Blood Bath
| Blood Bath | |
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American theatrical poster
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| Directed by |
Jack Hill Stephanie Rothman |
| Produced by | Jack Hill |
| Written by | Jack Hill Stephanie Rothman |
| Starring | William Campbell |
| Music by | Ronald Stein |
| Cinematography | Alfred Taylor |
| Distributed by | American International Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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69 min. |
| Language | English |
Blood Bath is a 1966 horror film directed by Jack Hill and Stephanie Rothman, and starring William Campbell, Linda Saunders, Marissa Mathes, and Sid Haig. The film follows a delusional painter in Venice Beach, California who believes himself to be the reincarnation of a vampire. He begins to kidnap local women for his art pieces, and believes to have found his reincarnated mistress in an avant-garde ballerina.
The film is widely known for its convoluted production history. In 1963, Roger Corman co-produced a Yugoslavia-made spy thriller called Operation: Titian, but deemed the film unreleasable. Corman then purchased the rights, and assigned writer-director Jack Hill to write a new script—this time a horror film—based on the footage from Operation: Titian. Hill wrote and directed numerous horror sequences, which were edited into the film, and it was re-titled Portrait in Terror. Still unsatisfied with the final product, Corman hired Stephanie Rothman to film additional sequences which were also edited in. The film was then given a brief theatrical release under the title Blood Bath by American International Pictures, with screenplay and directorial credit jointly shared by Hill and Rothman.
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.
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Wikipedia