A Taste of Blood

At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon, today’s horror fans don’t know how good they have it.  Back in the day (that would be the ‘80s) home video presentations of foreign movies meant dubbed, censored, pan and scan versions that rarely captured the filmmaker’s original intent.  As we climbed out of the analog sewer and embarked on the digital revolution, the pendulum swung towards subtitles, correct aspect ratios and international cuts that added more than we’d ever seen before.  So why the trip down memory lane?  Because the release of A.K. Tolstoy’s A Taste of Blood (2020) is an interesting throwback to complicated, multiple-version history of horror imports.

Based on the same story Mario Bava used for his verdalak segment in Black Sunday (or Black Sabbath in its home country of Italy…see what I mean!), this expansion of the Russian myth about a blood-sucking creature that feeds only on its family members offers an original twist on the vampire legend.  In director Santiago Fernandez Calvete’s film, a family has self-isolated for years because of their father’s fear of the clever creatures.  But his efforts prove useless when a verdalak attacks his daughter, pitting the family against each other as each suspects the other of becoming a monster.

 

Although set in modern Argentina, A Taste of Blood plays like a period film.  And that’s a good thing.  Calvete’s style is polished but still leans toward classic horror imagery, effectively utilizing practical make-up effects and the power of suggestion over cheap jump scares.  And he’s supported by a cast that seems lifted from a lost Hammer film, particularly German Palacios who bears a striking resemblance to Karloff under the heavy beard and haggard appearance.  There was plenty more suspense to be squeezed out of the third act twist, but A Taste of Blood stakes its own claim in a genre cluttered with copycats.

 

But on to the elephant in the room.  MVD’s Blu-ray includes two versions of the film: an English dubbed presentation and another with the original Spanish tracks.  The first version inexplicably only dubs two or three main characters and supplements the soundtrack with a mix of post-punk, dark wave songs that cut in on selected scenes (think Demons but slightly more subtle).  It’s an odd creative choice but one that explain why the set also includes a soundtrack CD featuring artists like Rosetta Stone and Christian Death.  Meanwhile, the Spanish language version offers no subtitles at all and leaves the orchestral score intact.  It’s a compromise either way, but at the very least you can console yourself with a horror-themed soundtrack that as good as anything your listened to in 1985!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tormented

Image
The west coast always struggled to create a creepy atmosphere on screen.  All that southern California sunshine just doesn’t lend itself to ghostly apparitions or gothic castles.  But  Tormented  (1960) gives it a good try, staging its opening scene in an abandoned lighthouse where blackmail turns into murder - and one cover up leads to another.  Director Bert I. Gordon, better known for his giant-sized - but low-budget - monster movies, works well at this level, turning in a film that delivers small scares but perhaps his most  professional finished product. Tom Stewart (played by genre regular Richard Carlson) is a fairly successful jazz pianist whose impending marriage to Meg Hubbard (Susan Gordon) will put him in an entirely new tax bracket.  Trouble is his old flame, Vi (Juli Reding), isn’t taking this lying down.  After  allowing  her to fall to her death in the opening scene, Tom is haunted by disembodied visions of his ex-lover who refuses to go quietly into the afterlife.  And
Read more

The Cat and the Canary

Image
My favorite directors have always been showoffs:  Hitchcock, DePalma, Spielberg (when he’s feeling frisky) and gonzo auteurs like Sam Raimi.  There’s just something about their cinematic ambition, constantly reminding the audience that, yes, there actually  is  someone behind the camera calling the shots.  And that directorial discontent shines through even in the early days of the medium, such as Paul Leni’s 1927 adaptation of  The Cat and the Canary .  While the rest of the industry was still learning the basics of visual language, Leni fills his frame with tracking shots, POVs and dramatic lighting that set the standard for every spook show to come!  Gathered for the reading of the last will and testament of eccentric recluse Cyrus West,  the potential heirs meet up in his decrepit mansion to discover who will inherit the estate and family jewels.  Predictably there is some petty jealousy when young Annabelle West is named the sole beneficiary…that is, if she can be proved sane afte
Read more

Impulse

Image
William Shatner, for all his ego and arrogance, always seemed comfortable being the butt of a joke.  His career outside of the  Star Trek  franchise was a bumpy road of corny TV shows and enjoyable B-movie dreck.  But he never delivered anything less than 100% “Shatner!”  Like 1974’s  Impulse , a regional drive-in quickie directed by William Grefé ( Stanley, Mako: Jaws of Death ) that casts the once and future Captain Kirk as a psychologically troubled con man whose childhood trauma leads to a string of murdered women.  After dumping the body of his last victim in a Florida canal, Matt Stone (Shatner) is on the prowl for another financial windfall, this time using a phony investment scam to entice Ann (Jennifer Bishop) into a romantic relationship.  But when Ann’s daughter, Tina, is witness to the murder of his business associate (Harold “Chop Top” Sakata), Matt has to clean up his tracks and speed up his escape plan.  That includes silencing Tina…and whoever else gets in his way.   Ta
Read more