BLOODLUST (1961)

Studio:       Film Chest Media Group
Director:    Ralph Brooke
Writer:       Ralph Brooke
Producer:  Ralph Brooke
Stars:     Wilton Graff, June Kenney, Walter Brooke, Robert Reed, Gene Persson, Joan Lora, Troy Patterson, Lilyan Chauvin, Bobby Hall, Bill Coontz

Review Score:

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Summary:

Two young couples discover a mysterious island where they become the latest targets of a madman hunting human prey for sport.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Johnny Randall and Pete Garwood enjoy a day of boating with their girlfriends Betty Scott and Jeanne Perry. After spotting a hidden island, the two couples decide to embark on an impromptu expedition. With their boat captain Tony passed out drunk, the foursome takes the dinghy to shore. Tony wakes up once they are gone and futilely screams for everyone to return when he realizes where they are headed.

As the foursome explores the island, an unknown man hides their boat. Johnny falls into a camouflaged hole and is disoriented. As the others begin a rescue attempt, hunter Dr. Albert Balleau appears with two henchmen and takes everyone back to his villa.

Balleau introduces his drunkard associate Dean Gerrard, his wife Sandra, and his mute henchman Jondor. Balleau tells the newcomers that he stocks his island with game to be hunted for sport. Claiming that it is unsafe for them to go back into the jungle at night, Balleau insists that everyone stay overnight.

Secretly lovers, Dean and Sandra make a plan to escape the island, although Balleau is suspicious of their intentions. Sensing something strange about the house and Balleau’s island setup, the two couples split up to investigate. Dean and Sandra find Johnny and Betty and tell them about Balleau’s proclivity for hunting humans and also tell them their plan for escaping.

Pete and Jeanne find a hidden workroom where one of the henchmen works with human body parts. They rendezvous with the others and begin collaborating on an escape plan.

Johnny and the others stay at the house while Dean and Sandra go through the jungle to find a boat on the other side of the island. Balleau pursues his wife and her lover.

The group at the house becomes restless after two days. Johnny and Betty watch a henchman open a secret wall in Balleau’s trophy room and they later go inside. They find Balleau waiting for them in a secret chamber where his human trophies are displayed. Although his previous captures were escaped convicts, his latest display is of Sandra and Dean. Balleau shows Johnny and Betty an empty space reserved for four people and warns them that they are next.

Balleau’s henchmen capture Captain Tony and bring him to the house. Balleau reveals that Tony was the one who brought the convicts to the island for him to hunt. Realizing that Tony is now untrustworthy, Balleau plans to hunt the captain along with Johnny and Pete. Balleau promises that the girls will remain unharmed back at the house. Balleau arms himself with a crossbow and just three bolts, one for each man. He gives the three men an empty gun and instructs them to begin at the “Tree of Death” in the jungle where they will find ammunition to make the hunt fair.

The men find just one handgun round in the tree. Tony takes the gun and the bullet and goes his own way in the jungle. Back at the house, Betty and Jeanne begin their own escape.

Tony gets the drop on Balleau, but his gun does not fire. Balleau reveals that he removed the gun’s firing pin and he kills Tony with his crossbow. The girls struggle with a henchman back in the secret workroom, but Betty is able to throw him into a vat of formaldehyde and they eventually meet up with Johnny and Pete in the forest. A raving madman also being hunted by Balleau attacks the group, but Johnny knocks him out.

Annoyed by his constant clumsiness, Balleau allows his henchman Jondor to drown in quicksand while covered in leeches. Balleau then hunts down and kills the raving lunatic.

The foursome slips past a guard and makes it back inside the house. Balleau eventually tracks them there, but finds the guard dead upon his arrival. Balleau corners the quartet in the secret human trophy room and makes mention of the dead guard. The foursome claims the guard was alive when they returned from the jungle. Covered in leeches, Jondor suddenly stumbles into the secret chamber. Balleau shoots at his former henchman, but Jondor manages to kill Balleau and the two couples escape.

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Review:

Call it a shameless shadow of “The Most Dangerous Game,” tease it for being mocked once upon a time as an MST3K feature, or guffaw at the drive-in era sheen of its B-movie theatrics.  But “Bloodlust!” delivers satisfying late night chiller charm that is surprisingly daring for an overlooked sixties schlocker unjustly derided as a campy disappointment if it is even remembered at all.

Wilton Graff is hunter of humans Dr. Albert Balleau.  Graff delivers an understated madman with subtler swaths of Vincent Price-like tonal inflections and only slightly more physical imposition.  In fact, had it been Vincent Price embodying the starring role, “Bloodlust” would no doubt be revered today as an underappreciated almost-was in the same vein as “The Tingler” and would certainly be ranked ahead of something like “Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine” in Price’s filmography.

His villa hidden away on a remote island, Dr. Balleau whiles away boredom as only a rich psychopath can, by surrounding himself with striped-shirted henchmen straight from Adam West’s “Batman” and sending subjects into the jungle while he trails in casual pursuit with a crossbow.  Balleau actually has a loose moral system in place, at first content to hunt only kidnapped convicts who escaped from nearby penal colonies.  That is until Balleau’s wife decides to abscond with her lover at the same time as four nosy teenagers stumble upon his villain’s lair.

Sporting a Charles Atlas barrel chest, “The Brady Bunch” patriarch Robert Reed leads his three friends in gathering banana leaves for an impromptu clambake.  Unfortunately for them, Elvis Presley and Bill Bixby are nowhere in sight, although screaming lunatics, mute brutes, quicksand traps, and something called “The Tree of Death” are much easier to find.

As fun as it is to see a young Robert Reed playing a role other than Mike Brady, there is a reason he is listed fourth in the credits and co-star June Kenney is billed second, even if her name is misspelled (as June Kenny).  “Bloodlust” is unusually ahead of its time for a 1961 movie in depicting damsels in distress perfectly capable of fending for themselves.  As a matter of fact, they are far more capable than their boyfriends.

This being a movie from a period when such clichés were commonplace, I thought for sure that one of the girls would give herself away while cowering in the shadows as Bloodlust’s version of Igor boils severed body parts in an acid bath.  Usually this is the cue for the helpless female to cover her mouth in horror before finally relenting to an unable-to-be-stifled shriek.  She does squirm and she does wiggle, but she actually keeps it together and goes on to actively participate in her own escape instead of lying in wait for the boys to come and rescue her.

The two women do much better than the two men in their respective travails.  While Robert Reed and his eyeglasses-wearing buddy fall in quicksand and find themselves duped by a drunkard, the ladies stay composed in crafting distractions to fool the guards and save their own skins.  Reed’s friend is knocked over by one limp-armed swing from a frail island lunatic while Kenney goes toe-to-toe with a thug twice her size in a dual strangulation contest that she handily wins.

There is no doubting that victory either, as Kenney judo flips her assailant into a conveniently placed trough of formaldehyde for a suitably gruesome swim.  The other area where “Bloodlust” does not hold back is in gore that is on the bleeding edge during the twilight years of atom age B-movies when peers were busied with giant bugs and rubber monsters.  The melting faces and bloody impalings of “Bloodlust” are unmatched by many of its contemporaries in the graphic horror department.

Although the movie is far below even cult classic status, it is far above Ed Wood standards as well.  Like any economical assembly line production from the early 60’s, “Bloodlust” takes either a blind eye to oversee or an excited willingness to lap up the cave walls that look like giant black sheets of crumpled construction paper, dun-dun-dun music stings announcing onscreen character arrivals, and gaping plot holes about why four agile teens don’t just club the old man while he sips brandy or long-windedly details the particulars of their planned demises.  “Bloodlust” is a product of its time, but it also demands giving the remote a rest and settling in for retro appeal if it ever appears during post-midnight channel surfing.

Review Score:  75

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