[singing] It doesn’t matter if you’re black or (pasty) white…
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Blacula (1972): 8/10
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Dark Shadows (2012): 8.5/10
Paired up a pair movies about vampires resurrected in A.D. 1972 for tonight’s sanguinary twofer. In 1972’s
Blacula, William Marshall stars as Mamuwalde, an African Prince who ventures to Europe circa 1780 in a goodwill attempt to drum up opposition to slavery, when he visits Castle Dracula in Transylvania, whose master (Charles Macaulay) not only refuses Mamuwalde’s pleas, but also sentences him to an eternity of anguish, infecting him with the curse of vampirism and locking him away in a secret chamber within the walls of his abode with his beloved wife (Vonetta McGee), who slowly starves to death as he slumbers away in torment for nearly two centuries. Finally, when a pair of FAB-u-lous homosexual stereotypes buy the Count’s crumbling castle and ship Mamuwalde’s locked coffin back to Los Angeles in the era of bell bottoms and disco balls, he’s let loose to slake his unending thirst on the L.A. populace, even as he finds his lost love resurrected in the form of a contemporary woman named Tina (McGee again), whom he courts with suave playah skills. Despite the silly title, this is no blacksploitation cheapie…it’s a legit vampire movie, and a remarkable well-made one for the era, when the old Hammer traditions were melting away into the more forceful shocks of the early 70s. Marshall is what really anchors the film…with his mellifluous baritone, he’s like the Barry White of bloodsuckers, and he gives the pulpy material a great deal of gravitas it otherwise might have lacked. The productions values are sometimes a tad slipshod, as you’d expect from an early-70s AIP cheapie, but
Blacula nevertheless has its share of genuine chills and engagingly cheesy ‘tude (“That is one…straaaaaaaaaaaaaaaange
dude!”).
Meanwhile,
Dark Shadows (adapted from an early-70s supernatural soap opera created by Dan Curtis) is one of Tim Burton’s most entertaining films from the last decade, a mordantly witty dark comedy about how Liverpool native Barnabas Collins and his family travel to the wilderness of Maine in 1760 and establish a thriving seaport community that bears their name, only to have Barnabas (Johnny Depp) spurn the affections of an alluring but spiteful house servant/witch, Angelique (Eva Green), who curses him by murdering his parents and his lady love, Jossete (Bella Heathcote), and transforming him into a vampire so that his torment will be never-ending. Siccing the local populace upon him, Angelique has Barnabas buried in a coffin for nearly two centuries, until he’s unearthed by a group of construction workers in 1972 (leading to a great groaner of a visual pun), and returns to his old stomping grounds of Collinsport and his now-decrepit family manor of Collinswood, where the handful of distant relatives he has left (including the likes of Michelle Pfeiffer, Jonny Lee Miller and Chloe Grace Moretz) take in this odd, courtly gentleman from another era and start acclimating him to life in the late 20th century, even as he becomes attracted to their new governess, Victoria, who – hey, this sounds familiar – is the spitting image of Barnabas’ long-lost lady love (Heathcote again). Meanwhile, witchy Angelique has weathered the centuries feeding off the gradual ruin and looming extinction of the Collins clan as she’s amassed a fortune ruling the local fishing industry, and she’s none too happy to find out that her cheating ex has come home to roost. Burton has had a hard go of it in recent years, stuck in a morass of slapping his name on the creative output of others and cashing an easy check (which he made damning, self-portrait hash out of in his film
Big Eyes), but this is the most satisfying film he’s made in the 2010s, making a deep dive into the outré surrealality that established his Hot Topic auteur cred back in his best work from the 80s and 90s. While the plot is sketchy at times (I could have done with a few more romantic scenes between Deep and Heathcote as they re-establish their interrupted love story), the gags are delivered with a droll relish that are often impeccably timed by Depp, who knows just how long to hold a pregnant pause before delivering a punchline that could have played leaden on the page but he makes sing with his plummy, grandiloquent delivery (especially his recitation of the “best” line from Erich Segal’s novel
Love Story). Plus, Green steals the damn movie as Angelique, a scorned lover still seething with resentment and yet playing with Barnabas’ affections with a leering hunger. Her scenes with Depp are a constant delight, as they snipe and fuss and, in a memorable scene, have the most acrobatic, room-smashing bout of Hate-Sex in cinema history. Plus, the movie has gorgeously gloomy visuals and a fantastic soundtrack, not only the expected, boding Danny Elfman score (one of his best), but also a most groovy selection of 70s songs that perfectly set the period with a knowing wink. It’s not
quite up there with Burton’s best work, but, compared to the mercenary joylessness of his recent spate of Disney remakes, it captures his playfully macabre spirit better than anything he’s done in years, and is one of his most underrated films that I enjoy more with each viewing.
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Return To Horror High (1987): 5/10
Sporadically amusing horror comedy about a real-life massacre at Crippin High School in 1982, and how, five years later, a film crew descends on the school grounds to make a movie about the events, only to find themselves being offed one-by-one by a mysterious killer. There are flashes of wit to be mined here (especially the way the “real” events of 1982 keep getting interrupted by the filming of the “fake” version circa ’87), but it’s not especially laugh-out-loud funny, generating more in the way of polite chuckles. It’s mainly noteworthy as having a very early screen appearance by a young George Clooney, as well as the surreal casting of Maureen McCormick – yes, Marcia Brady herself! – as a randy cop investigating the bloody aftermath of the movie set murders. The movie is well-made enough, but doesn’t really gel.
I guess we should just feel lucky they finally released Addams Family Values on Blu at all.