Scream Blacula Scream (1973)

Blacula was a big success when it was released in 1972. So, as expected, a sequel was quickly created. And it is, also as expected, not quite as good as the first film. It's not bad though. Not bad at all.

William Marshall returns to the title role, once again bringing such a great presence and certain dignity to the role. He's resurrected by a young man (Willis, played by Richard Lawson) who wants to become a leader in his voodoo circle. That doesn't go to plan. Willis is instead almost immediately bitten and ordered to stay within the confines of his own home. Meanwhile, Mamuwalde (AKA Blacula) starts to venture out into the night once more, quickly falling for the lovely, and voodoo-wise, Lisa Fortier (Pam Grier). Perhaps the magic that brought him back to life can cure him of his vampirism.

Writers Joan Torres and Raymond Koenig also return, joined this time around by Maurice Jules, and they continue to use the main character in a mixture of traditional vampire moments and also scenes that let him angrily call out situations that he sees around him (specifically when it comes to how people treat one another, as well as how valuable heritage and history are).

It's Bob Kelljan in the director's chair, taking over the role from William Crain, and he does a decent job. Although the film lacks the freshness of the first film, obviously, it makes up for that with the added voodoo elements and a handful of vampire moments that come very close to being genuinely creepy. This may be due to the fact that Kelljan had already given audiences the Count Yorga movies (which, as of this moment, I have yet to watch - sorry, not enough hours in each day). The third act is also almost on a par with that of the first film, walking a familiar path, but with just enough of a twist to avoid it feeling like a carbon copy.

Marshall is just as good here as he was in the first movie and, having recently rewatched that film (before getting to this one), I wouldn't expend too much energy arguing with anyone who wanted to hold him up as one of the best incarnations of Dracula, even if he's a successor to the title rather than the, ummmmmm, original fangster. Grier is good enough in her role, although she's not at her very best (the really good stuff is saved for her leading roles in this era). Lawson suffers from the script making him too weak and whiney, but Don Mitchell manages to even things out with his fine turn, playing the man who puts two and two together and comes up with a batty result.

I was tempted to rate this even higher, placing it much closer to the first film, but I ultimately realised that there's not much in the first hour of the film that comes close to some of the great moments in the finale. There's a lot to enjoy, here and there, but it's only the last 10-15 minutes that show how much more could have been done with the premise. Well worth a watch if you enjoyed Blacula, but it doesn't really avoid many of the standard sequel problems (especially when it comes to the plotting, which is copied almost beat for beat).

6/10

The double-pack can be bought here.
Americans can get the movies here.

Prime Time: Darktown Strutters (1975)

Despite knowing that my own experience of blaxploitation movies is rather limited, certainly in comparison to other connoisseurs, I am going to go out on a limb here and describe Darktown Strutters as one of the most bizarre examples you could choose to watch. I’m not even sure I can describe the plot, which often takes a backseat to some hijinks that seem to have been lifted from some unfilmable episode of The Monkees.

Okay, here is my best attempt. Trina Parks is Syreena, she’s a badass leader of an all-girl motorbike gang. She’s also searching for her missing mother, Cinderella, who subsequently finds out used to provide a service for young women who found themselves in a state of impending motherhood and wanted to, let’s say, avoid the end result. There are some comedy cops bumbling around, some KKK members that like to chase the gang and cause a lot of trouble, and a man named Commander Cross (played by Norman Bartold) has a scheme to replace prominent black males with identical copies that will be programmed to fall in line and insidiously, exponentially, spread a message dictated by white America.

If some of those details are incorrect then please accept my apologies. I can only tell you that I spent most of the movie either grinning gleefully or cringing at the casual awfulness of some of the comedy ("highlights" include some light-hearted attempted rape, a dollop of homophobia, and those bumbling cops, both inept and abusive . . . hilarious).

The script by George Armitage was apparently written in just a few days, which explains a lot. This is the product of some fever dream, although that's not to say that there aren't enjoyable moments. Most of my grinning took place during some of the musical moments, and most scenes featuring Parks are hugely enjoyable, thanks to her being a wonderful badass in the lead role.

Aside from Parks, and Bartold (as the villain of the piece, he gets to make more of an impression than some of the other cast members), nobody else really stands out. There are just too many disparate moments, and no attempts to make the characters anything more than cartoons ready to set up or fall for a gag.

Director William Witney feels like he's herding cats here with the many tangents that see the film hurtling towards more insanity, veering back to the plot (itself not entirely sane), and then enjoying another diversion when it's time for a chase or a song. He keeps everything cheap 'n' cheerful, and at least maintains a consistent tone of whackiness, even if some of the material maybe shouldn't be given the whacky treatment.

The good and the bad end up almost cancelling each other out here, leaving you with a film that falls squarely in the middle. Darktown Strutters will rarely be high on any list of favourite blaxploitation movies but its non-stop deluge of delirium make it worth a watch, especially if you've already worked your way through a lot of the usual suspects.

5/10

There's a pricey DVD available here.
Americans can get this disc.

Truck Turner (1974)

"Who's the black bounty hunter
That's a sex machine to all the chicks?
Truck!
You're damn right.

Who is the man
That would risk his neck for his brother man?
Truck!
Can you dig it?"

Yes, although this is a movie all about a bounty hunter named Truck Turner (played by Isaac Hayes) it's really just a great blaxploitation flick that keeps Hayes as close to the Shaft persona (played by Richard Roundtree, but arguably made more famous thanks to that great theme sung by Hayes) as possible while throwing in everything else that will keep audiences happy: a great cast, plenty of violence, some gratuitous nudity and a script full of gems. The fact that many scenes end with a punchline or laughter akin to the end of each Police Squad episode makes it all the better.

Here's the plot. Truck Turner is an ex-football player who is now the toughest bounty hunter going. He's like Dog the bounty hunter, except for the fact that he's black, unsympathetic to anyone he catches and quick with his fists and gun. So he's not like Dog at all, I suppose, but they do at least share the same vocation. When Truck takes a big pimp out of action he ends up in a whole heap of trouble when a madam named Dorinda (Nichelle Nichols) puts a big price on his head. All guns are aimed at Truck, but perhaps the biggest threat comes from the cool and calculating Harvard Blue (Yaphet Kotto).

Oscar Williams and Michael Allin may have written the script and Jonathan Kaplan may have been sitting in the director's chair, but this movie belongs to Hayes. The man owns his central role, whether he's blasting holes in baddies or seducing women away from their fried chicken (no, I'm not being racist for the sake of a cheap gag, that ACTUALLY happens), and he's also responsible for a soundtrack so funky that it may have been playing during the conception of Prince.

Mind you, let's not dismiss everyone else so quickly. Alan Weeks is good fun as Jerry, Truck's partner and good friend, and it's always nice to see the likes of Scatman Crothers and Dick Miller, even if they don't get a lot of screentime. Annazette Chase plays Annie AKA Truck's woman and does fine with her role, but the woman turning heads is Nichelle Nichols. What would Captain Kirk say if he saw/heard Lt. Uhura looking and speaking as she does in this? It's certainly a lot better than her appearance years later in the dull horror movie, The Supernaturals. Yaphet Kotto is fantastic from the moment he appears to his very final scene, the man was at the top of his game in the '70s in my opinion.

There are one or two genuinely decent action sequences, though some moments are marred by entertainingly incongruous fashion choices, and even an impressive early use of a technique (SnorriCam) that has become quite commonplace in recent years, but those don't add enough to make it a great film. It is, however, a good one and fans of blaxploitation movies should certainly love it.

6/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Truck-Turner-DVD-Isaac-Hayes/dp/B00009MGKJ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361165112&sr=8-1

Dolemite (1975)

Dolemite is an awful film. It's irredeemably bad in oh so many ways. But if you can view movies as "so bad it's good" then this one goes to the top of the pile. It's so atrocious that it's life-affirmingly brilliant. I can't remember the last time that I laughed so hard and so often at a movie not billed as an outright comedy. This is THE movie to see if you've enjoyed films such as Pootie Tang and the magnificent Black Dynamite. This is where those movies drew a lot of their inspiration from.

The plot revolves around the awesome and badass and sexy and silver-tongued Dolemite (played by Rudy Ray Moore). Dolemite starts the movie in prison on a major drug charge but he is released, thanks to the unflagging support of Queen Bee (Lady Reed), on the condition that he finds out just who set him up and then takes down the drug lords that have been taking his neighbourhood on a downward journey. There are crooked cops to deal with and boss man Willie Green (D'Urville Martin, who also directed the movie) needs to be shown that his business is no longer welcome everywhere.

That's the very basic description of the plot and the movie. I haven't even mentioned the kung fu strippers, the fact that Dolemite loves to use the word "motherfuckers" in every sentence that he can, the groovy character named Creeper who has such a small but oh so memorable role, the boom mike appearing onscreen more than some of the supporting players and fight scenes that show people missing their intended targets by some distance before the intended targets still throw themselves backwards anyway.

The acting is pretty bad from everyone involved. Rudy Ray Moore does a decent job just by being such a larger than life character and D'Urville Martin, to be fair, isn't all that bad as Willie Green but most of the other players (or should that be . . . . playas?) range from the slightly uncomfortable onscreen to the outright bizarre (with the most bizarre being Vainus Rackstraw, who plays Creeper).

The screenplay by Jerry Jones, helped to fruition by Rudy Ray Moore, is often as hilarious as the acting. This is a BAD movie but it's brilliantly bad. There are mistakes in almost every scene and a lot of the material feels as if it's been thrown into the mix at random but all that matters is that you are allowing yourself the pleasure of spending some time with DOLEMITE, motherfucker! That makes everything worthwhile.

7/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dolemite-Collection-Bigger-Badder-Region/dp/B00005V4Y4/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1347455513&sr=8-3