Blood Bath

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.

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.

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).