Ballad in Blood

This is meant to be a throwback to the old school exploitation horror tropes, but the story makes very little sense and there's not a single character to root for. Every actor is playing one-note hysteria the entire time and it gets annoying very quickly. If you're into nudity, you'll be delighted to hear that just about every character, both male and female, wears clothes for only about 5 minutes of the runtime, but it's not offering much more than that.

When I met Ruggero Deodato at a film convention and we talked about his movies I thought that this one couldnt be that good just because of his age. And of course this is worse than Cannibal Holocaust by far. But his own style and sense of humor in this movie was actually good in my opinion. Many times I was surprised about absurd-seeming plots, but espacially these where what made the movie funny and interesting.

If you thought that Cannibal Holocaust was the most traumatic film from director Ruggero Deodato, think again, because Ballad in Blood is far more upsetting, albeit for a very different reason: it marks a career low point for one of Italy's most infamous exploitation directors. In fact, it's so excruciatingly terrible that it even makes Dial: Help (1988) look good.

The film revolves around three wild revellers, Jacopo (Gabriele Rossi), Lenka (Carlotta Morelli) and Duke, who wake up following a heavy night of drink and drugs to find the dead body of friend Elizabeth (Noemi Smorra), her throat cut. Unable to recall the events of the night before, the trio try to work out what the hell happened, their frayed nerves slowly stretched to breaking point.

What sounds like a decent premise is told in such a disjointed manner, with zero attempt to explain characters' motivation, that it all proves extremely irritating. The central trio are all obnoxious, as are the supporting characters (which include a midget and a camp bloke wearing angel wings, and four cartoonish punks), and with the international cast mangling the English language, I frequently had the urge to give up and watch something else instead. Like a fool, though, I watched to the bitter end hoping it would get better; it didn't.

Deodato throws in plenty of gratuitous T&A—there's full frontal female nudity from the word go—and chucks in just a bit of splatter towards the end, but none of it helps. Ballad in Blood is a complete and utter mess of a movie from a once great director. Sad, really.

Ballad of Blood (2016)

* (out of 4)

It's the night after Halloween and Lenka (Carlotta Morelli), Jacopo (Gabriele Rossi), Duke (Edward Williams) and Elizabeth (Noemi Smorra) have been having sex and a wild time. Duke wakes up and discovers the dead body of Elizabeth but none of the three survivors know what happened. Pretty soon they try to uncover how Elizabeth ended up with a slashed throat but the tension begins to make all three crack.

CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST director Ruggero Deodato is back in a film that is being sold as a horror movie but it is in fact a murder mystery and sadly a very bad one at that. It's clear that Deodato was working with a very small budget and I must admit that the film looks a lot better and a lot more professional than 99% of the digital movies that I watch. With that said, there are some deadly flaws in the picture with one being the screenplay itself. This film was obviously inspired by the Meredith Kercher murder but that's a whole 'nother story.

The main issue with BALLAD OF BLOOD is the screenplay, which is just downright confusing at time and it never really grabs you and holds your interest. The fatal flaw of this film is that you've got three characters constantly talking, fighting and losing their minds and yet, as the viewer, you just don't care. You don't care about the characters. You don't care how Elizabeth died. You simply don't care about anything you're watching and it's impossible to stay focused on the film because there's just nothing there that makes you pay attention to what is happening.

Out of the cast I'd say Williams and Morelli come off the best. All of the actors are okay in their roles and I'd argue that they are good enough for a horror film but I don't think they're convincing enough for a murder mystery like this. Of course, the lack of anything to work with probably also played a factor. Deodato at least filled the movie with a lot of full frontal nudity as well as some bloody violence at times but this certainly didn't save the picture.

BALLAD OF BLOOD should have been so much better but sadly everything is lost in the screenplay and there's just not much in the film that actually works.

This is not as splendid as the 1980 of both Cannibal Holocaust and House of the Edge of the Park or even The Washing Machine (1993) but Ruggero Deodata was in his late 70s and it is just not as terrible as some say. I have to say it starts off like a bit of a mess with everyone on drugs and drink and they not know what is going on or us either. But it begins to makes sense especially with it inspired with the Meredith Kercher killing and in the end I really liked it. Of course it is lots of blood, gore and sex and seems okay particularly in the last half.