Year released: 1970
THE CHARGE: I can think of at least two things wrong with that title.
THE EVIDENCE: Blood Mania. You might think this would be a slasher film filled with all manner of gratuitous violence and gory special effects. Or maybe you'd think it's a lesser known movie from the collection of a notorious b-movie auteur like Herschell Gordon Lewis or Roger Corman. Or maybe you'd think it sounds like a ditzy Troma horror-comedy chock full of gross-out gags. Whatever you're thinking, you're wrong.
Blood Mania begins with a woman in a sheer nightie running through a dark... alley? Suburb? Forest? I'm not really sure what she was running through. I only know it was definitely dark, except when garish colored lights were aimed at her ample bosom. Occasionally, we cut to a man's grim face as he walks through the same alley or suburb or forest. And just when it looks like things are about to get interesting... end scene.
The film cuts to an elderly doctor waking up, implying that the entire opening scene was his dream. He's bedridden due to a heart condition and being cared for by his daughter Victoria, who's so clearly a bitch that she might as well have "bitch" tattooed on her left butt cheek. She clearly doesn't have any such tattoo, though, because we see plenty of her tush on display throughout the rest of the movie.
We then see the doctor's doctor, a younger gent named Dr. Cooper who has a hot wife whose tush we also get to witness. But this younger doctor is in a bit of a financial bind. He's being blackmailed by someone asking for $50,000 not to reveal his secret: that he performed abortions to finance his way through medical school. Oh, if only there was some bitchy woman due to inherit her rich father's legacy whom he could take advantage of.
That's right. Blood Mania isn't a slasher or a cheesy gross-out gorefest. It's a Skinemax film noir, made well before Skinemax existed and well after the film noir genre declined in popularity. Why would anyone make such a film, so out of place for its time? The answer becomes clear when you realize that the writer, producer and star of the film are all the same person: Peter Carpenter. And Peter very obviously likes rubbing against naked ladies, because he does it a lot in this movie.
I had the same expression as he did throughout the movie.
So young Dr. Cooper puts the moves on Victoria, who's frustrated after unsuccessfully putting the moves on her pool boy. One sex scene later, the couple indulges in some amyl nitrate poppers. The doctor explains that a person should be careful with them, especially around people with heart conditions. It could be fatal to someone with a heart condition. Someone, like, say, Victoria's father confined to the upstairs bedroom. Yeah, nobody should ever let him inhale amyl nitrate wink wink nudge nudge.
One inhalation of amyl nitrate later, arrangements are being made for the reading of the now deceased senior doctor's will. But the elderly man made it very clear that the will is not to be read unless Victoria's estranged younger sister Gail is present as well. And when Gail arrives - yep, you guessed it - she gets the bulk of the estate while Victoria gets a miserly allowance. Victoria goes berserk and Dr. Cooper is crestfallen. Oh, if only there was some sweet young girl who just inherited her rich father's legacy whom he could take advantage of.
Miss Scarlet, in the conservatory with a candlestick.
Blood Mania is so completely soulless that it's the cinematic equivalent of watching someone play with naked Barbie dolls. Characters speak their lines and move from scene to scene only because that's what the story requires them do. There's no sense at any time that these characters could be real people. None of the actors are invested in their roles at all. Everyone is wooden and artificial, making everything they do utterly inconsequential.
A prime example is a scene about 1/3 into the movie, where young Dr. Cooper's wife tries to seduce his blackmailer but ends up being forcibly raped instead. When the scene is over, we never see the wife again nor do we hear of any consequences to anyone involved. So the scene is ultimately meaningless and only exists because the either the writer or director presumably wanted a rape scene in his movie. With her job done, the Barbie doll playing the wife is simply discarded. If the movie cares so little about its characters, then why should I?
Even the movie's title is meaningless. There's no blood until the last five minutes of the movie, and it certainly doesn't cause any mania. (In fact, the cause and effect are pretty much the other way around.) The title is solely intended to drum up interest in an uninteresting movie and was likely used only because theater owners frowned on putting "Boobies" on their marquees, no matter how much more accurately it would have described the film's content.
THE VERDICT: Blood Mania is GUILTY of wasting the court's time with a prepubescent display of prurient show-and-tell and sentenced to an eternity of cold showers. Don't make me get the garden hose out!
