Bad Blood (1988) User Reviews

sick, twisted and loads of fun

[woundedheartx1 · 6/10 · 16 September 2016]

Very obscure little title that I basically found because I adore Linda blair, don't be deceived by the cover art she has a relatively minor role here. Actually for film featuring a porno star (yep the Randy Spears) this is pretty good. Georgina Spelvin plays Arlene, who "lost" her husband an baby boy years ago. Que poor dumb ted, world's youngest lawyer, who just happens to look like a certain painting. Turns out the painting is of his real Dad, ARlene's lost love.

Ted's Mom breaks the truth to him is a terrific beach scene in Arlene is loaded and something of a high society matron, sure she's a bit eccentric, but after all she just found her son after twenty- plus years without him! so who can blame her if she wants to cuddle him, dance with him, tuck him in at night...

Oddly Ted's Wife Evie, the lovely Ms. Blair, doesn't seem to scene much wrong with this grand guinol scenario and a really ornate Castle Mansion somewhere form the back lots of "Love Story", eventually tho it becomes pretty clear that Arlene wants all she lost back, and is willing to do anything to have it.

Georgina Spelvin is simply great as Arlene, for a older babe she really knocked it out of the park as a psycho, give her a lot of credit here. Sickest wedding scene this side of "Flowers in the Attic" doesn't hurt either. "Bad Blood" is a little hard to find, but well worthwhile for fans of Gothic style psychological horror.

So much better than I thought it would be!

[BandSAboutMovies · 6/10 · 15 June 2019]

All around auteur - he was a writer, director, producer and editor - Charles Vincent began his show-business career in regional theater as a director and stage manager in his native Michigan. He worked for the Yale Repertory and the Negro Ensemble Company before making his cinematic debut in 1971 with the adult film The Appointment. He worked in X-rated film until the mid-1980's while also dabbling in mainstream fare with films like Summer Camp, Deranged and Hollywood Hot Tubs.

This movie comes late in his career and features Linda Blair and Troy Donahue alongside actors better known for their adult work. Gregory Patrick, who plays the main character, is really Randy Spears. And the villain of the piece, played by Ruth Raymond, is, in reality, Georgina Spelvin, who starred in The Devil In Ms. Jones and also shows up as the hooker in Police Academy (trust me, that's a pivotal role). Veronica Hart, Vincent's favorite actress, also makes an appearance.

A young man (Patrick/Spears) finds out that his mother (Raymond/Spelvin) isn't who he thought she was, but a wealthy artist who lives as a recluse. His parents had taken him and raised him as their own. Meanwhile, his possessive birth mother begins to ruin his life, even poisoning his wife Evie (Blair).

It also might not help that his mother can't tell the difference between him and his dead father, whose painting of him initiated this whole mess. This makes me worry that I'm going to have to make a Letterboxd list for movies I've watched about incest, which is far greater than I'd like to admit to you, dear reader.

This movie is also way better than it would seem that it should be. It aspires to be a movie closer to Misery than outright exploitation without forgetting that it has to deliver the goods. And by goods, I mean mind-bending mother on son assault.

A cross between "Fatal Attraction" and "Misery"

[GOWBTW · 2/10 · 8 October 2005]

At first I was curious about seeing this movie, then it gets deeper by the minute. Knowing this movie movie would take place in my home state, I knew I would like it. This movie would just like any other movie, I think it would be a indie. Sometimes knowing the truth about your family can either be helpful or hurtful to you. For this character, it can be both! Living with parents that raised you would be easy. Right? WRONG! DEAD WRONG! Meeting your real mother would be surprising and disturbing as well. The mother is a painter who seems to keep her husband memories forever. She kills the maid, and the son's wife. Then she ties him up on a bed, and tortures him to a mere crawl of life ala Misery. The scenes that made me cringe is when she breaks the son's toes and when she rapes him. UGH! Too graphic! Slightly cheesy, yet watchable, this movie was not much like the others hits I've seen, and the results are plainly typical to any viewer. Rating 1.5 out of 5 stars.

Nothing is sacred in this audacious, spellbinding Gothic chiller

[shaneschoeppner1 · 9/10 · 22 May 2008]

Craig Horrall's screenplay for "Bad Blood" is simply genius. Filled with moments of Grande Guignol, twisted love, pathos, humor, and excitement, it's the Super Combo of horror screenplays. Of course we've seen this one before ("Fatal Attraction", "Misery", "Play Misty for Me", "Hush, Hush...Sweet Charlotte") for this is a tale of love-gone-awry, secret obsessions, and murder. But every film is a hybrid of other films, in the sense that each artist is influenced not only by his or her own personal ideas and impulses, but also by either his contemporaries or the old masters, or both. It depends on HOW the story is told that sets one film apart from the rest of the pack. Such is the case with "Bad Blood". It has a great, nuanced script, shaded and with all-around rough edges. The writing is mostly dead-on and delicious, and it absolutely MAKES "Bad Blood". Wealthy, aging female painter Arlene Bellings(Ruth Raymond) is having a show in the city, and one of her paintings attracts the attention of a man, Ted Barnes (Gregory Patrick) who appears to be the painting's subject. He doesn't know Arlene but she definitely knows him, as she confesses that he is the grown child that she had taken from her in her youth, by her wealthy, domineering father. Ted's wife Evie (Linda Blair) is as perplexed as her husband, until Ted's mother (Carolyn Van Bellinghen, in a brief, Oscar-worthy performance) confirms that Arlene's story is true. But looks are deceiving, and Arlene's secret past lies just below the surface of her warm and friendly demeanor. She soon invites Ted and Evie to her palatial country estate for the weekend, and that's when Arlene sets in motion a plan to have Ted all for herself - in more ways than one. This is the point at which "Bad Blood" breaks away from the competition and sprints ahead. I haven't seen a film since "Last House on the Left" that has had balls as big as this film has. It tackles the subject of maternal incest without batting an eye, and yet even at this point of depravity/hilarity it does not descend, or become any less beguiling. There's a creepy, pulling charm to "Bad Blood", and all of its kinky, Gothic themes. The sets and locations are amazing, and although it's somewhat technically inept it doesn't stop working on you. The editing is rough but absolutely to-die-for; there's a split-screen sequence in there that will entertain even the most jaded and difficult-to-please viewer. Evie's murder scene at the hands of Arlene plays in choppy slow-motion, and is relentlessly violent and shocking and effective. It is an excruciating scene, one which catches your breath and holds you, traumatized, until Evie's final death throws. Linda Blair does not play the lead in this particular movie, but that murder sequence should have earned her some kind of nomination for her acting skills. You feel Evie's shock and desperation throughout every frame. (Debra Winger has a famous death scene, of course, in "Terms of Endearment", and Garbo in "Camille", but they don't hold a candle to Linda in "Bad Blood") But it is beyond doubt that this is Ruth Raymond's film all the way. She certainly knew it, and she doesn't waste any time letting all of us know it, in an over-the-top performance in the rare vein of Faye Dunaway in "Mommie Dearest" and Bette Davis in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" - two ridiculously larger-than-life performances that have deservedly become both classics and camp classics. There is a fire behind Raymond's performance as Arlene that is truly a wonder to behold. She is never out of character, and nothing less than electrifying. It is an AMAZING performance, and she doesn't shy away from one word of the audacious, sordid material. She IS Arlene Bellings, chewing sets, scenery, and co-stars all the way through to the end, and creating one of the most complex, pitiable, and frightening villains that horror has ever seen. Of course major credit must go to Director Chuck Vincent, for keeping it all together and getting good performances out of all the players (and I'm sure just standing out of the way of Ruth Raymond and her performance) and to Director of Photography Larry Revene for excellent composition in many of the shots.

Bad and I can't stress this enough...

[PCJ1 · 11 April 2003]

Bad Blood is bad. Not in a good way. Not even in a funny way. Just bad. Most of the film seems dedicated to showing us Gregory Patrick in a half naked state. The plot is so awful it beggars belief. I picked this up 2nd hand and I wished I hadn't even spent the £1.50 on it. I should've used it to buy a packet of cigarettes with. Avoid at all costs.

Georgina Spelvin is terrific!

[lor_ · 2 April 2023]

My review was written in April 1989 after watching the film on Academy video cassette.

"Bad Blood", originally titled "Son", is an engrossing gothic thriller that allows a tour de force by Gerogina Spelvin, her best performance since "Devil in Miss Jones".

R-rate pic is being shopped at the Cannes fest market and is headed for video release Stateside in July.

Spelvin, billed here under a new pseudonym "Ruth Raymond", plays Arlene Billings, a wealthy artist who's reunited with long-lost son Gregory Patrick after he spots her portrait of lookalike daddy in an art gallery.

Melodramatic plot is set into motion when Patrick and his wife, Linda Blair, visit Spelvin's Long Island mansion. Blair is poisoned and Spelvin starts to make an incestuous move on Patrick, whom she imagines is her late husband come back to life.

Pic plays well in the Robert Aldrich "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" mode, though director Chuck Vincent's pacing drags a bit, especially during a lengthy monolog by Patrick's foster mom, Carolyn Van Bellinghen.

Spelvin's performance is topnotch, mixing dramatic, camp and sexy elements in uninhibited fashion (while she and Vincent keep the pic within the bounds of an R rating). Name talent Troy Donahue and Linda Blair have little to do, but newcomer Christina Veronica makes a nice impression as a ditzy, sexy maid.