Vampire in Brooklyn at 30: Wes Craven and Eddie Murphy’s underrated horror masterpiece

Ryan Coogler’s Sinners may have made Black vampires cool again, but the roots of Black vampire cinema stretch back to the Blaxploitation era, most iconically with 1972’s Blacula. In that film, William Marshall’s character is bitten by Dracula and, even worse, cursed with the demeaning name “Blacula.” Originally written as a jive-talking stereotype, Marshall transformed the role into something regal, giving his character an 18th-century backstory as Mamuwalde, a proud African prince.