You know, I thought I had seen this one already, but as it turns out, I was thinking of the OTHER Legacy of Blood, which starred John Carradine and Faith Domergue. I can’t really blame myself for the confusion since both films are about family members gathering in an old house for the reading of a will. This feeling of déjà vu was only heightened once I discovered (about fifteen minutes in) that this was, in fact, writer/director Andy Milligan’s loose remake of his own movie, The Ghastly Ones.
Three sisters receive word they must convene at their former hometown for the reading of their late father’s will. It states they must stay at their old mansion on an isolated island with their husbands for three days before they can receive their inheritance. The servants resent the siblings being there, and their simpleminded brother, Carl (Chris Broderick) is extremely agitated by their sudden appearance. Eventually, the family members begin being bumped off by an unseen killer.
I’m not against Milligan remaking The Ghastly Ones, especially as it is one of the lesser films in his repertoire, and there was definitely room for improvement. However, he does a big disservice to the audience by taking an inordinate amount of time to get the ball rolling. Say what you will about The Ghastly Ones, but at least it came right out of the gate with a gore scene. This one makes you wait until the last ten minutes of the movie to make with the guts and gore (not counting the mauling of the poor bunny rabbit). Til then, you’ve got to sit through a lot of painfully dull dialogue scenes filled with amateurish acting.
To be fair, it is a slight improvement on the original (although that wasn’t exactly hard to do). Once people start dropping like flies, Milligan does pepper the film with a modicum of atmosphere. The Dutch angles and quirky lighting are moderately effective during these sequences. The gore (when it finally happens) is pretty good too. One guy gets his guts sawed out, there’s a decapitation, a pitchforking, a hand hacking, and (the funniest) an accidental meat cleaver to the head. Unfortunately, it’s just a case of too little, too late for it to really come together.
Also included on the Blu-ray is the alternate TV/video cut, called Legacy of Horror. Again, I’m not a total masochist, so I didn’t sit and watch the whole thing. However, it did look as though it had been stripped of all the gore (the only reason for it to exist in the first place). It also ran six minutes longer, which means there are even more dull dialogue scenes than the original cut (probably added in to fill a television time slot).
Milligan Motifs: This is yet another costume drama/period piece/horror movie filmed on Staten Island. Since it is a remake of The Ghastly Ones, the idea of a family with a fractured history and the reading of a will is once again trotted out. Also, a guy gets nailed to the wall and skewered with a pitchfork.
Milligan Stock Players: Other than Milligan himself, who appears in a cameo as a mailman, I didn’t spot any of his usual cast of characters.
AKA: Legacy of Horror.
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