A baroque exercise in Grand Guignol horror, BLOOD RELATIONS dresses up its thin, predictable plot with layers of menacing atmosphere. After a period of jet-setting around Europe, young Thomas Wells (Kevin Hicks) returns to the family mansion married to Marie (Lydie Dernier), a pretty
little gold-digger he picked up in a Monte Carlo casino. At once the couple plots the death of Thomas' father, Andrea (Jan Rubes), whom Thomas claims to hate because he caused the auto accident that left Thomas' late mother paralyzed. Moreover, with Andrea out of the way, Thomas stands to inherit
$250 million from his dying grandfather, Charles (Ray Walston). In an effort to cause Andrea to overstrain his heart, Marie and Thomas play sadistic practical jokes on him. But Andrea proves to be in better health than expected; his ticker just keeps ticking, even after vigorous sex. Hmmmm.
Coincidentally, father and son are brain surgeons, and together they drug Marie and take extensive cranial measurements. Hmmmm. And when Charles is brought home from the hospital, he has Marie strip and remarks how closely she resembles his poor, dead daughter. Hmmmm. Awakened by shrieks one
night, Marie finds Andrea in a basement operating-room, driving steel rods into a girl friend's skull. And Thomas' mother, paralyzed but very much alive, lies in a corner looking on approvingly. Hmmmm. After the family's young attorney tells Marie he believes she's being set up, he winds up
strapped to the operating-chair with Charles' brain transplanted into his head. Hmmmm. Having decided that something's going on that might affect her future well-being, Marie flees to the protection of the gentle family caretaker. But he, too, turns out to be a brain-surgery enthusiast, and when
last seen Marie looks even more empty-headed than usual as Mother is wheeled into the operating-room.
In the hands of anyone else, BLOOD RELATIONS probably would have been a waste of time. But director Graeme Campbell (whose previous work includes the superior crime thriller MURDER ONE) has a florid, over-the-top style that is well suited to this material. Here he mixes the ghastly with the erotic
and utilizes Rhett Morita's moody photography to good effect. In the role of Dr. Andrea Wells, Rubes appears to be employing techniques learned at the Vincent Price School of Dramatic Arts, and he even gets to sing some stirring operatic solos. Dernier has the face and body of a high-fashion
model, but the amoral character she is asked to play is paper-thin. This shallowness may have been a calculated move to keep viewers from being too disturbed by her fate, but it leaves the film without a sympathetic character in sight. Even Stephen Saylor, who wrote the screenplay, takes on a
dim-witted role; he plays the ill-fated young attorney, who, we are told, is more useful as a cadaver than a counselor. Viewers who enjoy the Cinema of Cruelty could do worse than this handsome brain-juggling act, but they shouldn't expect much in the way of surprises. (Sexual situations, adult
situations, violence, nudity.) leave a comment
