In an effort to maintain their cultural identity they made it a point to emphasize the stereotypes the white media was portraying them as.
In the film Blacula, played by William Marshall, an African prince named Mamuwalde is bitten by Count Dracula (Charles Macaulay) himself and is turned into a vampire.
While on his search to kill he meets a woman named Tina (Vonetta McGee) that looks just like his departed wife.
Tina's friend Gordon Thomas (Thalmus Rasulala) finds out that Blacula is a vampire and tries to kill him.
[5] While Blacula can be viewed as a merely a cheesy parody of the film Dracula with an all black cast, it should also be noted for its portrayal of human sexuality and politics.
These films were meant to be a form of identification and empowerment to the black community and to help overcome racial bias.
As Jamil Mustafa demonstrates, they appropriate the archetypes of Gothic fiction and film to address "issues of vital importance to American society and culture in the 1970s", including "race relations, the movements for civil and gay rights, the Vietnam War, illicit medical experimentation, and tensions between minorities and the police".
Blaxploitation horror films involving vampires explore queerness and the relationship between the movements for black and gay civil rights.
People started to view these films as perpetuating negative stereotypes about the African American community.
William Crain stated in an interview that members of the Coalition Against Blaxploitation Movies tied him up in a chair and told him to leave his studio in an effort to stop production of one of his films.
[15] Many of the films portrayed African American males as a stereotype of hyper-sexual beasts who ravish and demoralize woman.
These films depicting motifs of the African American male raping white women are seen as misogynist.
As urban horror films emerged in the 1990s, they began to portray African Americans as gangsters and thugs living in the "ghetto" that partake in illegal activities and take advantage of women.
New York filmmaker Sean Weathers continues to make films in the blaxploitation horror genre.
They portrayed themes of crime, drugs, and poverty in an effort to relate to the new generation of oppressed African Americans.
[18] Also, many of the films have influences of hip hop in them, and even star rappers like LL Cool J and Snoop Dogg (mentioned above), as well as others like Ice Cube, Ice-T, Will Smith, Busta Rhymes, Redman, Method Man, Treach, Rah Digga, Mos Def, Tone Loc, MC Eiht, Spice 1, Mack 10, Ja Rule, Sticky Fingaz, Fredro Starr, Big Gipp, Kurupt, Mia X, Master P, and Lil' Romeo.
[19] The 2001 urban horror film Bones, directed by Ernest R. Dickerson and starring the rapper Snoop Dogg, is an example of the hip hop influences that have been introduced to this genre.