Blood Bath

United States, Yugoslavia

1966

80 Min

Black and White

English

Currently 2.8/5 Stars.
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DIR Jack Hill, Stephanie Rothman

SCR Jack Hill, Stephanie Rothman

CAST William Campbell, Marissa Mathes, Sandra Knight, Lori Saunders, Karl Schanzer, Biff Elliot, Sid Haig, Jonathan Haze

MUSIC Ronald Stein, Mark Lowry

As several young women disappear in Venice, Calif., suspicion falls on tortured artist Antonio Sordi (William Campbell), who believes that his ancestor was a vampire. Also roaming the mod scene is Max (Karl Schanzer), a wannabe artist who drives his ditzy girlfriend into Sordi’s arms. Produced by Roger Corman, this cult favorite stitches together portions of a Yugoslavian horror film with footage from two directors who have opposing viewpoints.

Director

Jack Hill

Jack Hill grew up around movies – his father was a designer for Disney Studios and Warner Brothers. He went to the University of California to study film, where he was a classmate of Francis Ford Coppola – they worked together on student productions and later both apprenticed with Roger Corman, working on The Terror (1963). While Coppola went on to Oscardom, Jack continued with B-flicks. He didn’t make a lot of films, and while all were low budget they all (except The Jezebels (1975)) made money, and his early ‘blaxploitaton’ films Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974) were hits. Soon after The Jezebels (1975) he stopped making movies so he and his wife Elke could pursue meditation and he could write novels. Today his films are hailed as cult classics, thanks primarily to Quentin Tarantino, who saw Hill’s work as it made its way to video. With retrospectives and a re-release of The Jezebels (1975), his career seems to be reviving. —IMDb… read more

Stephanie Rothman

Writer/director Stephanie Rothman was one of the few female filmmakers who specialized in low-budget drive-in exploitation fare in the ‘60s and ’70s. Her movies are distinguished by gutsy, strong-willed and sympathetic women main characters and a radical libertarian feminist point of view. Stephanie was born on November 9, 1936 in Paterson, New Jersey (made famous by Lou Costello, who mentioned it in every one of his movies). She was the first lady to be awarded the Directors Guild of America fellowship. Rothman served as an associate producer on Queen of Blood (1966), Beach Ball (1965) and Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965). She co-wrote and co-directed the fright flick Blood Bath (1966) and made her solo directorial debut with the frothy “Beach Party”-type romp It’s a Bikini World (1967). Stephanie made two features for Roger Corman’s New World Pictures: the excellent The Student Nurses (1970) — which was the first and best of the popular nurse comedy cycle — and the offbeat… read more