Night of the Blood Monster 4K UltraHD BluRay review

Review of the 2024 Blue Underground home video release of The Bloody Judge aka Night of the Blood Monster on 4K UltraHD BluRay.

• Buy From Amazon.com

The Film

Loosely based on a real life justice in 17th century England, the film tells the story of Judge Jeffries (Christopher Lee) who presided over witch trails, mostly to further political goals. In the film, he ruthlessly condemns women to death by hanging and fire (as well as other means, and torture), making political enemies along the way. One of them is Lord Wessex (Leo Glenn) whose son gets swept up in the witch hunt. It doesn't help either that both judge as well as Wessex' son fancy Mary (Maria Rohm), sister of witch Alicia (Margaret Lee) who gruesomely burned at the stake, and - to the credit of the judge's paranoia, the local girls as well as Wessex' son were indeed, knowingly or simply by (romantic) association, mingling with revolutionaries such as Barnaby (Peter Martell), foreshadowing a Dutch invasion...

The film is accompanied by an unimpressive score by frequent Morricone-collaborator Bruno Nicolai and produced by Jess Franco 's main man Harry Alan Towers. Aside from Maria Schell (who plays a character I can't make much sense of), it's great to see the great Peter Martell make a brief appearance in the film to make up for Christopher Lee's bewildering performance.

Clocking (in this fairly integral version) at 102 minutes, the film starts off as a seemingly extensive historical film and then deals in the power struggles between the reign of James, unruly lords and an impending Dutch invasion. Much to my surprise, there's no witchcraft in this movie really, at least none visible, just plenty of the alleged kind. Even more surprising, it takes up just barely a fraction of the film. The main theme of the film is the ruthlessness of the judge and his blind allegiance to the crown, who instrumentalizes his vast legal authority and the hunting for "witches and wenches" to purge the lands of dissent and rebellion. Lord Wessex' son, his lover and their friends become targets, and all get swept up in massive and quick court proceedings. They all get sentenced to hang or burn, not without a proper stint in the torture chambers of course. There we get to see a glimpse of what could constitute exploitative material, with some fake blood, whippings, some insinuations of lesbian affection and good old sadism. Franco checks nudity off the list early on in the movie, but it's usually Rohm rolling around in the hay or getting a bath, nothing to write home about. All in all, I found The Bloody Judge surprisingly, nay, shockingly, tame and forgettable.

And that's interesting, because Franco's films usually don't waste exploitation potential. This one tries a bit harder on the historical end, with at least a full blown battle sequence featuring cannons, but I find it mindboggling that there isn't more torture, sex and mayhem in this one. Even in one scene where a woman is burned at the stake, no flames can be seen and she's eventually pushed to the ground, falling with the ladder she's tied to, and none of that is seen. What's going on there, Jess? We see a few girls dancing in the woods, around a campfire where some pin head needles are stuck in a piece of wood or maybe a bird, but there really isn't much witchcraft going around. And the judge, for all his cruelty, he does get his way with one of his prisoners in one instance, but that's clearly been filmed with out Lee, all that can be seen are anonymous hands fondling Rom's breasts, and don't get me started on the torture, which at times looks like it's just a slightly intense peeling spa (with the added blood and screaming of course). I don't know what to tell you, but between the political cabal, the chasing around of rebels, the judge playing organ and writing letters and all that, there's not much of a story or movie there, and at least not an exciting one. Did I mention there is no "blood monster" in this movie, either?

The edition

Blue Underground, having established a stellar reputation for restorations of classics, endows this film with a presentation it barely deserves but hey, it will have its fans and we always applaud film being restored with this love for quality and detail. It comes as a 4K UltraHD BluRay disc and BluRay disc in a keep case in paper sleeve. The new transfer "...from a brand new 2023 Dolby Vision HDR 4K master, painstakingly restored from various European vault elements featuring additional nudity, bloodshed and what Christopher Lee himself calls "scenes of extraordinary depravity"! Well then, we already debunked Lee's wild claims further up, the rest seems to be true.

The picture (Dolby Vision HDR for the win) looks magnificent. Texture and lighting are a joy, blacks are pretty good and overall detail is solid. I do detect quite a bit of compression artifacts or slight "veil", visible for example with faces and such, but it's a minor gripe for an overall rather good (but not reference quality) transfer. The audio leaves no room for complaints, a very solid sounding track. Too bad that there are not more audio options, just the English dub. There is also a German BluRay that came out recently, not an UHD but still a 5 disc ultimate edition (can you believe it) featuring various versions/cuts of the film (here only one, long cut is presented). Here, mind you, at least three scene switch shortly to German audio. As for subtitles there's a choice of English SDH, French and Spanish.

The extras are once more plentiful. The main disc offers not one, not two, but three audio commentaries, can you believe that? There is one with film historians Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson, another with film historians Kim Newman and Barry Forshaw and a third with film historians David Flint and Adrian Smith. Now when it comes to Franco, my money's always on Howarth first. It's an enlightening and entertaining commentary that should get you started, but you may as well start with other commentaries first. Newman and Forshaw's not far behind in trivia-richness, and it depends a little if you've already listened to another commentary first, respectively, whether and which one you find more informative, as some information of course gets repeated thusly. Flint and Smith, who I wasn't very familiar with, hold their own, and in general, all three commentaries are excellent and will give you ample study material, a wealth of knowledge that this movie doesn't even deserve.

The BluRay disc offers these same audio commentaries, and some more. There's "Bloody Jess – Interviews with Director Jess Franco and Star Christopher Lee" which clicks at 25 minutes and shows Lee's knowledge of the historical background for this movie as well as Uncle Jess' enthusiasm despite the difficulties of this production, with all the international money and interest that must've made it hard to exert his creative freedom (it is hence a horribly imbalance between historical movie, erotic movie, horror film, etc.). The newer featurette, "Judgement Day – Interview with Stephen Thrower, Author of “Murderous Passions: The Delirious Cinema of Jesus Franco”" runs 33 minutes and is of course an excellent introduction to the film. Then there's "In The Shadows – Interviews with Filmmaker Alan Birkinshaw and Author Stephen Thrower on Harry Alan Towers" running at about 25 minutes. It's a nice additional featurette that highlights the producer's work. Very interesting then are a number of deleted (one) and alternative scenes (6, three of which alternate title sequences). Three US trailers/spots and still galleries are the finishing touches on this enormous Franco package.

• Buy From Amazon.com

Published April 17, 2024. Review copy courtesy of Blue Underground. Screenshots via bluray.com do not represent the quality of the transfer (scaled and compressed).

---

Sebastian, co-founder and admin of the Grindhouse Cinema Database (GCDb). He also started The Spaghetti Western Database (SWDb), The Quentin Tarantino Archives, The Robert Rodriguez Archives, Nischenkino and Furious Cinema. Outside of movies, he works on the intersection of technology and policy. He lives in Berlin, Germany.