BLOOD BATH (1976)
Article 2927 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-14-2009
Posting Date: 8-19-2009
Directed by Joel M. Reed
Featuring Harve Presnell, Jack Somack, Curt Dawson
Country: USA

The cast of a horror film tell each other scary stories one night. In the first, a hit man has a job go awry. In the second, a man tries to get rid of his wife with a coin that grants wishes. In the third, a ghost decides to haunt the man who was responsible for his death. In the fourth, a martial arts expert must face a final challenge when he betrays his promise not to use his powers for money. In the wraparound story, it turns out the director of the horror film has a secret of his own…

Director Joel Reed is primarily famous for having given us BLOODSUCKING FREAKS, a paean to the exploitation, torture and murder of women that is as mean-spirited as it is incompetent. I feel sorry for any fans of that movie searching this one out in the hopes of getting more of the same; its PG rating should be warning enough that this is going to be mild stuff indeed. It’s no where near as nasty, it’s not one-tenth as misogynistic, and it’s even somewhat more competent. It’s not “bloodless” as some people claim; there’s a little blood, but you’d probably find more in your average Hammer horror movie. It’s worst problem is that it’s rather tired and uninspired. Perhaps the most surprising thing to me, though, was that I actually thought one of the stories was pretty good; the story about the ghost of the black man who decides to haunt the skinflint who caused his death (a series of circumstances brought about by the skinflint repossessing the ghost’s car) is actually amusing enough that I wish the presentation was better. This story even has one of the better twist endings here; the rest of them are rather obvious.