Blacula: written by Joan Torres and Raymond Koenig; directed by William Cain; starring William Marshall (Blacula/Mamuwalde), Vonetta McGee (Tina/Luva), Denise Nicholas (Michelle), Thalmus Rasulala (Dr. Gordon Thomas) and Gordon Pinsent (Lt. Jack Peters) (1972): Blacula may be a cheesy slice of 1970's blaxploitation, but it's a lot of fun. It's also got a terrific performance in the title role by William Marshall, a stage actor otherwise best known in genre circles for playing computer genius Richard Daystrom in the original series Star Trek episode "The Ultimate Computer."
Credit to the film-makers for actually working the name in the title into the film once, and then never referring to it again. Dracula dubs the African prince Mamuwalde 'Blacula,' because why not? Then he locks him in a casket for 200 years. An unambiguously gay duo of antique dealers buy that casket in 1972, ship it back to Los Angeles, and then make the colossal error of opening it.
Thankfully, intrepid police scientist Gordon Thomas and Canada's own Gordon Pinsent are on hand to stop the vampire invasion of Los Angeles. Some pretty crazy and remarkable scenes occur along the way, including a completely bonkers vampire attack by an undead lady cabdriver and a warehouse battle that features a fortuitous crate of what appear to be explosive, vampire-killing light-bulbs.
Marshall invests Mamuwalde with about as much gravitas as can be expected under the circumstances. He's certainly a far more sympathetic vampire than any Dracula up to the time of the movie. Blacula also throws in a reincarnation sub-plot that would later appear in Bram Stoker's Dracula, among other subsequent movies. That sub-plot will be familiar to anyone who's seen the original 1930's The Mummy. Is this the first time that particular sub-plot has vectored into the vampire genre? I don't know. There's also a groovy soundtrack/score and a brief appearance by Elisha Cook Jr. as a coroner with a hook for a hand. Cool. Recommended.
The Shining: written by Stanley Kubrick and Diane Johnson, based on the novel by Stephen King; directed by Stanley Kubrick; starring Jack Nicholson (Jack Torrance), Shelley Duvall (Wendy Torrance), Danny Lloyd (Danny Torrance), Scatman Crothers (Dick Halloran), Joe Turkel (Lloyd the bartender) and Philip Stone (Delbert Grady) (1980): So much has been said and written about Kubrick's version of Stephen King's novel that there's not a lot left to say.
It's fortunate that Kubrick's original ending got cut from subsequent releases, as it rendered the rest of the movie nonsensical in a way that anticipated M. Night Shlamayan's descent into climactic shock for shock's sake. Go look it up. It's also fortunate that Kubrick's addition of a supernatural element absent from King's original (reincarnation) is also muted in the film, though still there. As with a lot of great artists, Kubrick often seems dumber than his work.
If you're watching The Shining for the umpteenth time, note how much heavy lifting sound and music do in the movie. Take away the audio and half the scares evaporate. Also note the astonishing number of symmetrical shots in the film, most but not all of them in the Overlook Hotel (I count a few in Dick Halloran's Miami apartment, but all of those occur while Danny is telepathically contacting him, and once the contact is over, Halloran's apartment becomes scrupulously asymmetrical and dominated by diagonal lines).
The symmetry comes from two elements -- the position of the characters and the mise-en-scene, which is to say the layout of the set and the props in the shot. I'll leave you to theorize what it all means, what all the mirror shots mean ('Redrum' is, of course, the movie's big 'mirror reveal'), what the static shots of Nicholson's face at various points mean, what all the Native American elements mean, and so on, and so forth.
As with 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick herein also plays with a sort of metapsychology playing out inside a gigantic metaphor for the human mind. In 2001, it's the brain-and-spinal-cord spaceship Discovery, carrying an emotionless and sterile technohumanity to its ultimate rebirth and rejuvenation. In The Shining, it's the haunted mind of the Overlook Hotel, carrying Jack Torrance metaphorically backwards in time to the early moments of 2001, leaving him without language and howling, running around with a weapon he will ultimately be unable to use (or triumphantly throw into the air).
It's a fascinating film that rewards multiple viewings, if only to admire the bizarre, seemingly meaningful colour choices Kubrick makes with the various rooms in the set. Dig that red-and-white washroom! Highly recommended.
