‘The shrieking of mutilated victims caged in a black pit of horror!!!’
Blood Bath is a 1966 horror film about a crazed artist who believes himself to be the reincarnation of a vampire. He kills young women, then boils their bodies in a vat.
The movie was written and directed by Jack Hill (Spider Baby) and Stephanie Rothman (also see Queen of Blood; The Velvet Vampire; Ruby).
The production stars William Campbell (Dementia 13; Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte), Linda Saunders (So Sad About Gloria), Merissa Mathes (The Phantom Planet) Sandra Knight (Frankenstein’s Daughter; The Terror; The Haunting of Morella), Sid Haig, Jonathan Haze, and Patrick Magee.
Blood Bath had a convoluted production history, originating as a 1963 Yugoslavian-shot art smuggling crime movie, Operacija Ticijan (“Operation Titian”), before it was re-edited as Portrait of Terror, with a very young Francis Ford Coppola involved with the screenplay, co-financed by executive producer Roger Corman, who deemed the final product unreleasable.
In 1964, numerous horror sequences were then shot and edited into the film, first by Jack Hill, then by Stephanie Rothman. Corman approved of Rothman’s version and the film was given a brief theatrical release by American International Pictures (AIP).
In 1966, the film was re-edited for TV in 1966 as Track of the Vampire and also released in some European territories as Horror Cocktail.
“William Campbell played the lead in that one – he played a demented artist who kills his models and kind of melted them down in a vat. It still wasn’t really good enough to release theatrically, so we did another version where I was the cameraman and added more stuff. But William Campbell was no longer available, so this time the script turned him into a vampire, and we hired another actor who looked vaguely similair. It was an odd way to make movies.”Gary Kurtz (producer of Star Wars; The Empire Strikes Back), quoted in Crab Monsters, Teenage Cavemen and Candy Stripe Nurses
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On May 30, 2016, Arrow Video released the ultimate version of the film on Blu-ray:
- Limited Edition collection of the complete Blood Bath
- High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation of four versions of the film: Operation Titian, Portrait in Terror, Blood Bath and Track of the Vampire
- Brand new reconstruction of Operation Titian using original film materials and standard definition inserts
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing on all four versions
- The Trouble with Titian Revisited – a brand new visual essay in which Tim Lucas returns to (and updates) his three-part Video Watchdog feature to examine the convoluted production history of Blood Bath and its multiple versions
- Bathing in Blood with Sid Haig – a new interview with the actor, recorded exclusively for this release
- Outtakes from Track of the Vampire, scanned from original film materials
- Double-sided fold-out poster featuring original and newly commissioned artworks
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Dan Mumford
- Limited edition booklet containing new writing on the film and its cast by Peter Stanfield, Anthony Nield, Vic Pratt and Cullen Gallagher
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Plot [contains spoilers]:
In Venice, California, student Daisy (Merissa Mathes) leaves a club alone after having an argument with her beatnik boyfriend Max (Carl Schanzer). Walking through the deserted streets, she stops to admire some gruesome paintings in a gallery window painted by artist Antonio Sordi (Campbell), who coincidentally also comes by to look in on his “lost children.”
After a friendly conversation, Sordi convinces the young woman to pose nude for him that night. At his bell-tower studio, Sordi is possessed by the spirit of a long-dead ancestor and suddenly transforms into a vampiric monster who hacks the screaming Daisy to death with a cleaver. Afterwards, he lowers her mutilated corpse into a vat of boiling wax.
Sordi, in his vampire form, stalks Venice in search of victims; he is able to do so freely at all hours. In the middle of the day, he chases a young woman into the surf at a beach and drowns her. At night, he kills a prostitute in a car while pedestrians stroll by, all of them assuming the pair are lovers sharing an intimate moment.
Another victim is approached at a party, chased into a swimming pool, and drowned there after the other guests have moved into the house. The murdered women are carried back to Sordi’s studio and painted by the artist, their bodies then covered in wax. Because his vampiric self looks facially nothing like Sordi, no one connects him with the rash of murders.
Max wants to make up with Daisy but cannot find her anywhere. After recognizing her as the model in Sordi’s painting of her, which is now on display at a local beatnik cafe, he goes to see her sister, Donna. Donna tells Max she has not seen Daisy for days, and is concerned about the recent rash of disappearances. She reads Max the legend of Sordi’s 15th-century ancestor Erno, a painter condemned to be burned at the stake for capturing his subjects’ souls on canvas and being a vampire.
Unable to convince Max that Antonio Sordi might also be a vampire, she confronts the artist at his studio and asks him if he has seen Daisy. He angrily brushes her off. That night, he later follows her through the streets and murders her as she tries to escape from him on a carousel.
The “human” Sordi is in love with Dorian, an avant-garde ballerina, Daisy’s former roommate and a lookalike for both Donna and a former love, Meliza, the loss of whom may have driven him mad. At first he tries to protect her from his vampiric tendencies, warning her his studio is a cheerless place and at one point breaking a date with her to spend time gaining control of himself after murdering Daisy.
But one day at the beach, she reveals her attraction to him and asks him to make love to her. He tries, but panics and runs away. As Dorian leaves the beach, she then is approached by the vampiric Sordi, who chases her back to town, where she is rescued by Max and two of his beatnik friends. They pursue the vampire while Dorian, shaken, and unaware the vampire is really Sordi, proceeds to the bell tower to find out why he fled from her.
Sordi returns and finds Dorian in his studio. He madly enmeshes her in some netting, then comes at her with a knife, apparently believing she is really Meliza. But before he can harm her, numerous wax figures on the floor of the studio begin to move, come alive, and kill him. Max and his friends arrive, break in, and free Dorian.
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“Other movies do crazy artists better. Other movies do better with exploitation, gore, bikinis, beatniks, humor, surrealism, and (of course) vampires. But none combines these elements like Track of the Vampire. It’s one third weird, one third funny, one third gross… and that’s a pretty impressive B-movie combination. An unexpected and unbelievable ending is icing on the cake.” David Elroy Goldweber, Claws & Saucers book
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“Cheap and crude,with echoes of a dozen movies ranging from Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) to A Bucket of Blood (1959), this film isn’t unenjoyable.” The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror book
Cast and characters:
William Campbell as Antonio Sordi
Jim Begg as the vampire Sordi
Karl Schanzer as Max
Lori Saunders as Dorian/Meliza
Sandra Knight as Donna Allen
Marissa Mathes as Daisy Allen
Sid Haig as tall beatnik
Jonathan Haze as beatnik
Fred Thompson as beatnik
Biff Elliot as cafe manager
David Ackles as carousel operator
Actors who appeared in the original Operation: Titian footage, but are uncredited in the final film, include:
Patrick Magee
Rade Marković
Miha Baloh
Eric Pohlmann
Dragomir Felba
Tomanija Đuričko
Filming locations:
Belgrade, Yugoslavia
Venice, Los Angeles, California
Trailer:
Free online on YouTube [1080p HD]:
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