Blood Bath

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.

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.

A crazed artist (William Campbell) who believes himself to be the reincarnation of a murderous vampire kills young women, then boils their bodies in a vat.

Michael Weldon called Blood Bath "a confusing but interesting horror film with an even more confusing history." This is quite right, as the film actually started out as a spy thriller filmed in Yugoslavia with William Campbell, and Francis Ford Coppola somehow involved. But Roger Corman did not like the finished product -- which no one has ever seen -- and scrapped it.

And then, wanting to revive it as a horror film, he brought in Jack Hill to cut out the spy parts and film new horror parts. Let me say, I love Jack Hill. Now, that is because I think "Spider Baby" might be the greatest horror film of the 1960s. But Hill is no slouch in this earlier outing, either (financially backed by B-movie god Roger Corman and with supporting actors Sid Haig and Patrick Magee).

But then, after Hill completed his version of the film, Corman again did not like it... and a third director was hired to finish the job. That is the film we have today.

With the three visions mixed, there is a something of a mystery to this film, almost like a bit of a dream to it. While it could be compared to "Color Me Blood Red" or "A Bucket of Blood" (many have pointed out the beatnik artist connection), there is more ambiguity here. Is the artist a vampire? A reincarnation of a vampire? Even connected at all? George Romero explored this theme again (albeit in a very different way) with "Martin", but I think Jack Hill did just as well in many respects.

I would love to see what Hill's version looked like before the new additions and changes. Would it be better? Worse? Just different? I have no idea. But now, looking back on Hill's career, we see he is a far more important part of cinema history than he could have been known to be at the time. Preserving his work would be a good way to add to his legacy, and I would firmly support it.

1966's "Track of the Vampire" was first released theatrically at 62 minutes, under the title "Blood Bath," but this review will be of the full 78 minute version issued to television. William Campbell stars as Antonio Sordi, an artist lauded for his paintings of dead nudes, who believes himself to be the reincarnation of an artist ancestor burned at the stake for sorcery after being exposed by his latest model, Miliza, who believed her soul had been captured on canvas. Sordi keeps a portrait of Miliza in his studio, and cannot make love to his newest muse Dorean (Lori Saunders) because of her close resemblance to it. All the new scenes with Campbell were filmed by director Jack Hill, maintaining the name he used in "Portrait in Terror," but whenever the character becomes a blonde haired vampire sporting tiny fangs (!), a different actor was cast by new director Stephanie Rothman, resulting in sporadic chase sequences and a ballet lasting more than 3 minutes. Just over 9 (out of 81) minutes of footage from "Portrait in Terror" were used, recasting an unbilled Patrick Magee as a jealous husband (the exotic dancer now becoming his wife) who winds up covered in wax, like all of Sordi's female victims (the shared sequence between Campbell and Magee has completely new dialogue badly overdubbed). Apparently, he kills them first, paints their nude likenesses, then covers each corpse in wax. Campbell himself doesn't make his first appearance until 22 minutes in, the vampire having already worn out its welcome with a 6 1/2 minute pursuit of a young lass who ends up in the ocean minus most of her clothes, while a middleweight Tor Johnson lookalike acts as temporary lifeguard. The ending didn't make any sense, but probably made the film. Stephanie Rothman did all the vampire stuff, including the subplot featuring Sandra Knight, all of which is self contained (only a single dissolve fuses the artist and the vampire, pretty lame). Jack Hill did all the beatnik scenes, plus the bizarre climax, filming in Venice California. I'd say each director was split fairly even, sharing writing and directing credits, but never working in tandem (the uncredited Roger Corman replaced Hill with Rothman).

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!