BLOODBATH (LAS FLORES DEL VICIO)

Spain, 1979, 90 minutes, Colour.
Dennis Hopper, Carrol Baker, Faith Brook, Richard Todd.
Directed by Silvio Narrizzano.

Bloodbath is the overwrought title of a rather overwrought film. It is a story of decadence, patriots in a Spanish speaking coastal town - where the inhabitants seem to spend their time playing up to the expatriates or involved in religious processions. The film is a blend of the real and surreal.

Dennis Hopper is a drug addict, often in a drugged stupor, relating to the expatriate group as well as playing up to young women in the town. Carol Baker portrays a faded a film star - with much of the dialogue seeming to echo her own career in Hollywood and in Europe. It all seems a rather humiliating role for her to take on). Richard Todd and Faith Brook portray an English couple, he a World War II commander (just like his many films) and he is still living in the past. She is an alcoholic. There is an American eyeing the men of the town - many of whom seem readily available for him or a black woman (played by Win Wells who wrote the screenplay). The film is a mixture of the surreal, the sensational and the sleazy. However, in the print under review, there is very little of any explicit bloodbath, even though everybody is attacked by the villagers at the end. The film is directed by Silvio Narrizzano, director of Georgy Girl.

1. Impact of the film? Bizarre story, plot, treatment?

2. The coastal setting, the town, the beach? Night and day, light and darkness? Special effects and editing - for the experiences of the protagonists? Musical score, songs, religious hymns?

3. The title - appropriate, sensational?

4. Chicken and his drug addiction, Dennis Hopper playing something of a character akin to his past experiences? In the town, with the black woman, socialising, the drugs, sexual encounter with the young girl, collapsed on the beach? His memories - the revivalists, his mother, interchanging the girl with his mother in his fantasies? His career, the young boy, sexuality, protest and drugs? The explanation of his derelict behaviour? The final destruction?

5. Treasure and Carroll Baker's style, in the car drinking with the man on the beach, her house, living in the past, the casting couch and her stories (and the interchange in her fantasies)? Her career, floundering, wanting the phone to ring? The men in her life? Sexuality and decadence? The fiesta? The final attack of the men, the phone, her drowning?

6. The homosexual, his career, attracted to the men, seductions, resistance? His flippant style of communication? With the group? Taking the black man home, the encounter - and his death? The brutality of his death?

7. The English couple - the World War II commander, stiff upper lip, memories of the past, the flashbacks to the war sequences? At the fiesta, with his wife, her drunkenness? With the young girl and his advances? his wife, drinking, bewilderment at what was going on?

8. The men of the village, their availability to the expatriates? The ultimate vengeance?

9. The people in the village, their religions processions and rituals, observing the expatriates?

10. The fiesta? The antagonism? The children, exploited, the young boy crushed to death? The mysterious nature of the village, the villagers, and their attitudes towards the people in their midst?

11. The overall impact of this film - how much point? How pointless?