Going There: Bad Blood (1989, directed by Chuck Vincent)


Oh man, this is a twisted movie.

Yuppie lawyer Ted (adult film actor Randy Spears, credited here as Gregory Patrick) is shocked when he sees a painting of a man who looks just like him.  He is told that the portrait was painted in 1964 and that the man in the painting is the late husband of the artist, Arlene (porn legend Georgina Spelvin, credited here at Ruth Raymond).  Arlene goes on to reveal that Ted is actually her long-lost son and then she invites him and his wife, Evie (Linda Blair, credited here as Linda Blair), to come out to her mansion.  What Ted doesn’t realize is that Arlene believes that he is actually her husband reincarnated and she is planning on doing away with Evie so that she can have her son all to herself and do what it is she wants to do with him.  Yes, this film goes there.

Chuck Vincent was one of the leading directors of the Golden Age of Porn.  Unlike most other adult film directors, his movies were popular with not only the public but also with critics.  (His best-known film, Roommates, received a rave in the New York Times.)  In the 80s, Vincent tried to make the move into mainstream film, mostly directing sex comedies and dopey thrillers.  Most of his mainstream films featured adult performers in dramatic roles, which made them very popular on late night cable.

Bad Blood feels like a combination of Fatal Attraction and Misery.  There’s even a scene where Arlene ties up her son in bed and then breaks his toes to keep him from leaving.  (Bad Blood, though, came out a year before Rob Reiner’s film so the resemblance is probably a coincidence.)  Spelvin, who was widely regarded as being the best actress to ever regularly appear in pornographic movies, gives a great, demented performance as Arlene and Linda Blair is also good as Evie.  Chuck Vincent was a good director, even when he was doing schlocky straight-to-video stuff like this.  Perhaps because of his background in adult films, Vincent never hesitated about taking his films to the places where other directors would be scared to tread.  Sadly, Vincent died in 1991 and most of his movies have fallen into obscurity.

A Movie A Day #236: Bad Blood (1994, directed by Tibor Takacs)


Though it is sometimes hard to remember, there more on late night Cinemax than just Shannon Tweed films like Scorned and Body Chemistry 3.  There were also Lorenzo Lamas action films, movies like the Snake Eater trilogy.  Though Lamas was a terrible actor, his direct-to-video efforts were always a hundred times more violent than everyone else’s and, for male viewers of a certain age, it did not hurt that his then-wife, Kathleen Kinmont, often showed up in various states of undress.

Kathleen Kinmont did not appear in Bad Blood but the movie made up for her absence by being so violent that it was originally given an NC-17 rating.  As a result, there are actually two versions of this movie floating around: the slightly cut R-rated Bad Blood and an unrated version called Viper.  (Interestingly, the violence in both Bad Blood and Viper is really no more graphic than the violence that was featured in a lot of mainstream films released in the mid-90s.)

In this one, Lorenzo Lamas is Travis Blackstone, a former cop who was kicked off the force after he destroyed evidence to protect his smarmy brother, Franklin (Hank Cheyne).  Travis was sent to prison but now that he is out, he is working in a shipping yard and coaching little league baseball.  (I do not know many parents that would be happy with an ex-con as their child’s little league coach but that is the power of Lorenzo Lamas.)  Unfortunately, Franklin has gotten in trouble again, embezzling millions from the mafia.  Not only does Travis have to find the money to repay the mob but he also has to keep Franklin safe.  Unfortunately, since Franklin is now involved with Travis’s ex, Rhonda (Frankie Thorn), Travis’s new girlfriend (Kimberly Kates) assumes that he is cheating on her and tells the mob where they can track down the Blackstone brothers.

The main bad guy, Chang, is played by Joe Son.  (The unrated version begins with Chang giving a little girl a lollipop and then shooting her dead.)  Joe Son was a UFC fighter who was later revealed to be just as bad a guy in real life as he was in the movies.  After being convicted on rape in 2011, Son was sentenced to seven years to life.  As soon as he arrived in prison, he beat his cellmate to death and received an additional sentence of 27 years for voluntary manslaughter.

As for Bad Blood, by the standards of the typical Lorenzo Lamas action movie, it’s not bad.  The action is constant and fierce, with Travis gunning down a seemingly endless number of gangsters in designer suits.  Tibor Takacs was a better filmmaker than most of the directors that Lamas worked with and it appears that he managed to keep Lorenzo Lamas’s ego under control, the result being far less shots of Lamas posing than in any of the other movies that Lamas made during this period.  The production values of Bad Blood are also consistently better than what was on display in the Snake Eater films.  There is even a scene where Lamas not only flips over a speeding car but he shoots the driver while he is doing it.  Let’s see Steven Seagal or even Dolph Lundgren do that!

What Lisa Watched Last Night #131: Bad Blood (dir by Adam Silver)


Last night, I watched a Lifetime film that originally aired in March, Bad Blood.

Lifetime-movie-Bad-Blood-March-2015

Why Was I Watching?

The main reason that I watched it was so I could get it off of my DVR.  I recorded Bad Blood when it originally aired in March, fully planning to promptly review it.  However, for whatever reason, I never got around to writing that review and Bad Blood sat, for 4 months, on my DVR.  Last night, I decided to rewatch Bad Blood, review Bad Blood, and finally erase Bad Blood!  (I need the space for all the shark movies that are going to be SyFy this week.)

What Was It About?

Bad Blood was a typical Lifetime mix of empowerment and exploitation.  Serial killer Oscar Marcus (Brett Rickaby) is dying of leukemia so he’s kidnapping, torturing, and murdering victims all across the southwest so that he can exchange his bad blood for their good blood.  (Or something like that — Bad Blood was not exactly an easy film to follow.)  However, because Oscar had a bone marrow transplant five years earlier, he’s not leaving his DNA behind at the crime scenes.  Instead, he’s leaving behind the DNA of his donor, Lauren (Taylor Cole).

And, since this is a Lifetime film, Lauren has both a mysterious past and a boyfriend involved in law enforcement.  However, when Lauren’s DNA starts to show up at crime scenes, that boyfriend is forced to arrest her.  (That’ll kill a relationship.)

However, Oscar rescues Lauren from the cops because he wants her blood.  And then Lauren escapes Oscar and teams up with her estranged father (Jeff Kober) to prove her innocence…

What Worked?

It’s strange.  I really didn’t like Bad Blood the first time I saw it but the second time, I discovered that it wasn’t as bad as I remembered.  There were a few strikingly atmospheric scenes towards the end of the film and there was something oddly charming about the film’s refusal to make any logical sense.

Jeff Kober was good as the irresponsible father and Brett Rickaby was a chillingly believable murderer.  The second time I watched the film, I better appreciated Taylor Cole’s performance as well.

What Did Not Work?

Bad Blood was not as bad as I remembered it being but it’s still not one of my favorite Lifetime films.  The pacing was off in a few key scenes and Lauren’s romance with the sheriff was pretty dull. As well, I didn’t care much for the film’s ending.  After what those people went through, everyone should have been a lot more traumatized.  Instead, it ended in a typically upbeat Lifetime sort of way.

“Oh my God!  Just like me!” Moments

I related to Lauren’s relationship with her dad.  Plus, Lauren’s a runner just like me!  (Lauren was also an auto mechanic, which was a totally “Oh my God!  Definitely not like me!” moment.)

Lessons Learned

DNA is a lot trickier than I thought.