Customer Reviews

Blood Mania

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The film played on countless "dusk till dawn" horror bills at drive-ins through the early 80's, and this disc does a pretty good job of taking th viewer back to those long gone days of cheap thrills. The picture and sound quality are only about average, just like the drive-in, the only other thing you need is for someone to park their car outside you living room and honk thier horns during the nude scenes. And the movie? Well it's about average as well. The plot concerns a plot to get an inheritance and a bunch of greedy heirs. A true B movie on all counts, but not without a certain trashy value, those who spent warm summer nights watching this flick when it was paired up with the likes of "Don't Answer the Phone," and "Point of Terror" may want to give this reasonably priced disc a look.

Disclaimer: This movie is included in The Gorehouse Greats Collection, which is the version that I watched. Comments concerning this film only apply to the entertainment value of the movie, and not the quality of the film transfer on this disc.

A sexy, psychotic heiress falls for her ailing father's doctor, who is being blackmailed for performing illegal abortions. In order to snare him, the heiress is willing to commit murder to get at her inheritance, but there's a sister to account for too, one who may end up having a stronger draw on the doctor - over and above the money she stands to gain. Things go from bad to worse as everyone angles for the best position, until the tension finally breaks in an evening of 'blood mania'.

This films seems to have an identity problem - is it horror? is it a thriller? is it soft-core? There's enough scenes of a (purported) erotic nature that it could as well have been called 'Sex Mania', although that would make the ending an unexpected downer. And even though there's little suspense, it seems obvious that that's what director Robert O'Neill was going for. But the sex isn't steamy enough unless you've never *had* sex before, the tension is thin enough to be ladled out with a spoon, and the 10 minutes of mania at the end hardly justifies sitting around for the previous 78. However, if the disparate themes had meshed better (more along the lines 'Basic Instinct' - like it or hate it), or if at least the film's title was changed to something less indicative of a slasher film, then the film may have earned a third star. As it is, both the title and the cover art for the DVD come across as disengenious.

There is also a strange bit of discontinuity to the film - during the opening credits, there is a dream sequence that has the father, Ridgely Waterman (Eric Allison) bloodlessly stalking a young girl in a negligee - a girl that may be his daughter Gail (Vicki Peters). Later in the film, there is another dream sequence, this time by Gail, which contains shades of the first, and it is almost as if there was another element to the storyline that was never pursued, something that may have indicated that the father visited serious abuse on his daughters. That might explain the mental makeup of the daughter that remains with him (Maria de Aragon), and also why Gail only returned to the ancestral home after her father was dead, but the bones of this tangent are never fleshed out. One has to wonder if these scenes weren't added later to pad the story and to make the film more appealing to the horror crowd, or if the budget ran out before the editors could make the film coherent. Either way, it points to a film that, as a psycho-sexual thriller, is weak in all areas.

The film stars several Crown International Pictures alumni or those who would go on to star in other CIP productions: Peter Carpenter is the young doctor (and who died only a year after the release of this film - no cause listed), Maria de Aragon as the nympho heiress (also was one of the actors to play Greedo in the original - Han shot first - Star Wars), Leslie Simms as the father's nurse, and Arell Blanton and Alex Rocco in bit parts, whom we get to see together again a year later in the atrocious biker flick 'Wild Riders'. At least here Rocco shows his range, as he plays a character 180 degrees different from the wild rider Stick, but Blanton is just as sleazy and gutter-trash as he would be later.

The picture and sound on the 'Gorehouse Greats collection' is servicable for the type of film that it is, so I assume this individually packaged disc will probably make the grade too. Mileage will certainly vary on this film, but it will probably be best enjoyed by those who are not looking for horror so much as suspense. Unfortunately, both on this discs packaging and from being included in a collection called 'Gorehouse Greats', most people won't know that, and think, as I did, that we were about to get a run-of-the-mill slasher flick, as opposed to a run-of-the-mill jealous heiress flick. Two and 1/2 stars.

This movie is fun to watch, but I just don't understand it. I liked the fact it was kinda psychedelic or whatever but other than that.... I don't know.

BLOOD MANIA features an old man who is sick and slowly dying. His daughter, Victoria, lives with him but the two can't seem to stand each other. The man's doctor, Dr. Cooper, is blackmailed by a former colleague for $50,000. It is money he doesn't have and has no idea where he will get it. Victoria has a thing for Dr. Cooper and agrees to give him part of her inheritance if he'll help her get rid of dear old dad. But, there is another daughter, named Gail, who returns home for the reading of her father's will and as it turns out dad leaves her most everything and Victoria just enough to live upon. Well, Victoria goes crazy and Gail falls for Dr. Cooper and things just turn nonsensical. Characters and key subplots (for instance, Dr. Cooper's wife who is featured prominently in the beginning of the movie) disappear as though they never existed. There's very little blood or gore. The dialogue seems like it was written by a native-speaking Chinese person who tried to translate bad Spanish into English. Oh, and the acting is atrocious. The ending does have a bit of a twist, but like most of the rest of the movie it doesn't really make any sense either. The movie is good for a few laughs, but that's about it.

Blood Mania (1970) features surprisingly little blood and not a whole lot of mania, either. The film does not even have an opening credits scene, so obviously the title's relevance to the story was not overly important to the filmmakers. There really is not a whole lot to Blood Mania, but to its credit it does manage to throw in a little surprise at the very last minute. We start with a grouchy old man confined to his bed, trading verbal shots with his daughter Victoria, with whom he seems to share a hate-hate relationship. The father's friend, colleague, and personal physician Dr. Cooper finds himself owing $50,000 to a blackmailer for some of his youthful medical indiscretions, and Victoria vows to help him and thereby win the equivalent of his up to now unrequited love. Her plan for getting the money involves claiming some of her inheritance, the only snag being the fact that her father is still alive. Of course, things are never as simple as they seem, especially when prodigal daughters return home after seven years for the reading of a father's will. Basically, we have a set of characters who hold some degree of power over each other in turn, the weakest link in the chain being, of course, Victoria; she adds what little mania there is to the story, while everyone else offers up nothing more impressive than ambivalence if not outright boredom.

This film retained my interest throughout, but as I said, there is really nothing special at all about anything that happens. The film looks its age, the plot is unoriginal and by and large predictable, the several nude scenes are just weird and the opposite of erotic, and there is far from enough blood here to qualify this movie for anything resembling its self-proclaimed Blood Mania status. Inconvenient Frustrations might be a more appropriate title.

This movie is a complete nasty. Its a total shocker. Wont ramble on, but if you want any satisfaction out of this, just see it as a comedy and nothing else. And what was the story behind that carnival sequence ????. My friend and I were in complete hysterics laughing on the floor because it appeared to just be chucked in amongst all of this nonsense. A definate no no.