Review of Scream Blacula Scream (1973) by Brett B — 29 Oct 2013

After a dying Voodoo queen, Mama Loa, chooses an adopted apprentice, Lisa Fortier (Pam Grier) as her successor, her arrogant son and true heir, Willis, (Richard Lawson) is outraged. Seeking revenge, he buys the bones of Mamuwalde the vampire from the former shaman of the voodoo cult, and uses voodoo to resurrect the vampire to do his bidding. However, while it brings Mamuwalde (William Marshall) back to life, he quickly bites Willis upon awakening. Willis now finds himself in a curse of his own doing: made into a vampire hungering for blood and, ironically, a slave to the very creature he sought to control. Meanwhile, Justin Carter (Don Mitchell), an ex-police officer with a large collection of acquired African antiquities and an interest in the occult, begins to investigate the murders caused by Mamuwalde and his growing vampire horde. Justin meets Mamuwalde at a party Justin hosts to display the African collection pieces before being moved to the University's museum. They discuss the artifacts, unbeknown to anyone else, that were from the region of Africa Mamuwalde hails from, including pieces of jewelry once worn by his late wife Luva. Mamuwalde also meets Justin's girlfriend, Lisa Fortier, at the party and he discovers that Lisa is naturally adept at voodoo. Lisa discovers Mamuwalde´s true nature after a friend of hers, Gloria, falls victim to his bite and resurrected as a vampire who nearly feeds on her if not for Mamuwalde's intervention. He later asks her for help to cure him of his vampire curse...

I have never seen this 1973 blaxploitation horror film, but I wanted to due to Pam Grier´s participation as Lisa. I reckon this suits the genre with an afroamerican Dracula, despite the fact that the pace is slow, the action is sparse and the acting is slightly wobbly and so are the effects. I reckon we are used to see Pam Grier as a bad ass on revenge, but here she has a much softer role and she shows her acting skills from that angle as well. And she´s stunning as always. "Scream Blacula Scream" is intriguing if you are into blaxploitation.