BLOOD DELIRIUM

Dear Reader,


There are some films that should never be seen. This is one of them.


Blood Delirium

I've been sitting in front of this keyboard for the past 30 minutes trying to think of something to say about BLOOD DELIRIUM. Something constructive. Something witty. Something profound. So far, I'm drawing a blank. I can't even bear to look at my list of notes. I know I might find something buried in them that would help me out of this conundrum. I know somewhere there is something that might help me find my way through this. But I don't want to read them. I don't want to relive, in any way, the monstrosity that is BLOOD DELIRIUM.


I've seen bad films before. We all have. Sometimes we even enjoy them. There's a perverse sense of enjoyment one gets from watching bad cinema with a group of friends. You toss insults at the screen, devise drinking games and laugh in unison. It can be a great bonding experience. It's a whole other ball of wax when it's just you and your television. I've never felt so alone watching a film. Before my disbelieving eyes was a film so terrible, so inept, so absolutely confusing and I, like a deer in headlights, sat there, slack-jawed, mouth agape, as the whole thing played out. I wanted to scream. I wanted to run far, far away. But I didn't budge. I didn't bat an eyelash.


Remember when you were a teenager? Back when seeing a shockumentary was something like a badge of honor? Your friends would tell stories about how they saw such-and-such a movie and you would say with great pride "yeah, well, I saw FACES OF DEATH 3" or something. If you were still a teenager, sitting through this film would have proven that you, my friend, had balls of steel. It's simply that awful. It requires a near super-human level of patience and nerves of steel to make it through BLOOD DELIRIUM without hitting the fast-forward button.


I don't even think my synopsis is right. How could it be? I typed it as the movie went along. It was the only way I could keep track of what was going on. But it can't be right, can it?


Blood Delirium

It begins with a topless European woman called Sybille setting the dinner table for her artist boyfriend. The room suddenly goes wild, wind begins howling, the piano begins playing itself. She hears a voice from the future. Only the voice is her own. It tells her that they'll meet again soon. The boyfriend, a pony-tailed dweebish looking chap named Gerard, returns home. We cut to a castle. A man named Charles is watching his wife, Christine, die. She is the spitting image of Sybille. Is this the future? Charles apparently has psychic powers. The doctor arrives just as Christine dies. We cut and Christine is being buried. As Charles plays the organ, his butler and handiman Herman begins fondling the corpse. A year passes. Charles and Herman dig up Christine's body, placing a skin mask over the skull. A little later, Sybille is playing the piano. Suddenly the wind blows her window open. In flies a piece of paper. She reads it. It's an advertisement for an art exhibit. She attends and meets the painter. It's Charles.


Charles immediately recognizes Sybille. He thinks she is the reincarnation of Christine, a strange idea given the fact that Christine only died a year ago and Sybille is clearly in her 30s. He tries to talk Sybille into coming with him to his castle. She refuses. As Charles drives home, his car is enveloped in fog and attacked by weird blue orbs and the smirking face of his dead wife. When the fog clears, Charles meets Sybille. She decided to join him afterall. The two make their way to Charles' castle. Herman is shocked to see Sybille, thinking she is Christine. Christine is given a dress to wear and Charles tries to get her to pose for him. Both Sybille and Christine were piano players. But Sybille's piano playing skills and beauty are not enough to remove the creative block Charles is suffering from. That little bit of inspiration comes later on when Herman kills a young woman. Charles arrives just after Herman has stabbed her to death and discovers that the young girl's blood is an amazing shade of red. Perfect for painting with.


Blood Delirium

Could that be right? It doesn't exactly make much sense. But then again nothing about BLOOD DELIRIUM made sense. The metaphysical stuff felt like it was from another film and the entire last half played out like a Gothic remake of COLOR ME BLOOD RED without the humor and charm. Once Gerard catches wind of Sybille being in danger, he tries to catch a lift to the castle in a moving van. When they say no, he inexplicably shows up in a helicopter, piloting his way to a showdown. The dialogue is atrocious. They use the same piece of music - about 45 seconds - over and over again. The continuity is all over the place. They seem to be using the same room over and over again in every scene. The whole film is a clusterfuck of a mess.


The dialogue is the worst kind of amateur prattle. Watching John Philip Law sleepwalk his way through the film is depressing. This is the man who played Tom Swanson. This is the man who played Diabolik. This is the man who played Bill Meceita and Pygar, Sinbad and Alexei Kolchin. But here he is delivering lines like:


"I want to express the ferment of life and evolution! But I don't know the first thing about evolution or life?! Can you give me the color of suffering? The color of life, this magnificent planet lost in the vortex of the infinite galaxy?! Our useless pride drowned in the sea of eternal chaos?!"


My heart sinks. I don't even know the man and yet I feel like crying for him.


Blood Delirium

I should have known better. I should have stopped the film as soon as I saw his name. As soon as I saw Sergio Bergonzelli I should have stopped the film. I've suffered through IN THE FOLDS OF THE FLESH. I fought my way through OUR LADY OF LUST and CORRUPTION IN THE SENATE. I came out sane, but battered and bruised. BLOOD DELIRIUM almost broke me, but I survived. I have fought the good fight against a film the likes of which you have never seen and never should see. Believe me, Dear Reader, no good can come from laying your eyes upon the sheer awfulness that is BLOOD DELIRIUM. Stay away. Stay far, far away. Do not come any closer.


Terrible.