Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde (1976).

Another blacksploitation horror movie from director William Crain (who gave us the highly enjoyable Blacula), Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde sadly fails as an enteraining horror movie, though it does provide unintentional laughs and is hardly ever dull.

 

The story, as you may have guessed from the title, is a riff on the classic tale by Robert Louis Stevenson. Bernie Casey plays Dr. Henry Pride, a good man who is desperately trying to develop a completed formula that will regenerate liver cells. Just when he thinks he’s got it all sorted he decides to test it on a lab rat, which turns white and attacks the other rats. A bad sign, you may have thought, but Dr. Pride takes this as a sign to first inject an elderly female patient and then, a little while later, inject himself. The transformation is instant, Dr. Pride immediately turns white (Stan Winston is credited as the special effects guy here but I can only assume he was simply in charge of buying the flour and throwing it on Casey’s face) and homicidal. 

 

You can have fun watching Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde, really you can, but it’s not the kind of fun you have while a movie carries you along on an enjoyable journey. Nope, this is the kind of fun you have simply by pointing and laughing. Which is still fun.

 

The script by Larry LeBron (from a story by Lawrence Woolner though that credit should go, surely, to Mr. Stevenson) is pretty awful in places. The whole thing is badly dated, and that’s not helped by the stereotypical pimp character (complete with pimp hat), completely unbelievable and doesn’t even come close to being scary once. Actually, to be fair, there is one good jump scare. That’s it.

 

Casey does well in the main role but he’s weighed down by clunky dialogue and then the indignity of the flour-faced performance that he has to give. Marie O’Henry is so-so as the prostitute/patient Linda, someone the doctor wants to help until the serum takes over. Ji-Tu Cumbuka steals his scenes once again (he also played Skillet in Blacula) as a verbose lieutenant trying to catch whoever is responsible for the spate of murders on his turf.

After a plodding start that tries to establish the character and the reason why the serum exists, the movie does lift itself gradually but it never gets too far before the ridiculous “monster” and unappealing cinematography bring it back down again. The soundtrack is another area in which the movie is lacking, almost as if nobody could work up the enthusiasm to wrote any decent music accompanying such lacklustre visuals. Overall, it’s easy to say that this entire movie could do with a shot in the arm. Ironically.

5/10. 

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Blacula (1972).

Yes, it’s a blaxploitation horror and, as you can guess from the title, it’s a riff on the Dracula tale. What you may not guess is that it’s actually quite a good little film.

William Marshall plays the title role (though the character’s proper name is actually Mamuwalde), a man bitten and cursed by Dracula himself in the opening sequence. Fast forward many years and Blacula’s coffin is taken to America by some interior decorators who have managed to pick up everything contained within Dracula’s household for quite a bargain price. It’s not long before people start dying from severe blood loss and Blacula, of course, discovers someone (Vonetta McGee) who seems to be the double of his deceased ex-wife. Thalmus Rasulala plays the cop who first decides to start considering the seemingly impossible as the bodies start to pile up (and, more worryingly, disappear).

While Blacula is not a great movie, in the standard sense, it does compare very favourably when weighed against other blacksploitation movies, and especially blacksploitation horrors. The cast mostly do a very good job with Marshall cutting an impressive figure as the caped vampire, McGee quite adorable and convincingly won over by a loving man and Rasulala putting on a gruff, tough act in a role that Fred Williamson would surely have loved to chew up.

The screenplay by Raymond Koenig and Joan Torres is adequate and contains laughs both intentional and unintentional (something that’s rarely avoidable nowadays when watching anything so very 70s). Where the movie scores is in the banter between Rasulala and everyone around him, especially Lt. Peters (played by Gordon Pinsent), and in the moments of nobility that Marshall makes the most of.

The direction by William Crain isn’t anything special but it’s quite a compliment that one or two factors haven’t actually dated as badly as you’d think. The classic heart (or should that be soul?) of the tale is timeless. The vampire make-up isn’t all that bad, though Marshall is given some majorly heavy eyebrows when baring his fangs, for some reason. And then we have the vamp to bat transformation, used fleetingly but well done with some simple animation as opposed to the big rubber bats that Hammer used to be so fond of. This ties in nicely to the amusing animated credit sequence.

There’s camp in abundance, the standard funky guitar you’d expect on the soundtrack (though, to be fair, the soundtrack is bloody good and it’s only the groovy 70s dancing that distracts from the enjoyment of the music), Elisha Cook Jr. and an amusing, scene-stealing repeated line delivered by a man named Ji-Tu Cumbuka, who plays a character called Skillet. Do give it a try.

8/10.

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