Your Daily Dracula – Katt Williams as Dr Mamuwalde The House Next Door (2021)

Your Daily Dracula – Katt Williams as Dr Mamuwalde The House Next Door (2021)

Deon Taylor’s Meet the Blacks (2016) was a parody of The Purge – which was at least zeitgeisty at the time of production.  That must have done just well enough to warrant a sequel going into production but not well enough for a sequel to want ‘Meet the Blacks 2’ in its onscreen title (though Netflix add that as a subtitle and probably force you to watch it if you can’t find the remote fast enough as the end credits of Meet the Blacks are rolling).  In the earlier film, the middle-class Black family – who, hilariously, are black – survived the Purge in Beverly Hills.  Now, doltish Dad Carl Black (Mike Epps) moves his family – including his excruciating cousin Cronut (Lil Duval), who is  to Kevin Hart what Sammy Petrillo was to Jerry Lewis – back to Atlanta.  Then, the house next door  is occupied by vampire pimp Dr Mamuwalde (Katt Williams), with a long clip from Blacula (1972) to make sure we  get the reference.

Yes, it’s an up-to-the-minute parody of Fright Night (1985), with a sitcom Dad protagonist.  Zulay Henao reprises her role as Mrs Black, and gets to sport fangs.  There was a joke in Meet the Blacks about Carl Jr (Alex Henderson) being obsessed with vampires and wearing a cape and plastic fangs, but the character is almost written out this time – he’s consulted once on undead lore, but bizarrely takes no interest at all in what used to be his sole character trait.  Maybe director Deon Taylor, who co-wrote with Corey Harrell, intended to follow Fright Night more closely by having Carl Jr be the one who knows what Dr M is and disbelieved by his family only to opt to give Epps the plum material.  Given that he’s playing an ostentatious vampire pimp, Williams is unmemorable – sporting a few trad vamp costumes and hissing a bit, but too goonish to be scary while seldom bothering to be funny either.

Carry-over business with teenager Allie Black (Bresha Webb) and her annoying boyfriend Freezee (Andrew Bachelor) isn’t any better here than it was in the first film.  Michael Blackson and Danny Trejo appear as vampire slayers.  Taylor seems to be carving a slot as the genre Tyler Perry, with diverse cast indie horror/thriller/suspense stuff like Fear, Fatale, Black and Blue and The Intruder; comedy is not his forte.