Zombie Blaxploitation

AIP Studios had a long history of drive-in exploitation movies, and when they combined horror with "Blaxploition" movies, like Blacula, they almost had no choice but to add zombies into the mix. Thus was born the Mafia/Voodoo hybrid, Sugar Hill.

Langston (Larry Don Johnson) runs a very successful Voodoo-themed night club. Local Mafia kingpin Morgan (Robert Quarry) wants in. When Langston refuses, Morgan has him beaten to death in the club's parking lot. But Langston's girlfriend Sugar (Marki Bey), wants revenge. She enlists the help of a local Voodoo priestess, Mama Maitresse (Mother Jefferson herself, Zara Cully). Mama calls upon the Voodoo death god Baron Samedi (Don Pedro Cully), who raises an army of zombies to kill Morgan and his cronies in exchange for Sugar's soul.

The early 70's saw an explosion of exploitation films in all sorts of genres and AIP was a rather prolific producer of mostly bad horror movies since the 1950's (including the Roger Corman movies based on titles by Edgar Allen Poe). And while Sugar Hill is hardly a masterpiece in the traditional sense, it does have its moments; mostly thanks to the performances of Bey and Cully. Quarry (A Kiss Before Dying; Count Yorga, Vampire) was arguably the film's biggest star, though his performance as a Mafia kingpin is rather lackluster, especially given the over-the-top Cully, who chews scenery like it's made of gingerbread. The zombies (reanimated former slaves) are again more keeping with the Voodoo tradition, but they manage to be a bit more intimidating than those found in Val Lewton's I Walked with a Zombie. 

While I cannot recommend Sugar Hill as a "good" movie, I can recommend it as an important entry in exploitation film history and an essential part of any serious genre collector's library.

Of course, it shouldn't be confused with the truly terrible 1993 Wesley Snipes film of the same name.

More, anon.
Prospero

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I Miss '70's Blaxploitation Horror

No idea what prompted this post. I suppose it's all those Children of the 70's gifts my high school Facebook friends have been sending me, lately. Or, maybe it was just running across the first trailer below, completely by accident.

Many cineasts refer to the 1970's as Hollywood's "Second Golden Age." And admittedly, a lot of great films came out of that decade. Patton; The French Connection; The Sting; The Paper Chase; Young Frankenstein; Cabaret; Alien... the list goes on and on. Fueled by the eradication of the Hayes Code and the unprecedented social unrest brought on by Vietnam and the Hippie movement, filmmakers found themselves free to experiment and create edgier, grittier films with social messages and even pornographic films were household names (Deep Throat; The Devil in Miss Jones; Behind the Green Door).

Horror movies were very big in the '70's. Britain's Hammer Studios was in its heyday, pumping out Dracula movies starring Christopher Lee and AIP was making comedic horror gems like The Abominable Dr. Phibes. The demented H.G. Lewis was still making his godawful (though highly entertaining) drive-in gorefests, while directors like Tobe Hooper and Wes Craven were cutting their very sharp teeth on movies like The Hills Have Eyes and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And of course, there was what many (though not yours truly), consider to be the scariest movie of all time, 1973's The Exorcist.

The '70's were also when African-American filmmakers really found their voices, making films that spoke to Black urban audiences in a way they had never been able to, before. Films like Shaft; Superfly and Cleopatra Jones packed theaters with audiences hungry to see life portrayed as they lived perceived it to be. 20 years later, the term "Blaxpolitation" would be coined to describe these movies, though the filmmakers of the time certainly never thought of them in that way. The natural progression toward Blaxpolitation Horror was inevitable.

Released just one year after William Friedkin's The Exorcist, Abby is often referred to as "The Blaxorcist," though I think it probably owes more than a nod of debt to the early zombie films of the 30's and 40's.

And just the year before, "Dracula's soul brother," Blacula was released:



Blacula was soon followed by Blackenstein:



And then there's the 1974 Voodoo Zombie thriller Sugar Hill:

And let's not forget the Rosey Grier/Ray Milland "shocker," The Thing with Two Heads:

Ah, the good old days. I miss 'em! And oh, how I wish the tagline at the top of the Blackula poster read: "Bloodsuckah!" Anyone else long for those bygone days of cheap, ridiculous and exploitative horror movies?

More, anon.
Prospero

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