Movie Info
Movie Name: Blood Mania
Studio: Crown International Pictures
Genre(s): Horror/B-Movie
Release Date(s): October 28, 1970
MPAA Rating: R
I want to murder my dad…want to help?
Doctor Craig Cooper (Peter Carpenter) is being haunted by his past. He performed abortions before he started his successful clinic, and now a blackmailer (Arell Blanton) wants $50,000 or he’ll go to the police. Victoria Waterman (Maria De Aragon), the daughter of his wealthy benefactor Ridgeley Waterman (Eric Allison), decides she will do what she has to do to help Dr. Cooper and win him for her own. Unfortunately, Victoria isn’t the beneficiary of her father’s will and Cooper’s budding romance with her sister Gail (Vicki Peters) could lead to murder.
Directed by Robert Vincent O’Neill, Blood Mania was written by its star Peter Carpenter. The movie was a B-Movie style grindhouse film and now is often available in multi-movie packs.
At least he died…happy?
Blood Mania (called Pornomania in Belgium for good reason) feels like a crime noir story trapped in a soft-core porn. The movie plays out with Dr. Cooper sleeping his way through women and compromising his ethics more and more.
The sad thing is that with some better structuring and acting, the story wouldn’t be that bad. You have a half-way decent guy who made a mistake in the past who is trying to make things right and you have the insane woman obsessed with him. The actual story could have been developed much better but instead it plays out as an hour movie that was an hour and twenty minutes…meaning lots of long pointless shots of making out. There was enough story in the film that it could have been expanded and a half-way decent noir thriller could have existed.
That’s it Victoria…you’re not getting a Christmas gift…
The biggest problem with the film is that the acting is horrible. The flimsy script either needed good actor or expansion and it got bad and a truncated story. It really does feel like a porn at points with the actors just reading their lines as they walk through the story. Maria De Aragon’s character seems insane by how she talks…but everyone seems insane in this movie because they all talk crazy. It also wasn’t clear if you were supposed to like Cooper who seemed like an ok guy at the beginning of the film, but then devolved by the end of the movie.
Honey, you’re screaming face just isn’t attractive…stop…
Visually, the movie at points has some shooting style, but generally falls back on weird angle shots that don’t really do anything. I will say that even on a cheap DVD, the movie looks decent and as opposed to many other grindhouse films, the print is pretty clean.
Blood Mania is one of those films that isn’t good because of the missed potential to be good. There were a lot of strange sex things going on in the story with Cooper, his on-and-off girlfriend Kate (Jacqueline Dalya) who disappeared after sleeping with the blackmailer and the strange lesbian scene with Gail’s older friend Cheryl (Reagan Wilson)…all of which could have made the story better if the filmmaker had put a little effort and money into it. Blood Mania is one of those titillating movies that fails to titillate and ends up just being a bore.
