First up on tonight’s double feature was 1972’s Baron Blood, a horror flick from famed Italian director Mario Bava. I’ve seen a few of his flicks, including Black Sunday, Black Sabbath and Twitch of the Death Nerve aka Bay Of Blood, and have enjoyed them all. This one is about a man named Peter who comes to Austria to attend the auction of the castle of his ancestor, the infamous Baron Otto Von Kleist, or Baron Blood, as the local villagers call him. It seems he was a cruel sadist who murdered and tortured hundreds of villagers, until he was killed by a witch who cursed him. Peter is fascinated by the old tales of his ancestor, and meets up with his uncle Karl and a student named Eva (Elke Sommer) to discuss the castle’s history, as well as the legend of the Baron.
Peter has 2 old documents that contain the witch’s evocation to both resurrect the Baron from the dead, and send him back. He convinces Eva to go to the castle with him try invoking the spell. Unfortunately for them, it works, and a gust of wind causes the parchment papers with the spells to fly into the fireplace and burn up. Now they desperately try to convince others that the evil Baron has returned, as well as try to come up with a way to undo their mistake and send the undead Baron back.
This flick was outrageous and awesome, with some decent murders, great shots of the deformed Baron in the shadows, and a well done chase sequence at night, shrouded by fog. At one point, Peter’s uncle Karl even seeks the help of a psychic to communicate with the spirit of the dead witch to try and find a way to stop Baron Blood and his spree of slaughter and death. The acting is wonderfully over the top but never gets too cheesy, and the dialogue is hilarious at times, I found myself laughing throughout its runtime. Mario Bava was one of the most influential filmmakers in horror, and he pulls out all the stops here. Baron Blood is entertaining as hell.
The next flick I caught, 86’s Night Ripper, was so damn bad and cheesy. It’s one of those direct to video titles that were cheaply shot on a home video camera, filled with atrocious acting and bad synthesizer music. It seems that a serial killer is preying on models in LA. A guy and his partner own a photography studio and do glamour shots for women. Because one of the victims was a client of theirs, they get embroiled in the drama.
Despite its super low budget, terrible performances, and desperate effort to pad out the running time with nonsensical sequences, such as the killer following a victim in a car while this really bad song plays (we’re treated to the entire tune), and the drawn out climax, it still manages to be fun. The murders are your typical slashings, with apparent red dyed corn syrup as blood, and lots of shots of the knife held high, ready to strike. The identity of the killer is so damn obvious that you have to laugh at the filmmaker’s attempt to fool you with really bad red herrings.
Night Ripper is an enjoyable slasher from that late, great, long gone era where amateur filmmakers would put out quick cheapies on video tape, usually with a cool box cover that made it look better than the actual product. Check it out if you’ve never heard of it and are a fan of 80’s slashers. I caught both these fun flicks on YouTube.
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