An artist (William Campbell from Dementia 13) turns into a vampire at night and kills women. His “Dead Red Nudes” are a sensation in the art world. The only problem is in order to draw inspiration from his subjects, he needs to first draw their blood.
Blood Bath is an eerie and atmospheric flick that deserves to be better known. The opening sequence with the silhouetted figure of the vampire in a trench coat and top hat stalking a woman feels like a prototype for a giallo. (It almost looks like it could’ve been directed by Mario Bava.) Other sequences have a dreamlike quality to them, like the flashback of the artist painting in the desert or the underwater scene where he murders a woman in a swimming pool. There are even a few genuinely unnerving moments like when Campbell’s dead cackling mistress appears in a painting or the chase on a merry go round. The scenes in the art gallery are surprisingly funny too and the comedic bohemian artist types (including Sid Haig and Johnathan Haze) make this feel like a spiritual sequel to A Bucket of Blood. It would also make a good double feature with Color Me Blood Red. (Originally, it played on a double bill with Queen of Blood.)
Directed by the one-two punch of genre filmmaking legends Jack Hill and Stephanie Rothman, Blood Bath really cooks. It’s paced like lightning and the hour-long running time whizzes right by. The ending is a little on the weak side, but that should in no way deter you from checking it out.
Apparently, this is the third of four iterations of the film. It began life as a thriller called Operation Titan, which also starred Campbell. That flick was later re-edited and released as Portrait of Terror. Producer Roger Corman then took about nine minutes of footage from it and hired Hill and Rothman to add scenes to it and turn it into Blood Bath. (Hill did the beatnik stuff and Rothman worked on the vampire plot.) Later, Corman added more footage so it could play on TV as Track of the Vampire. The only other version I’ve seen is Portrait of Terror and this is a big step up in every way.
AKA: Operation Titan. AKA: Portrait of Terror. AKA: Track of the Vampire.
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