Blood Bath, 1966.
Directed by Jack Hill & Stephanie Rothman.
Starring William Campbell, Marissa Mathes, Lori Saunders, Sid Haig, Roger Corman, Biff Elliot, Carl Schanzer and Patrick Magee.
SYNOPSIS:
A crazed artist believes himself to be the descendant of a vampire and goes on a killing spree murdering young women and drinking their blood.
You’ve got to hand it to Arrow Video, they don’t do things by halves. If you’re a collector of cult movies and you know that more than one version of a particular film exists then that little bit of prehistoric jelly at the back of your brain that thrives on instinct won’t rest until you possess every edition possible, and Arrow Video being well aware of this are more than happy to cater for your particular needs. On this occasion they have taken Blood Bath, a 1966 film that B-movie maestro Roger Corman was an executive producer on (and probably more if you watch the special features), and given us a magnificent limited edition 2-disc set that beautifully restores all four versions – yes, you read that correctly – of the film for all of you obsessive collectors to examine and gush over.
Like a lot of Roger Corman-associated movies, the history of Blood Bath and how it came to have four different versions could be a movie itself. It originally stems from a Yugoslavian crime heist movie called Operation Titian (included here and the only one of the set not given a 2K restoration), an unremarkable but nicely-shot thriller about a stolen painting that Corman bought into with an eye for selling it to the US market. However, despite the efforts of Corman, actors William Campbell and Patrick Magee, and young story editor Francis Ford Coppola (whatever happened to him?) the film just didn’t work for American audiences so it was re-cut with new footage and re-titled as Portrait in Terror, which also didn’t make any impact in the US despite the more macabre twists that were inserted.
But things got more interesting when Roger Corman handed the film over to director Jack Hill (Spider Baby/The Big Doll House). Hill managed to get William Campbell to return and then he totally changed the plot of the film to make it into a horror movie, building a new film based around the lavish location shots used in Operation Titian. Stephanie Rothman worked for Roger Corman at the time and was instrumental in bringing a vampire element into the story – something that Hill wasn’t too keen on – resulting in a movie that was vastly different story-wise from where it started out but managed to retain some of the flavour that Roger Corman originally saw in Operation Titian. Blood Bath was given one final overhaul as a TV version was required and, being only 62 minutes long, would need some padding and so Blood Bath became Track of the Vampire, which drags things out quite painfully for a further 20 minutes to fill up a TV schedule running time.
But Blood Bath is the meat of the matter in this set and for a film that is so short in length it does feel a tad underdeveloped and meandering at times. The basic plot is that a seemingly eccentric artist named Antonio Sordi (William Campbell), a bizarre figure who paints ‘Dead Red Nudes’ – images of dying naked women – and sells them to the local restaurant. Sordi believes himself to be the reincarnation of one of his ancestors who was burned at the stake for sorcery, as when he gets his murderous compulsions he seems to become possessed by a vampiric spirit. Sordi’s latest conquest is Dorean (Lori Saunders), who is a dead ringer for Melizza, the witch who exposed his ancestor’s sorcery in order to save herself, and once she turns up at his dark and gloomy studio he believes her to be the reincarnation of Melizza, forcing his dark side to emerge once again.
As previously stated, Blood Bath is not a very long film but it does try to pack in quite a lot that really could have been smoothed out a bit in order to engage a little more. The film does look fantastic and the exterior shots that won Roger Corman over really do project an atmosphere and sense of place, and with a young (although he doesn’t look it) Sid Haig playing a beatnik called Abdul the Arab and some trippy photography of Lori Saunders dancing around on the beach in a bikini the film does have some appealing moments. But it is the bits between those moments that drag and feel laborious to sit through as William Campbell just doesn’t really seem to project the aura needed to make a convincing vampire and the other supporting characters just aren’t interesting.
To help you get a fuller grasp of Blood Bath and where it came from, Arrow Video have included brand new interviews with Sid Haig and Jack Hill, who both shed some light on Roger Corman’s production practices and give the film a fair appraisal. Probably more helpful, though, is the feature-length visual essay The Trouble with Titian, written and narrated by Tim Lucas and providing a detailed background on all four versions of the film and how it all finally came together in this Blu-ray package. Overall, this is a set that cult film collectors will want to own if only for the brief lesson in film production and a chance to examine four narratives derived from the same source. As films on their own, none of them are particularly outstanding but hold some merit for fans of the more obscure horror/thriller movies of the era and by owning this rather handsomely-packaged set you at least get the complete picture, as it were. However, for casual viewers and curious onlookers looking for a hit of classic vampire action this probably isn’t something they would want to sink their teeth into.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Chris Ward
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https://youtu.be/b7Ozs5mj5ao?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng
