Blood Sabbath
1972, USA, Directed by Brianne Murphy
Colour, Running Time: 82 minutes
DVD, Region 2, Pegasus, Video: 1.30:1, Audio: Mono
Travelling man David is wandering through the woods after being sprayed with beer by a passing hippy girl with her breasts out, when he finds a place to kip down for the night, unaware that a group of naked female hippies are initiating some sort of orgy nearby (how come that never happens when I sleep in the woods?). Before long several of the nubile young women are investigating his body (and that certainly doesn’t happen), generally disturbing his sleep. Waking up the next morning he finds the rabid women gone, but in their place is Yyalah, a quiet blonde (does this guy’s good fortune know no bounds?) who seems reluctant to reveal who she is, only departing after he forces her to promise to return. Soon unconscious again, he reawakens but in the home of an old beggar (okay, perhaps things are not looking so good now…) whom he joins for lunch. David can’t stop thinking about Yyalah and starts hanging by the lake hoping to see her again, not realising that she’s actually spying on him. He soon runs into her again but the melancholic girl seems socially distant and unlike anyone he’s ever met before. She leads him to a secluded cave where they begin kissing but there’s a crazy sorceress prowling around who we find out has some sort of deal going on with the old beggar: he is supposedly supplying her with victims for sacrificial rites and, having spotted him with Yyalah, now she wants a piece of David too. It’s not long before the witch, naked of course, is casting a love spell on David, but he’s already falling in love with Yyalah - the only problem is, she can’t fall in love with someone who has a soul, and thus begins his quest to lose his soul.
Barely a few minutes can pass by in this film without the actresses stripping down to the bare flesh, and therein lies the film’s only attraction: naked women (and Western women never looked as consistently sexy as they did in the seventies), because the story or technical and artistic aspects certainly have little going for them. One point of minor interest is the appearance of Dyanne Thorne as the sorceress, later to star in the Nazi sexploitation Ilsa films. The general feel of this movie is of very obscure, low budget seventies genre films such as Till Death, Reborn, and The Child, but Blood Sabbath is bottom of the barrel no matter what you compare it to. Then again, there is the abundance of naked female beauties to consider…
I’ve noticed this has appeared on one or two cheapo DVD labels in the UK. The Pegasus disc is hardly a stellar example of the digital format but I suspect the others are no better - a rough, soft, washed-out, fullframe transfer is accompanied by a muffled soundtrack and some meaningless stills from the film. One for fans of fairly bad films and naked bodies.