Blaxploitation Friday #21 (The Horror Edition)

If you've been following this series then you realize that despite the overall cheesiness of blaxploitation movies, the basic theme is movies geared toward the African-American community--something that we can call our own. Yes, the characters are very stereotypical and the movies tend to follow the same plots like sticking it to the man, a big score (involving money), pimps, the bad chick on a rampage of vengeance, etc. but you didn't think there could be blaxploitation movies without factoring in the horror genre did you? If so, you are sadly mistaken.

Kicking off the Blaxploitation Friday Horror Edition is JD's Revenge.


1976

Synopsis: Glynn Turman stars as Isaac/Ike, an average Joe med student who gets possessed by the spirit of JD Walker. Walker is a 1940s gangster back from beyond the grave to exact his revenge on the mobsters who murdered he and his sister.



Does this plot sound familiar? Remember Snoop Dogg's attempt at a similar type of movie with his 2001 movie Bones (which was worse than a lot of b-movies). Coincidentally (or not so coincidentally), Pam Grier was in Bones as the leading lady. We already know how big Grier was in the 70s. But my theory is that Bones is sort of paying homage to blaxploitation era horror flicks. We've already seen the influence on Snoop from movies like The Mack and Superfly. Here's the trailer as a bonus: