Ballad in Blood

Reminds me of the schlock B grades i used to watch as a teenager...Don't expect any Oscar nominations, but well worth a watch when the wife is gone and you have pizza and beer...!

Right from the very beginning this is total trash. The only reason I gave it three stars is because the cinematography is quite good - apart from that, this film is bad in every respect.

The majority of the acting is some of the worst I have ever seen. Every character is way over the top to an irritating extent.

The story is pointless and really doesn't flow. The ending soon becomes obvious with no suspense or red herrings to keep you thinking or engaged in the story.

This is nowhere near the standard of Italian horror directors of the past - which is what Deodato seems to be trying to aspire to - he is a long, long, way off.

Not worth watching.

When I met Ruggero Deodato at a film convention and we talked about his movies I thought that this one couldnt be that good just because of his age. And of course this is worse than Cannibal Holocaust by far. But his own style and sense of humor in this movie was actually good in my opinion. Many times I was surprised about absurd-seeming plots, but espacially these where what made the movie funny and interesting.

If you thought that Cannibal Holocaust was the most traumatic film from director Ruggero Deodato, think again, because Ballad in Blood is far more upsetting, albeit for a very different reason: it marks a career low point for one of Italy's most infamous exploitation directors. In fact, it's so excruciatingly terrible that it even makes Dial: Help (1988) look good.

The film revolves around three wild revellers, Jacopo (Gabriele Rossi), Lenka (Carlotta Morelli) and Duke, who wake up following a heavy night of drink and drugs to find the dead body of friend Elizabeth (Noemi Smorra), her throat cut. Unable to recall the events of the night before, the trio try to work out what the hell happened, their frayed nerves slowly stretched to breaking point.

What sounds like a decent premise is told in such a disjointed manner, with zero attempt to explain characters' motivation, that it all proves extremely irritating. The central trio are all obnoxious, as are the supporting characters (which include a midget and a camp bloke wearing angel wings, and four cartoonish punks), and with the international cast mangling the English language, I frequently had the urge to give up and watch something else instead. Like a fool, though, I watched to the bitter end hoping it would get better; it didn't.

Deodato throws in plenty of gratuitous T&A—there's full frontal female nudity from the word go—and chucks in just a bit of splatter towards the end, but none of it helps. Ballad in Blood is a complete and utter mess of a movie from a once great director. Sad, really.

Usually directors coming back after such a long break looses a lot of their touch but this isn't the absolute worst case about it. It's shot relatively well and there's surprisingly no usages of CGi gore(looking at you Dario) and the t & a is nice. However the story and dialog suffer the most even for genre film standard and it does have long stretches of boring "whodunnit" moments. I would only recommend this if you're so ever curious or have no better use of your time, otherwise, seek other sleaze gore fest. 4.5/10.