“The name is Blacula!”: Identity and Palimpsest in William Marshall’s Vampire Diptych

Abstract

Abstract: In the early 1970s, a new cinematic genre, the Blaxploitation film, emerged from a creative scene which saw Black actors, writers, and directors enabled to produce their own original works for the first time. Often accused of trafficking in unsavory racial tropes, Blaxploitation films nevertheless displayed aspects of America’s racial problems and subtly complicated Black stereotypes while capitalizing on them to entertain both Black and White audiences. Films such as Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (dir. Melvin Van Peebles, 1971) and Shaft (dir. Gordon Parks, 1971) may be most recalled as having catapulted this genre to fame, but an often-overlooked subgenre—the Blaxploitation horror film—also offered its unique brand of cultural insight. William Crain’s seminal Blaxploitation horror film, Blacula (1972), and its fast-tracked sequel, Scream Blacula Scream (dir. Bob Kelljan, 1973), demonstrate the power of the Blaxploitation framework to transcend its harmful stereotypes and to expose oppressive cultural practices. Our analysis of this pair of Blaxploitation horror films focuses upon two aspects of their position as representatives of their subgenre: first, their influence upon the wider cinematic culture, particularly the culture of horror cinema; second, the ability of Blacula and its sequel to play with and against their racial stereotypes.