wig and coat.
Yes.
And we sat by the harp-shaped pool and spoke of Marxism and pigs (his wife Barbara collects pig-shaped things) and his audio book and we even lightly touched upon Scream Blacula Scream, for which he has a soft spot.
Then there’s a second reason. Barbara Rhoades, in all her glory. I first saw her in Columbo, then even more of her in an Ellery Queen episode. I could look at her easily for ninety minutes at a time. And though Scream doesn’t showcase her great wit and full acting ability, she’s a red-haired beauty (whom I wish would write a book about someday) whose hair gets bigger the more undead she is.
Then there’s that Blacula cape.
Then there’s that great scene when the good Count is walking down the street for the first time and, like Crocodile Dundee, he’s not trying to blend in with the modern townsfolk.
There’s that jive pimp Willis, in his red pool table skin hat. There’s the turning into a bat effect, a dead cousin to Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. And I’m sorry, but I watch The Hobbit and Percy Jackson and I don’t see any better cartoon movement in those than in my man Blacula. They all move like cartoons. But at least 1973 didn’t have the bloated budgets that keep ticket prices high now.
Ah, the 1970s. When there was true integration in the entertainment world. Sanford and Son as a sitcom or unscripted shaky camera show today? No. Is the afro more comical than actually shaving one’s head completely? Sorry, but spend some time thinking on it. Don’t just automatically go for the most familiar.
Now, I realize Scream Blacula Scream is a cheap, i.e. inexpensive, movie that’s little more than a house party — and a series stopper (there’s no Blacula 3 out there). But what we’ve got here is a horror movie. Lots of walking camera, back when the walking camera meant P.O.V., not “I’m too cheap to set up the shot, besides no one complains.” And it’s a bit slow (if you’re a fan of three-second shots, thanks to today’s rash of editors). But it reeks of black atmosphere. It’s a mystery and a horror movie, and it’s got a scene showing four silent police cars cruising up to Blacula’s house at night; no sirens, no lights. What other film dares to pay for the cop cars and then saves their batteries like that?
The vampire Blacula sucks throats and collects up vamp slaves that move like zombies, and they are totally intimidated by him.
He’s even got voodoo beauty Pam Grier under his powah. Who would not be charmed, fascinated, and afraid of this dark Dracula if he was suddenly there before you, sprouting hair through his cheek lines and changing his hairline and bushing up his eyebrows when he’s out for blood? Smacking whitey cops up and down, tossing them out glass windows…the man’s a monster!
I wrote a book called The Rerun of Dracula, a comedy about Vlad the Impaler, the inspiration behind Stoker’s Dracula. Vlad “comes back,” having never really left, because he’s tired and old and bored. Bored with life, tired of being ignored. He can’t be killed, so he might as well go for the recognition. So he sues Universal, Random House, Fox, etc. collectively for his image rights. It’s a comedy of copyright; since he didn’t die, there’s no “author’s life plus seventy-five years” clause, is there? Well, I dedicated the book to Lance Henriksen, since William Marshall is no longer with us to put real regal justice to the role.
All I ask, Limited Hollywood Imagination, is that when you get around to rebooting Blacula (as you will), please take a little time over it and don’t make it camp, as you like to do with take-the-name-and-the-idea-only remakes. Don’t put a comedian in the lead, and try to give it a little grandeur like the original attempted. I know it’s easier to make fun of something that came before your time than to do a proper job, but financially think about this: comedies don’t win awards or make huge piles of cash (generally) like the action and drama flicks do, because no two people agree on what’s funny. So, play it straight for a change. Because you can’t make Scream Blacula Scream into a PG Pixar film, can you?