Superfly / Scream, Blacula, Scream!

We’ve never cared for the term “blaxploitation,” but we do love the movies it describes—those early-seventies action flicks that explored the experiences of African-Americans in ass-kickingly cinematic terms. They’re very much of their time—funk and seventies fashion at its most outlandishly ghetto-fabulous—but also full of attitudes toward gays and women that wouldn’t fly today. And most were made cheaply, quickly, and with an eye toward a buck rather than an Artistic Statement. But they’re important pieces of film history, and they’re still pretty fun. Superfly, propelled by Curtis Mayfield’s fantastic score, is one of the genre’s high points—a gritty noir directed by Gordon Parks Jr., whose father, the great St. Paul photographer, kick-started the genre by directing Shaft. Meanwhile, other than changing the ethnicity of its hero and villain, 1972’s Blacula stays firmly within the strict genre conventions of the vampire film; it seems almost old-fashioned next to, say, Roman Polanski’s 1967 Fearless Vampire Killers. It’s redeemed by Shakespearean-trained actor William Marshall. We specially like his throaty performance as Mamuwalde, the African prince who asks Dracula to sign an anti-slavery petition and gets “fangs, but no thanks” in response. The sequel’s not as good but gets extra points for costar Pam Grier, who livens up any film she’s in.