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.

This film (which I saw years ago) seems to be two (or maybe more) different movies edited together-- a contemporary psychological horror film with "flashbacks" to a character's ancestor who was a witch. The "flashbacks" are, I suspect, part of another film entirely-- perhaps a Mexican horror film. Whatever budget reasons led to this unconventional method of film-making, the result can best be described as unintentional surrealism. A unique experience, to say the least.

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.

No wonder this lacks the cult following of Hill and Rothmann's other films--its myriad clashing elements suggest this movie's conception and shooting might have occurred at widely spaced times, whenever money or locations were available. Apparent female leads come and go. Sometimes the focus seems on satirizing pretentious "beatnik" art a la "Bucket of Blood." Then the film will stop dead for lengthy minutes of laughable "modern dance" by alleged dancers of highly varied ability. (Even the best seem in desperate need of an actual choreographer.)

Beautiful young women are being killed by an alleged "vampire" painter allegedly descended from a line of vampires/artists stretching back to the 11th century. It's anyone's guess why most of the characters seem to be early 60s hipster-parody Los Angeleans, complete with wanderings on beach and in balmy surf. Meanwhile, we're told a particular castle and bell tower date back to (again) an ancestral 11th century? It's all supposed to be one city. Apparently "Vampire" aka "Blood Bath" was shot in both Venice, CA and Belgrade, Serbia-- ah, the mysteries of international funding! Trust me, the locations do not become seamless in the editing.

This movie is bizarre and erratically well-crafted enough to hold interest, but it's still a disconnected mess that falls far short of the drive-in classics by Hill (Spider Baby, Switchblade Sisters) or Rothman (The Student Nurses, Terminal Island). It's a curiosity.

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).