Blood Mania

1970, Dir. by Robert Vincent O'Neill

OK, Blood Mania. I'm gonna keep this short, because, well Blood Mania is a goofy, awful, flat-out ridiculous movie.

I'd never heard the phrase Blood Mania before, but as a horror fan, doesn't it sound great? Seriously, I was thisclose to changing the title of my blog when I heard about this movie (Then I thought about how I don't really watch movies for blood most of the time and how it didn't fit my idea of what my blog would be about, and, well, I thought about it.) But I gotta admit the title gave me some thrilling ideas about what the film could be. And look at that poster!

Blood Mania, however, does not live up to that promise. I had doubts the minute I found it as part of a 12-movies-for-$5-Wal-Mart set (Entitled Gorehouse Greats, if you're interested, I hope to review more from it soon.), but the promise of a "Gothic-like horror tale" had me intrigued. But what we get is a film that's only slightly modified from being something like Basic Instinct or A Perfect Murder or any other "Michael Douglas + sexiness thriller" of the '90s. The modifications are an entirely incomprehensible cult ritual in this movie, which replaces the competent production values of those movies.

Blood Mania turns out to be the tale of a "young" doctor (Peter Carpenter, who also co-wrote the film) who has a young, gorgeous wife (Reagan Wilson), but falls for the seductive daughter of a rich patient (Maria De Aragon), while also dealing with a blackmailer. Anyone who's ever seen a film noir knows that having seductresses and blackmailers on each side of you creates a cosmic venn diagram, and you're stuck in the overlapping center that is labeled TROUBLE in capital letters.

If * = You, that's TROUBLE.

The film shows the doctor's dilemma in the first act by...well, it doesn't really. Mostly, the first act is dedicated to the above mentioned actresses getting topless in random situations. Sometimes, important conversations are going on in one room and, though we can hear the conversations, the camera's in the other room watching one of the ladies get topless.

The plot starts to pick up when the seductress' younger sister (Vicki Peters) arrives, and begins to get topless too. Finally there's a murder and a twist ending that remind us the film's supposed to be a horror film, when really it seems to be a showcase of '70s boobage.

I love '70s boobage, but I love good cult cinema and good horror cinema more. This one does not qualify. Skip It.