There are times throughout the ongoing evolution of the 4K
UHD playback format for films old and new that the technology for restoring and
presenting films either forgotten or otherwise mistreated over the years is a
revelation. Like something that was dry
and withered due to neglect is now bountiful and replenished, full of the life
it once had audiences of today never knew about. And other times it can be a bit like putting
lipstick on a pig.
Such is the case of Bill
Lustig owned boutique label Blue Underground’s 4K Dolby Vision re-release of Spanish
exploitation stalwart Jess Franco’s 1970 witch hunt trash sleaze heap Night
of the Blood Monster or as it is more commonly known The Bloody Judge. Starring Christopher Lee in his second film
with Jess Franco alongside Count Dracula released the same year, it is
more or less a Grindhouse version of Witchfinder General or Witchhammer
by way of Mark of the Devil.
Not quite nunsploitation but somehow this feels filthier than a number
of those films put together.
The true (albeit embellished for sensationalist effect)
story of Judge Jeffreys the 17th century Welsh witchfinder and his
sadistic reign of terror on medieval England who, like many witchfinders before
him thrived on condemning women as witches to further his psychosexual desires
and ruthless political chicanery. Unbeknownst
to Jeffreys, even more depraved forms of torture including but not limited to
frequent sexual assault is taking place in his dungeons.
When a sister of the condemned tries to
appeal to the judge’s leniency but instead is met with unwanted sexual advances
from Jeffreys, she joins a rebel gang to try and overthrow the dictatorial
bloodthirsty judge. All things
considered, most of the rest of the film is keenly interested to a scopophilia
including but not limited to a rape scene where as the victim is being attacked,
Franco and cinematographer Manuel Merino’s camera slowly pans away from her
face and zooms in on her exposed breast.
Its that kind of film, making no bones about the brand of sexploitation
on display tailored for Grindhousers.
Tawdry, prurient and everything films like The Devils and
Witchfinder General aren’t, this is the fifth screen portrayal of the
infamous The Bloody Judge (alternate releasing title) featuring Christopher
Lee in a film of his own admission is a collection of ‘scenes of extraordinary
depravity’. While the tortures of the
damned do offer their varying degrees of transgression with women bound and
stretched on a rack covered in blood with their ripped clothes barely hanging
on to their threads, the characters including the infamous Judge Jeffreys aren’t
rather fleshed out or interesting. Despite
the presence of notable actors like Maria Schell as a blind witch, Howard
Vernon as a thuggish executioner and Maria Rohm from Jess Franco’s own Venus
in Furs as a woman falsely accused of witchcraft, the film never fully clicks
and what should be a synergistic mixture of religious and political chicanery,
blasphemy and pornography instead is just kind of torpid.
Whereas in Ken Russell’s The Devils or
more recently Juan Lopez Moctezuma’s Alucarda they found a way to marry
the prurience with strategic emotional or psychological power, Night of the
Blood Monster aka The Bloody Judge in all of its debauched amoral
glory just kind of lays there until its running time is over with. Christopher Lee fans are inclined to pass on
this. Blue Underground’s release is
terrific but this is strictly for Jess Franco disciples only.
--Andrew Kotwicki