Blood Bath

Don't get carried away too much by the cool sounding title, the awesome looking film poster or the names of the some of the people involved in this production, as "Blood Bath" is not one of those vastly entertaining Roger Corman B-movie cheapies, but a weird and experimental hybrid of 2-3 movies at once. As far as I can tell, Corman initially hired Jack Hill ("Spider Baby", "Pit Stop") as director but he then got replaced by Stephanie Rothman ("The Velvet Vampire") who was ordered to insert bits and pieces of a Yugoslavian movie where the producer wasted his money on … or something like that! The result is an oddity that very occasionally is tense & atmospheric, but most of the time just dull, incoherent and meaningless. Daisy Allen is a young model desperately looking for an artist to make her famous, but all she ever encounters are idiots in rancid bars that shoot with paintball guns at paintings. She then runs into the promising artist Antonio Sordi, who also happens to be romantically involved with her sister Donna, but he quickly proves to be a lunatic who talks to the illustration of a woman on canvas and believes he's the reincarnation of a cruel vampire. So instead of making artful portraits of his models, he slaughters them and boils their bodies in a hot wax bath! Yes, I do realize it sounds like terrific horror entertainment, but I assure you it's not. During perhaps 2 or 3 scenes, the atmosphere of "Blood Bath" reminiscent to genre classics that were released earlier in the decade, notably "Dementia 13" and "Bucket of Blood" both of which also came from Roger Corman's stable. Unfortunately these are only a few isolated moments of greatness, while the vast majority of the film is utter baloney. The undeniable highlight is a bizarre and nightmarish chase sequence ending on a merry-go-round! What a giant contrast with the absolute low point, which is a stupid split-screen ballerina dancing scene on the beach that that lasts for … Well, I don't know exactly how long it lasted because I pressed the fast- forward button. Far too long, that's for sure!

Hilarious trash of a movie from Jack Hill blends elements of witchcraft, vampirism, wax murders, and beatniks(?!). Sid Haig, a Jack Hill regular and guest star in Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown, plays a beatnik. Weird story is about an artist who lures young girls into his studio, turns into a vampire, and dunks them into hot wax, creating his new figures.

My favorite parts involve interpretive dance and the origin of quantum painting. This film offers the rare opportunity for a vampire to stalk his victim in broad daylight ( probably a film flaw, and abeit a cute one ). Recommended for trash fiends.

Blood Bath (1966)

** (out of 4)

Artist Antonio Sordi (William Campbell) is a painter who specializes in nude but bloody prints. What people don't realize is that he's actually a vampire who is constantly luring young woman to their death.

Producer Roger Corman hired Jack Hill and Stephanie Rothman to take the unmarketable 1963 film OPERATION TICIJAN and turn it into something that could be shown at drive-ins. What they did was take footage from that movie and added some new footage of Campbell as a vampire and the end result was BLOOD BATH. However, things didn't stop here as this film only ran 62 minutes so when it came time to put it on television as TRACK OF THE VAMPIRE they had to film even more new scenes to pad out the time.

If you go through the special edition Blu-ray you'll have Tim Lucas explaining the complicated history of this film, which included the original movie having its own television version under the title PORTRAIT OF TERROR. Having now seen all the versions, it's easy to say that none of them are good movies. If I had to view another one again I'd probably go with BLOOD BATH since it's the shortest of the lot and contains some nice supporting players including Sid Haig and Jonathan Haze.

The entire vampire stuff isn't shot overly well and the film is quite choppy once you can tell and notice it's history but for the most part it's a quick 62 minutes and I'd argue that it's cheap entertainment. There's certainly nothing ground-breaking or "important" to be had with this film but it is certainly different to say the least.

One of the most underrated gonzo films of all times! On the surface, this is an atmospheric, low-budget and sometimes confusing horror film. But this amazing work is composed of three separate films and was several years in the making.

Roger Corman, noted producer/director, hired Jack Hill in 1964 to write and direct a horror film with the condition that he make liberal use of footage from "Operation Titian", a thriller Corman produced with Francis Ford Coppola (!) in Yugoslavia, but deemed unworthy of USA release. Hill was given actor William Campbell, Titian's star, and hired Lori Saunders (still using her original name of Linda Saunders, and soon Petticoat Junction-bound).

However, Corman didn't like the resulting film about a murderous sculptor possessed by the spirit of his ancestor, who was killed by a beautiful witch. So he shelved it for a year, bringing it out for director Stephanie Rothman to revise. Rothman turned the possessed sculptor into a vampire, shot extensive new footage (using a few members of the supporting cast) and---bingo!---"Blood Bath" was out in the theaters at last, as the co-feature for "Queen of Blood" in 1966.

Despite its plentiful source materials, the finished film ran only 69 minutes. When it was prepared for TV release, Corman changed the title to "Track of the Vampire" (Rothman's title of choice) and added approximately 11 minutes of additional footage (some of it outtakes from Hill's and Rothman's shoots). Further complicating matters, Corman released the English-dubbed version of "Operation Titian" directly to TV at about the same time as "Portrait In Terror".

Amazingly, this complex mishmash works. Atmospheric, intense and with some violent and original touches, "Blood Bath" is the most successful example of Roger Corman's eclectic approach to creativity. Its current placement in critical limbo is only because the film remains frustratingly difficult to find. But it's worth the search.

A fascinating three-part article by Tim Lucas on the making of this film and its numerous versions provided details for these comments. It appeared in 1991 in "Video Watchdog" magazine, numbers 4, 5 & 7.

There's probably a good horror flick buried somewhere in this mish-mash. Certainly there's a load of visual imagination to grab the eyes, but the storyline has all the coherence of a politician's speech. It's the result, I guess, of too many cooks and a cut and paste job (IMDB), slapped together all the way from Yugoslavia to southern Cal (IMDB).

Seems it's 60's-style beatniks vs ancient-style vampire. But then Venice Beach CA location was a gathering spot for many struggling artists of that day. No wonder these Roger Corman tag-alongs went there. And when pretentious beatniks probe art theory in high-falutin' ways, it's like a parody of the times. A notable touch amid the stew is the ancient bell clanger right out of the old world that really reeks of old world magic.

On the other hand, catch the Mary Tyler Moore look-alike among the Allen sisters, making me want to grab the blood-sucker before he can drink down our TV princess. Anyway, the visuals rate a 9 while the plot rates a 1, so I give it a 5. And, oh yeah, the lighting bill couldn't exceed a dollar fifty. So I guess no one went to the poor farm after the shoot. Here's hoping they all got beyond scramble and paste type movie-making at some point.