Bad Blood

My review was written in April 1989 after watching the film on Academy video cassette.

"Bad Blood", originally titled "Son", is an engrossing gothic thriller that allows a tour de force by Gerogina Spelvin, her best performance since "Devil in Miss Jones".

R-rate pic is being shopped at the Cannes fest market and is headed for video release Stateside in July.

Spelvin, billed here under a new pseudonym "Ruth Raymond", plays Arlene Billings, a wealthy artist who's reunited with long-lost son Gregory Patrick after he spots her portrait of lookalike daddy in an art gallery.

Melodramatic plot is set into motion when Patrick and his wife, Linda Blair, visit Spelvin's Long Island mansion. Blair is poisoned and Spelvin starts to make an incestuous move on Patrick, whom she imagines is her late husband come back to life.

Pic plays well in the Robert Aldrich "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" mode, though director Chuck Vincent's pacing drags a bit, especially during a lengthy monolog by Patrick's foster mom, Carolyn Van Bellinghen.

Spelvin's performance is topnotch, mixing dramatic, camp and sexy elements in uninhibited fashion (while she and Vincent keep the pic within the bounds of an R rating). Name talent Troy Donahue and Linda Blair have little to do, but newcomer Christina Veronica makes a nice impression as a ditzy, sexy maid.

At first I was curious about seeing this movie, then it gets deeper by the minute. Knowing this movie movie would take place in my home state, I knew I would like it. This movie would just like any other movie, I think it would be a indie. Sometimes knowing the truth about your family can either be helpful or hurtful to you. For this character, it can be both! Living with parents that raised you would be easy. Right? WRONG! DEAD WRONG! Meeting your real mother would be surprising and disturbing as well. The mother is a painter who seems to keep her husband memories forever. She kills the maid, and the son's wife. Then she ties him up on a bed, and tortures him to a mere crawl of life ala Misery. The scenes that made me cringe is when she breaks the son's toes and when she rapes him. UGH! Too graphic! Slightly cheesy, yet watchable, this movie was not much like the others hits I've seen, and the results are plainly typical to any viewer. Rating 1.5 out of 5 stars.

Bad Blood is bad. Not in a good way. Not even in a funny way. Just bad. Most of the film seems dedicated to showing us Gregory Patrick in a half naked state. The plot is so awful it beggars belief. I picked this up 2nd hand and I wished I hadn't even spent the £1.50 on it. I should've used it to buy a packet of cigarettes with. Avoid at all costs.