Il trono di fuoco

O.K., it's no Witchfinder General (but then again, what is?), but Jess Franco's The Bloody Judge is a well-written, well-acted, well-made historical-horror hybrid in the tradition of it's obvious model, Rowland V. Lee's The Tower of London. Franco stalwart Howard Vernon delivers a delicious homage to Karloff's Mord the Executioner from that film, and Christopher Lee is excellent, if somewhat insecurely emphatic and earnest, as the cruel, narrow, and hypocritical Judge Jeffries. The score, by Bruno Nicolai, is majestic and memorable, and the film as a whole is vividly entertaining. Having seen this film over 25 years ago, on television, heavily edited, under the title Night of the Blood Monster, I was amazed at how much of it had lain dormant in my memory, ready to be jostled into consciousness. Whole scenes played out in my mind as I re-watched them on my wide screen TV.

There are a few people, including the otherwise estimable Glenn Erickson, of the hugely insightful and informative DVD Savant site, who have claimed, based on the evidence of this film, that Jess Franco could not have "directed" the legendary Battle of Shrewsbury in Orson Welles' Chimes at Midnight. First, lets get a few facts straight. It is well documented that Franco shot the second unit on Chimes at Midnight, which included much of the battle scene. This means that Franco shot a lot of coverage of the battle, working from a general outline given by Welles. Later, Welles took the miles of footage into the editing room and, many months later, emerged with the shattering sequence that appears in his picture. Franco, obviously, had nothing to do with this editing process, and, as far as I can tell, has never claimed otherwise. To compare the battle scene in The Bloody Judge with Welles' magnificent achievement is grotesquely unfair, as I am sure that Franco was allowed minutes rather than months to assemble The Bloody Judge for exhibition. Given the strictures under which he was working, Franco, his cast, and his collaborators should be commended for having produced a film with such a high level of professionalism. Welles, that most populist of auteurs, who once stated that he would rather watch paint dry than sit through an Antonioni film, and who responded to energy, verve, iconoclasm, and enthusiasm, had seen and appreciated those qualities an early Franco effort, which eventually led to the offer to work on Chimes. If Franco was good enough for Welles, he should be good enough for us. The two are closer than you think...

Along with Witchfinder General (1968), The Bloody Judge was part of a small subset of films from the late 60's / early 70's that can best be described as historical horror movies. In these we have a true historical subject which is played up in such a way that it crosses over into the territory of the horror film. Seeing as this was a point in time where there was a plethora of period set costume horror flicks anyway, I suppose it makes a lot of sense that these films were made too. Like a lot of continental offerings from the period, this one throws in a lot of sadistic torture, nudity and sleaze as well and so covers the erotic horror sub-genre too. This is hardly surprising when you take into account that its director was the legendary Jesus Franco who was something of an expert at this kind of thing.

The Bloody Judge came out at a point when Franco was enjoying the most high profile time of his career and so this one like a few others he made at the time is pretty high budgeted by his subsequent standards. It has good locations and a fine cast and benefits from professional editing and photography as well. It was also one of several collaborations Franco had with horror stalwart Christopher Lee too. Unlike their earlier Fu Manchu collaborations, the role of the infamous Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys – aka 'The Hanging Judge' – was much better suited to Lee. He is very good as this cold central character, although he seemingly was not best pleased at all when he saw the finished film, presumably as a result of the salacious content Franco is famed for. The cast is good beyond Lee too; we have the beautiful Maria Rohm, the fine character actor Leo Genn and last but not least Franco regular Howard Vernon in a great over the top turn as a torturer/executioner.

Like Witchfinder General before it and several others too, this one is set in witch hunting times. It's a period in history peculiarly well suited to horror movies. Most costume horrors tend to be set in the later Victorian period but when we go back further into the far scarier, unenlightened years of the 1600's we are squarely in a historical period where many very horrible things occurred and it is very well suited, therefore, to horror stories. Like most historical films, this one also takes considerable liberties with the actual history to be honest. But let's be fair, lots of critically acclaimed big budget historical movies do exactly the same – Braveheart for instance – and if they can then why bother complaining if these far smaller films do a similar thing.

For my money this is one of the better Franco films out there. I think the story and central character are good ones for the treatment and the production value is good enough to pull it off. The smattering of salacious content throughout didn't do it any harm and simply added to the entertainment factor to be perfectly honest. This maybe isn't of the level of the more personal delirious Franco efforts such as Vampyros Lesbos but it's definitely one of his most well made. I enjoyed it a fair bit.

Christopher Lee plays Welsh Judge Jeffries (who was in fact a real judge back in the 17th Century in England) in this Jesus Franco directed horror-biography from 1970. He was known as "The Hanging Judge" and would convict with a heavy strike from his gavel. Lee does quite a fine job in the lead role and almost all on his own leans me toward recommending this one, but alas it is close, but no cigar on this one. As I mentioned earlier directed by the late Jesus Franco and over his career I would commend him on the amount of work he ended up directed and writing, even though at the time of writing this review I have seen 3 of his pictures and none of them I really liked or would recommend to anyone. This one was the best as his I have seen to date. The personal problem I had with this movie was at times (always happens when Lee was not on screen) I would get bored. It became too talky and not enough action for me. Although to me the 3rd act was the best and does pick up, but wasn't enough for me.

As said, I just witnessed the full uncut version of the Bloody Judge. Like you could see IMDb never made notice of this version so I thought it must be wrong on the DVD but no, it clocked in at exactly 103 minutes. It's English spoken until the extra minutes appear, they are in German but the subtitles stays intact. The extra minutes are no more then a torture scene with full nudity, the others include all nudity with a love scene between the bloody judge and the witch, the last extra is a lesbian scene in the torture room with frontal bush nudity. Thinking of the year it was made, 1970, it was normal that it was cut out. Anyway, the storyline does refer to the real history but the movie is way too long. There is a lot of blah blah and the torture scenes are really laughable. You only see blood but it never runs or you never see cuts made by the executioner. A shame, could have done better by Franco. The performances are really good but the suspense isn't there due the lack of storyline, they really refer to much to history. It is nice to see how they made you say you are a witch. There are better witch hunt movies out there, I guess would Lee never appeared in it it would be a forgotten flick. It's not for the geeks of horror, just one of the Jess Franco flicks with the usual T&A features. It's available in his 103 minutes in Belgium with the German pieces in it, judge it for yourselves

"The Bloody Judge" is unquestionably one of Jess Franco's finest accomplishments, and there are several elements that contributed to this. First of all, Christopher Lee depicts another unforgettably mean-spirited and frightening horror protagonist. This doesn't always guarantee a great movie, mind you, as Franco and Lee previously collaborated to make a couple of sequels in the Fu Manchu series, and they were dreadfully boring films. The character of medieval witch hunter Judge Jeffries clearly suits Lee a whole lot better than the oddly mustached oriental master-criminal and his performance confirms this. Secondly, for one of the few times during his entire career, Jess Franco could actually rely on a decent budget! There was enough money for fancy costumes and atmospheric scenery, and even the editing and cinematography were clearly handled professionally. Finally, you can hardly go wrong with the subject matter of medieval witch-hunting, political corruptness, vile torture footage and robust executions. Although clearly inspired by the popularity of "Witchfinder General" (starring Vincent Price), "The Bloody Judge" contains more than enough own ideas and ingenuity to be considered as a success in its own right. The film opens with the extended and compelling trial of a young girl accused of witchcraft, leading to her relentless execution burning at the stake. The long opening adequately introduces the character of Judge Jeffries, but the actual plot only unfolds after this. The executed girl's sister flees up the country and falls in love with the son of an eminent politician, who also happens to rebel against the corrupt English crown. The obsessive Judge Jeffries orders his followers to capture all the rebels and submit them to torture, but the army of William of Orange is slowly approaching England to conquer the crown. The amounts of graphic violence and – especially – gratuitous sleaze are admirably kept rather low, and this in favor of character development and tension building. Naturally, there are a handful of brutal sequences on display (notably the "interrogation" of poor Alicia) but "The Bloody Judge" is mainly story & atmosphere-driven. Franco regular Howard Vernon (Dr. Orloff!) has a small but terrific role as the sneering executioner Ketch. Like another reviewer already stated, Vernon here strangely resembles Marty Feldman when he played Igor in "Young Frankenstein". Maria Rohm is enticing and beautiful as ever playing Mary or "that wench" as people insist on referring to her. "The Bloody Judge" is a good film that easily deserves a spot in my Jess Franco top five, alongside "The Diabolical Dr. Z", "The Awful Dr. Orloff", "Faceless" and "Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun".