User reviews

The greatest moment in "Blood Mania" is the point when you come to realize that the writer and lead actor of this terribly inept movie is actually one and the same person! So, in other words, this dude – Peter Carpenter – probably couldn't care less that the overall film is dull & derivative, because he arranged for himself that he could smooch and fondle the perky breasts of no less than three extremely cute and luscious women! Nice going, Peter! Hey, I certainly don't blame the guy because a) apparently he died quite young about one year after the release of this film, and b) at least "Blood Mania" is a lot more watchable than the other movie he wrote; "Point of Terror" starring Dyanne Thorne. Carpenter depicts Craig Cooper, a hunky and successful private physician with a stunning redhead girlfriend, but he's being blackmailed by a sleazy thug who knows that he performed illegal abortions in the past. One of Craig's patients is a wealthy private clinic owner with a nymphomaniac daughter named Victoria. Her insatiable sex-hunger is marvelously illustrated near the beginning of the film, when she jumps the pool boy who literally screams for his mother! Victoria wants to kill her father with drug aphrodisiacs and share the inheritance with Craig, but only if he promises to remain her personal sex toy forever. Complications arise when the inheritance unexpectedly goes to deceased's other daughter Gail. Luckily for Craig, Gail is another very beautiful chick that also easily falls for his charms, but obviously the mad raving Victoria will not allow this romance to happen! Okay, so… Where's the blood? Where's the mania? I'm actually convinced that this could have been much better, if only they focused more on the atmosphere and plot instead of the on the bare chests of the female cast members. The opening sequences hint at psychedelic situations, but the rest of the film is slow-paced and full of redundant dialogs. There's a bit of nasty bloodshed near the ending, but the actual finale is dumb and unsatisfying. The constant "music" is irritating and the best characters (like the witty nurse) get neglected. Worth seeing only for the continuously exposed boobs of Maria De Aragon, Reagan Wilson and Vicky Peters.

This film is best described as an early fore-runner for the glut of erotic thrillers choking the video store shelves today. In this one, a woman kills her father in order to get his inheritance to help a blackmailed doctor, but much to everyone's surprise, the inheritance goes to her sister instead! Nope, not making this up, folks. Worth a look to see the attractive DeAragon in the flesh, however, as well as the comical blackmailer who apes Clint Eastwood to the nth degree.

The Plot.

A sex-crazed nympho helps speed along her father's death so she can use the inheritance to help out her depraved boyfriend.

Firstly the movie sucks. It's one of the weirdest films you'll ever see, and not in a good way.

It's really horribly tedious to watch.

On the plus side the technicolor rendering is great.

But to be perfectly frank, all three stars I am giving this movie are because of the female lead who had the hottest body I have ever seen.

Coupled with this is her complete willingness to strip down every 5 seconds. It's an amazing body to observe. Not an ounce of fat and the longest, flattest torso you will ever see.

Get out the Vaseline.

Yet another one of Carpenter's drama-disguised-as-horror flicks. Dr. Craig Cooper (Carpenter) is in a bind. He is being blackmailed because of his past (he performed illegal abortions) but thinks he can silence the blackmailers up when his girl decides to off her wealthy father and give him the money. Too bad he didn't read the will first! D'oh! This is just as dull as Carpenter's later POINT OF TERROR and again features producer/co-writer/star Carpenter prancing around without a shirt. This offers nothing really except soap opera twists mixed with some flesh. If anything, the group foresaw the 90s career of Andrew Stevens with these tawdry plot lines. Director Robert Vincent O'Neill eventually made the first two trashy ANGEL flicks in the 80s. Look for Alex Rocco in a small role as a lawyer (was he ever young?). The flick features a tacked on horror-type opening credits that are actually better than the entire movie.

Blood Mania: A scumbag doctor is blackmailed by a former associate to fork over $50,000 in hush-money for performing illegal abortions. To make matters worse, one of his despicable bed-ridden patients has a slutty daughter that won't take "no" for an answer-- she just wants some scumbag doctor sex! It doesn't take long for the daughter to realize the doctor needs a lot of cash--stat. Finally, she has the opportunity to make the doc her personal sex-slave boy-toy: murder dad! This movie seizes every opportunity to take the low road: it has a great deal of nudity, perhaps to distract the audience from the fact that the characters are all generally nasty and repulsive. It's more of a sleazy, soft-core porn/soap opera than it is the horror film it bills itself as. Pay no attention to the opening credit sequence, as it has nothing to do with the rest of the film. For cartoon fans, there is a wickedly cool animated title card at the film's opening.

Young, unstable beautiful Victoria (Maria de Aragon) falls in love with young, hunky doctor Craig (Peter Carpenter) who's caring for her rich, sick father. She plans to inherit all his money when he dies. Then Dr. Craig is being blackmailed and needs a lot of money FAST! And Victoria's father is near death. Did I mention Victoria was unstable?

Sleazy piece of garbage. The script is silly to put it mildly with a REAL stupid ending; terrible direction in which characters speaking aren't even in the frame--one whole conversation is only shot from the waist down!; annoying, horrid 70s music which doesn't even remotely fit the on screen antics and just unbelievably bad acting by EVERYBODY! It's truly astonishing to see how badly EVERY scene is acted--you just stare at the TV screen in disbelief. The movie is chock full of unpleasant characters, plenty of gratuitous female nudity and cheap sex--including a hysterically bad sequence between de Aragon and Carpenter.

As for the actors themselves--they were all hired for their looks and bodies--not acting ability. Virtually every female member of the cast has multiple nude scenes and even Carpenter bares his butt briefly once or twice.

The DVD of this makes this movie look better than it deserves. The picture and sound are crystal clear and the colors are strong and vibrant. This could be used in film school--an example of how NOT to do a movie!

Also this isn't really a horror film--just a stupid, sleazy "drama". Bottom of the barrel--I give it a 1.

Whenever I think of legendary grade z studio Crown International, the first movie that pops in my head is BLOOD MANIA. I love Crown International's movies. There something about movies from that "studio" that I just can't help but love or appreciate. And BLOOD MANIA is probably its crowning (pun intended) achievement. Sleazy, cheap, obscure, with dream-like pacing and direction, BLOOD MANIA is almost one of kind in its wonky way of telling a story about sex, greed and murder. BLOOD MANIA is a soap opera but with a sleazy and lurid twist. BM is low key from beginning to end and never goes overboard with the sex, gore or violence, which is why maybe some don't like it. It's lurid enough to turn off the casual viewers but it's not lurid enough for fans of exploitation or gory enough for gorehounds. But I like this approach. The way I see it, the makers of this movie were probably inspired by the soap operas made in those days (EDGE OF NIGHT, for example) but wanted the film to be a notch higher on the sex and violent factors (but it's not high enough to what we've become accustomed to these days on TV or films).

The film spends a bit too much time on the plain looking nurse, mainly because her character doesn't go anywhere, but I like the mostly good looking cast. The scene where the blackmailer talks endlessly to the nurse is one weird moment captured on film. The way he talks and the dialogue he says, and they way the scene is shot, is oddly fascinating. And the ending is effective, even if it might be a little too late for most viewers.

I like BLOOD MANIA. I'll always look at it as one of Crown International's "best" films.

PS, make sure to check out POINT OF TERROR, another trash classic from Crown International Pictures and Peter Carpenter.

This attempt at a psychological horror film fails on literally every level. The acting is atrocious (even Alex Rocco acquits himself fairly poorly, though he's head and shoulders above anyone else here), the cinematography is pedestrian at best, the score is appalling and annoying, the thing is padded mercilessly, the sound is muddy and horrible (and I don't think it's all the fault of the video transfer), and the director's attempts at Art merely point up his hideous incompetence.

The video distributors try to capitalize on BLOOD MANIA's obscurity by marketing it as an exploitation flick, even assuring prosective viewers on the box that it is rated R for nudity and gore. In fact, there is none of either, and it mystifies me how the thing did manage to get an R rating. Perhaps the ratings board heard the title, saw the ultra-low-budget production values, assumed it deserved an R and just didn't pay any more attention to the thing. In a desperate effort to drum up interest among exploitation fans, they also mention rape and incest, which have nothing to do with anything in this movie.

Whether you like Hitchcock or TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, stay away from this one.

Why did I rent this? Because I kept seeing it on the video store shelf and finally gave in to see what it was like. I don't know why I do these things.

Victoria is a pretty bad girl, as the box says. And I guess she is. She seduces every guy she comes across, and then kills her father for his inheritance. Then her sister and some other woman come to their house, and Victoria learns her sister is getting the inheritance instead. A little more, some weak horror, a sudden ending, and there's your movie. Nothing scary, nothing interesting, just a lot of cheesy make-out scenes put together with one scene of bloody murder, and there's your film. It's quite dull, and lifeless. Leave it be.

You see a title like Blood Mania and think 'well, there should be some blood, and some violence, maybe some horror, and definitely mania.' Well, there is none of that. but oddly enough when I tried to find another title, perhaps one that was given to the film that wasn't made to beef up sales, there's none of that, either. Instead the movie is like a psychedelic soap opera concerning a skeezy doctor guy played by Peter Carpenter (who also co-wrote and produced the film) who has a 50,000 'tax problem' from giving abortions, and has to pay back the debt, and (one of) his lovers, sultry but cold Maria De Aragon, hatches her own plot to kill her bed-ridden a-hole father and then collect the inheritance... which is not the case, color us shocked.

I might be fine with the film not being, you know, horror, if it had something else to bring to the table dramatically. It doesn't even have that; this is, perhaps accurately, a reflection of what a "drive-in" movie was like at the time, and released in a box-set along with other Crown International pictures. At a drive-in the convention was that people would go to make out and/or have lots and lots of sex. I imagine that Blood Mania could make for a good drive-in movie in that context, as if you tune out for a while you won't miss much (say, for all of those scenes of soft-core sex, albeit nice to look at with the hot bodies of De Aragon and Reagan Wilson, pretty lifeless). Not least of which is one sort of 'montage' of walking around between Carpenter and Peters in their 'courtship' phase, and it just goes on and on and on.

I mention psychedelia because while no one really "trips" or smokes pot, there is in the music that rip-off flavor of something like Jimi Hendrix Experience. If only the director had more imagination then maybe it could have been a wicked melodrama - as it is whatever he tries to bring to the table is just not working throughout: dull characters, dull situations, over the top music, and not much blood really. If you need to tune out one night it's a good pick, but do NOT expect it to be horror, unless you're one of those people that considers the 2011 The Roommate to be horror. Or need to see copious oobs and don't want to scamper over to the internet.

Crappy cable TV-Movie with nothing going for it. Rated Z for ZIPPO! Julia (de Aragon) gets stiffed of her Dad's cash and kills her sister, the benefactor. Along the way, Julia sucks her Dad's doctor (Carpenter) in to her pornographically shot and audioed world. That's not the only thing that SUCKS about this film. Not even bad 70's fashion can save this sin-bin material.

Stylish film noir-like thriller concerning a dashing doctor (Carpenter) whose medical practice owner (Allison) is bed-ridden following a heart attack, his daughter (De Aragon) a seductive vixen with a psychotic streak and a penchant for mind altering substances is eager to sink her claws into the virile Carpenter, but he's already got his hands full with another lusty companion (Wilson). De Aragon paints bold, expressive canvasses, has lots of sex and looks dazzling in the buff. She also agrees to help out Carpenter after he's blackmailed for having been a backyard abortionist, a stain that threatens his career, but the grand plan they conjure begins to unravel when her little sister (Peters) returns to claim the inheritance.

Funky, psychedelic sex soap opera isn't as bad as I'd read; it's not so much "blood" as it is "mania", and there's plenty of plot twists and diversions to keep you engaged. Carpenter isn't the best actor, but he's charismatic and has the charm to pull it off, as his character digs his grave ever deeper with each carnal lapse, while De Aragon, Peters and Wilson are three impressive specimens in spite of their apparent amateurish acting (De Aragon does improve as the film progresses, her 'mania' is at times quite chilling). Leslie Simms is sometimes amusing as an ugly duckling nurse and Alex Rocco gets a few frivolous moments as an estate lawyer. You'd also have to appreciate the minor yet absorbing role played by Dalya as Peters' loyal lesbian minder.

The soundtrack is a hybrid electronica, progressive rock sound, a fusion you'll either find petulant and irritating, or fitting with the offbeat nature of the film. Overall, I like it - it's cheap, dated and clichéd (it also ends quite abruptly), but it remains a sensory attraction with plenty of effort displayed in light, sound, sets, cinematography (some credited to Gary Graver), costumes and colour, not garish or gaudy when taken in its temporal context. Worth a look if you're open-minded.

I don't know how, in my first year of film reviewing, I've managed to watch so many Crown International Films. Also, I don't know how these other reviewers can sleep at night, writing flat-out lies about these films...

Blood Mania, like most of these Crown Films, is a bad movie - both poorly cast and poorly written. Also, like most Crown Films, there is at least one stunningly beautiful woman getting naked. I understand that these films have a certain charm, but to award 'Blood Mania' (1970) an 8 star rating should earn you a canceled IMDB account and/or a trip to a cognitive therapist.

Peter Carpenter was a sad and nasty man - not the hero that some of these reviewers claim him to be. The worst (and saddest) gimmick in sexploitation films is the 'Writer/Lead Actor/Casting' roll that enables a middle-aged pervert to roll around on top of young starlets, under the false pretense that someone is trying to create art - or even a decent film. This film is so poorly made that most viewers probably didn't grasp the all of the ideas that Carpenter put in the script. But, he didn't mind, so long as he got to roll around on top of a couple of struggling actresses (and countless others throughout the casting process). Trash. Terrible camera angles, terrible post production editing, terrible final product.

So, if you like these movie, enjoy. But, know that you are watching a terrible film. And, please don't come to IMDB and try to rationalize your poor taste. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions and tastes, but no one is entitled to spread falsehoods and lies to promote their own agenda. To give this movie an 8 star rating on IMDB means that you believe this movie to be, roughly, one of the top 250 films ever made (in the 'IMDB Top Rated Films List', the top 250 cuts off at 8.0). So, again, enjoy the movie, but don't be stupid.

RealReview Posting Scoring Criteria: Acting - 0.5/1; Casting - 0.5/1; Directing - 0.5/1; Story - 1/1; Writing/Screenplay - 0.5/1;

Total Base Score = 3

Modifiers (+ or -): Standout Performances: +1 (Reagan Wilson - A beautiful woman who can act stands out among this cast of waitresses and used car salesmen.);

Distractingly Poor Editing: -1 (The audience needs more than half a second to grasp concepts like rape and incest. If you blinked while watching this film, you probably missed something.);

Total RealReview Rating: 2

There are people who are keen to point out Peter Carpenter's back- to-back 1970/1971 films Blood Mania and Point of Terror aren't horror movies at all. Which is in a sense fair, because the promotional material would lead one to believe that they were, but so what? Still others want us to know they think Carpenter was a Tom Jones wannabee and the music in Point of terror is bad. So what? Blood Mania and Point of Terror are perfectly trashy and entertaining pieces of early 70's schlock that are unique, wonderfully shot, and chock full of pretty people to look at.

Tonight I'm watching Blood Mania for the first time, and I have to say it's a lot of fun. Not in the traditional sense of the word "fun," but the sense someone who enjoys seeing movies that are unusual and enjoys finding something new and unique. Sure, peter Carpenter probably didn't have the chops to be a leading man in A movies, but he was every bit up to carrying these B movies on his shoulders, surrounding himself with beautiful scenery and beautiful women, and telling an outrageous story that challenges ones ability to believe.

It's sort of shame as a movie fan that we don't get these kinds of movies anymore. I mean we get bad movies, but not these kinds of bad movies. Blood Mania is an entertaining movie for those who aren't looking to waste their own time picking it apart.

Maybe about all that can be said good about Blood Mania it gives you a chance to some scantily clad women and some buff men if that's what your taste runs to. It has to be one of the dullest and worst acted films I've seen.

A couple of sisters one of them a real wild child are the daughter of a doctor who dies and disinherits the wild child. Bad for her, worse for her boyfriend who is a doctor being blackmailed. The boyfriend dumps wild child and focuses now on the good girl.

The film crosses over into softcore porn with some of the sex scenes.

The only actor I knew in this mess was Alex Rocco who two years later would get a really good part in The Godfather as Moe Green. He had all the emotion of a turnip delivering his lines as the lawyer at the reading of the will.

Blood Mania does get bloody in the end, but I'd skip this one folks.