Bad Blood (1989)

If there ever was a true diva of the pornographic realm, it was Georgina Spelvin who, at 36-years-old, was nearly middle-aged when she become famous by playing the lead role in Gerard Damiano’s wickedly lecherous porn chic classic The Devil in Miss Jones (1973) where she played an old sexless spinster who commits suicide but later gets a sexual chance at unholy sensuality after ending up in purgatory and begging an angel to allow her to earn her rightful place in hell via rampant lechery. Already over-the-hill by fuck film standards and not exactly the most beauteous nor busty babe in the world, Spelvin's popularity relied heavily on her sassy attitude, genuine acting talents, and eccentric erotic charms, as a sort of diva of debauchery whose maturity of age more than hinted at well developed carnal knowledge. If one questions Spelvin’s acting talents, they simply need to checkout her mostly unclad silent style slapstick comedic performance as an obscenely undersexed Bathsheba in Wakefield Poole’s underrated erotic arthouse biblical epic Bible! (1974), or her haunting Bergman-esque performance in Orson Welles’ protégé Gary Graver’s arthouse blue movie 3 A.M. (1975) where she portrays a lonely yet lecherous spinster who tragically accidentally kills her brother-in-law who she has been carrying on a long affair with and is thus forced to live with her undying guilt over her deep dark secret while living in the largely incestuous company of her pill-popping widowed sister, nephew, and bisexual niece. Of course, like many genuinely talented porn thespians of the porn chic era, Spelvin would also make an attempt at a more ‘respectable’ acting career by appearing in a couple of non-pornographic films, including small and less than dignified roles as a hooker in both Police Academy (1984) and Police Academy 3: Back in Training (1986), but she did not really get a chance to fully display her true acting talents until pornographic auteur Chuck Vincent (Roommates, Jack ‘n Jill) gave her the opportunity to star in his wonderfully warped Gothic psychological horror-thriller Bad Blood (1989) aka A Woman Obsessed aka A Woman's Obsession aka Blutige Liebe as a whacked-out widowed rich bitch of the madly murderous sort who uses her alluring opulence and psychopathic charms to lure in and sexually enslave her long lost son who she schizophrenically mistakes for her long dead husband. A sort of hyper histrionic Reagan era neo-hagsploitation flick where the old homicidal hag is thankfully at least marginally attractive, Vincent’s unsurprisingly underrated psychosexual psychodrama, like the director’s similarly underrated Repulsion-esque chamber piece Deranged (1987), is an extremely morbid, tastefully twisted, and borderline ‘misogynistic’ little movie that depicts female mental illness in its most unsettling form. Like the old school psycho-biddy bitch spirits of classics like Sunset Boulevard (1950) and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) haunting the same unhinged celluloid universe as Misery (1990) in a work that seems like it was directed by the bastard brood of Alfred Hitchcock and Swiss arthouse auteur Daniel Schmid (La Paloma, Schatten der Engel aka Shadow of Angels), Bad Blood is killer cultivated kitsch with high-camp elements that demonstrates in a horrifyingly hysterical and sometimes darkly humorous fashion that Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, especially if she is a stinking rich spoiled bitch with a rather unconventional daddy issue who hasn’t gotten over her less than faithful hubby’s grizzly death from a couple decades ago. 

 Ted Barnes (second-rate porn star Randy Spears under the pseudonym ‘Gregory Patrick’) is a seemingly soulless preppie lawyer and proud mindless workaholic who would probably suck Ronald Reagan's cock if asked to and who literally wastes no time doing banal preppie things, even jogging while in his office to get exercise. One day, while jogging in downtown Manhattan, a sneering fag queen named Bobby (Frank Stewart of Gorman Bechard’s Psychos in Love (1987) and Vincent’s Cleo/Leo (1989)) approaches him and literally drags him into his art gallery to show Ted a portrait painting that looks exactly like him to prove to himself that he is “not hallucinating” since the drugs he has been taking recently are “not that good.” Indeed, the man in the painting is the spitting image of Ted and as the gallery queen Bobby explains to him, it was painted by “some dilettante from Long Island” that “thinks she can paint.” As the bitchy cocksucker gallery owner also explains, the ostensible artist behind the painting rented the gallery for an entire month just to display her work and when Ted asks him for her name and address, he explains that she refuses to give it out, as if she has something to hide. Unquestionably, the strangest thing of all is that the painting was done in 1964 when Ted would have been just a newborn baby and surely not the generically handsome proud preppie prima donna he is today. Interested to find out who was responsible for the painting, Ted goes with his revoltingly sassy know-it-all wife Evie (child actress turned exploitation diva Linda Blair of The Exorcist (1973) and Tom DeSimone’s Hell Night (1981)) to the official gallery showing where they are soon aggressively approached by the artist, Arlene Bellings (Georgina Spelvin under the pseudonym ‘Ruth Raymond’), who declares that she is “the creator of these masterpieces” and invites the married couple to dinner, thus somewhat strangely leaving in the middle of her own show, as if she just set it up as a way to lure in the two strangers. Needless to say, Ted is in for quite the shock when Arlene proclaims that their meeting was an act of fate and that she is his mother, he is her long lost son, and the man in the painting is her husband/his father. After revealing that she created the painting in 1964 just after her husband Joe stole him when he was just a wee baby and disappeared into New York City, materialistic turd Ted freaks out and threatens to sue Arlene for “everything” she has, “including the kitchen sink.”  Of course, Ted's initial instincts are right, as Arlene is a bat-shit crazy bitch, though it will take a dead wife and falling victim to a savage mother-on-son rape for him to completely figure this out, as he is a man who has got his eyes on the money and his long lost mother has got tons of it.

 When Ted goes to his mother Wanda (Carolyn Van Bellinghen of Vincent’s two 1989 films Bedroom Eyes II and Enrapture) about Arlene’s claims, she breaks down and confesses that she ‘stole’ him out of the fear that her husband Jack (Troy Donahue of Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life (1959) and John Waters Cry-Baby (1990)) would leave her since she was infertile. Apparently a man offered Wanda a baby boy if she screwed him and that baby was Ted, who she visited frequently while contemplating whether or not she should cheat on her husband so that they both could have a son. One day, Wanda went to see the man and the baby, only to find the latter by itself with the man nowhere in sight, so she stole the infant and the rest was history. Of course, the man with the baby was Ted's biological father Joe. Upon receiving the confirmation from Wanda that Arlene is indeed his biological mother, he decides to take a trip with his wife to his long lost progenitor’s darkly glamorous Gothic home in Long Island. When Ted and his wife arrive at the huge ancient and somewhat ominous estate, there is a huge fancy party and the protagonist is told by Arlene that it is his “welcome home” celebration. While hanging out at the party, Ted is approached by an old drunk dude named Jasper (Harvey Siegel of Vincent’s Deranged and Bedroom Eyes II) who states, “Your Dad and I were in the navy together...enlisted the same day. We had a girl in every port, you know?! Joe had two, sometimes three.” When Ted asks if he has heard from his father recently, Jasper reveals that his biological mother’s wealthy father blew poor Joe's brains out. That night, Arlene explains her father’s hatred towards his deceased father ‘Joe Jenkins’, stating, “Daddy said you could tell by the name how ‘common’ he was and insisted I continue using my maiden name even after Joe and I were married…couldn’t have a daughter of his named Jenkins, oh no. But Joe didn’t care, he just laughed. Of course, Joe didn’t care much about anything. See, Daddy was convinced that Joe was a bum who was only after my money. It was true of course, but I didn’t care. I loved him. I loved him more than I ever loved anything. You probably find it hard to believe…Joe brought the first true happiness I ever knew in my life. He made me feel alive…like a real person, instead of daddy’s little windup doll and he loved me too, I know he did.” Arlene then goes on to tell Ted how his father began cheating on her when she became pregnant because, “nine months of sexual abstinence was simply not in Joe’s nature.” Ultimately, Arlene’s father blew Joe’s brains out after he asked for a divorced and subsequently kidnapped baby Ted and tried to blackmail the distraught mother with it. Indeed, it seems Ted has accursed blood with a deep irreparable taint. 

 Ted begins suspecting his biological mother might have a screw loose after catching her ripping up a bouquet of flowers on her father’s tombstone while hysterically screaming, “Joe has come back just like I thought he would and you will never be able to keep us apart again. Joe and I will have everything and you will rot in hell.” When Ted goes inside, he becomes quite startled after bumping into the sexy yet appallingly dumb and annoyingly talkative maid Crystal (Christina Veronica of scifi-horror-comedy They Bite (1996)), who attempts to seduce him while sucking on a carrot like it is a cock, even opening her robe so he can checkout her carnal goods, but the discernibly intimidated lawyer turns her down. At the end of the scene, it is revealed that Arlene has been listening to the entire conversation between Ted and Crystal on the other side of the wall. When it is revealed that Crystal has disappeared the next day, it becomes quite apparent who is responsible. Meanwhile, Ted wife’s Evie becomes so sick that she becomes bedridden and a doc soon reveals that she is suffering from “good old fashioned food poisoning,” with Arlene's hors d'oeuvres being the culprit for her illness. Naturally, when Arlene gives Ted his father’s prestigious purple heart and promises him that he will inherit everything she owns, the lost son finds it easier to overlook his mother's bizarre possessive behavior and various other idiosyncrasies.  When Ted and his wife finally decide to leave Arlene’s home due to the latter's poor health, they end up unwittingly running over Crystal’s corpse, which a cop reveals had already been dead 12-14 hours before they ran over it as a result of being brutally beaten to death.  Due to the tragic roadkill incident, as well as because of Evie's declining health, the two decide to stay at Arlene's for a little longer in what ultimately proves to be the biggest mistake of their entire lives.  Despite the fact that her maid has been mysteriously brutally murdered, Arlene is in a rather excited mood and forces her son to dance with her while repeatedly ‘accidentally’ calling him Joe. Meanwhile, after feeding some of her food to Arlene’s kitty cat Twinkie that results in the feline’s subsequent death, Evie realizes she has been poisoned and attempts to crawl down stairs to tell Ted, who has been drugged himself and begins losing consciousness while dancing with his decidedly deranged progenitor. When Evie finally manages to crawl downstairs and spots her semi-conscious husband being sexually taken advantage of, Arlene grabs a large butcher knife, chases her around, and ultimately slits her throat in front of a roaring fire while poor Teddy boy watches helplessly as his messed up mommy maliciously murders his beloved wife. 

 When Ted finally awakes, he finds his arms and legs bound to a bed and his mental case mommy calling him ‘Joe.’ Indeed, with Evie and maid Crystal out of the picture, Arlene can finally fully live out her terribly twisted schizophrenic fantasy that her son is her long dead husband. Of course, Arlene eventually rapes her son by mounting him while he is tied to the bed and stating, “oh Joe, I’ve waited so long” in a rather waywardly wanton scene that is easily the most overtly ‘erotic’ scene in the entire film.  Arlene also reveals that it was not her father but she who actually murdered Ted's father Joe after threatening her son with the following words, “I’ll get daddy’s 22 and blow your brains out just like I did before.” Hoping to renew her vows with the long dead hubby that she personally murdered, Arlene begins planning a large lavish wedding at her home where Ted will be the groom. Meanwhile, Ted’s adoptive parents come by Arlene’s house asking for him and when the crazed cunt makes the dubious claim that their son and Evie “went antiquing,” they know it is complete and utter bullshit because, as Wanda states, “Those two wouldn’t know an antique from a piece of junk.” Of course, Ted suffers much torture under Arlene’s watch, including the slow breaking of his toes while his mad incestuous mommy sings the nursery rhyme “This Little Piggy” in what one might describe as a warped way for an estranged mother to catch up on her maternal duties. During the day of the big wedding, Ted’s adoptive mother walks in on Arlene giving Ted a shave while he is tied to a chair and a somewhat darkly humorous cat fight soon ensues. Brutalized and beaten to the point of complete physical and psychological incapacitation, Ted watches helplessly as Arlene drowns Wanda in a bathtub. When Ted’s adoptive father Jack catches Arlene with his badly beaten son, another brawl breaks out that results in the old man falling on his back from a floor or two after being push over a railing and assumedly dying. After that, Wanda, who miraculously survived the drowning, once again attempts to save her son, so Arlene chases her around with a straight razor. Like some retarded slasher killer like Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers, Arlene is seemingly repeatedly killed, but she keeps coming back. Eventually, father Jack puts a couple bullets in Arlene just before she attempts to slit his wife’s throat. Ironically, while succumbing to her injuries, Arlene manages to walk down the aisle of her wedding, albeit without her mensch, thus making for one of the most distinctly pathetic embarrassments a woman could ever suffer. While Ted and his two adoptive parents survive the ugly ordeal, he is plagued by ominous Oedipal nightmares involving his belated biological mother Arlene, who haunts her prodigal son’s dreams like a sort of femme fatale Freddy Krueger. 

 Except maybe when I was a naïve little kid, I have never believed the stereotype that women are more romantic and sentimental than men. Yeah, a lot of chicks can be conned into being fucked if you feed their egos with kind words, sweet gestures, and worthless gifts, but women are for the most part more practical about life and will dump a man they genuinely love for a man that repels them if he has enough money and other forms of security to provide her with, so the idea of a rich woman not getting over her long dead, deadbeat lumpenprole hubby after around three decades seems somewhat preposterous, but then again, that is one of the reasons that Georgina Spelvin’s character is oh-so damn creepy in Bad Blood, though I cannot say that I would not be strangely flattered if some girl loved me so much that she still loved me three decades after blowing my brains out with a .22 rifle. Unquestionably, Spelvin embodies the hyper hysterical emotionally wounded woman in the film to the point of seeming like a female Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde with a perennial case of PMS. Indeed, she might forever best be remembered for her performance in The Devil in Miss Jones, but Spelvin gives her greatest, most captivating and penetrating performance in Bad Blood to the point where she makes her co-star Linda ‘The Exorcist’ Blair look like an outstandingly annoying and insufferable little plodding twat and more of a distracting dork than the dignified exploitation diva that she has a reputation for being. In fact, it’s impossible to imagine Vincent’s film without Spelvin, as she is certainly to the film what Gloria Swanson was to Sunset Boulevard (1950) and what Vivien Leigh was to Gone with the Wind (1939). In its debasing depiction of a foredoomed family plagued by inter-generational incest and violent coldblooded murder, as well as its delightfully daunting depiction of homicidally hysterical lovelorn females, Bad Blood is like an Andy Milligan film on steroids, albeit with the use of some minor avant-garde techniques, including split-screen and an unforgettable slow-motion ‘dance of death’ sequence concluding with Spelvin’s character romantically kissing her son as his wife watches on in horror.

 The ultimate anti-Oedipal horror show and odious celluloid orgy of incestuous blood, Bad Blood could have only been dreamed up by homos with a Tennessee Williams-esque contempt for straight men and aberrant admiration for strong and sadistic older women. Indeed, aside from Vincent directing the film, the work was penned by queer screenwriter Craig Horrall (who also wrote Vincent's Deranged and Slammer Girls), who incidentally succumbed to AIDS the same year as the director, whose films he also worked on as a casting director, actor, and even assistant director, among various other capacities.  Notably, while depicting women as homicidal hysterics, Bad Blood also portrays hotshot heterosexual lawyers as weak ass helpless wusses who need their mothers to fight their fights for them.  In short, one of the greatest aspects of Vincent's film, like much of the director's other work, is its wickedly warped yet strikingly nuanced depiction of sexual relations.  Indeed, in its fag style misogyny, Bad Blood depicts the unsettling traits of certain women that no heterosexual man is either able to fathom and/or is willing to accept, hence the true source of the film's horror.

-Ty E