BLOODLUST (1977) Blu-ray
Director: Marijan Vajda
Mondo Macabro

Mondo Macabro digs up the exploits of the "Vampire of Nuremberg" with their Blu-ray of the German cult classic BLOODLUST.

Made deaf and dumb by a severe childhood beating and the psychological trauma of seeing his father molest his younger sister, a lonely accountant (Werner Pochath, THE DEVIL HUNTER) may be able to shut out the insults of his coworkers but not their practical jokes and bullying for his lack of a sex life and his collection of dolls. His attempts at normality include a friendship with the teenage daughter (Birgit Zamulo, Joe Sarno's BIBI) who thinks of nothing but dancing and dreaming, as well as visits to prostitutes who find his desire to merely watch them to be more bizarre than the fetishes of other clients. The accountant also has a blood fetish triggered by the sight of spilled red ink or even ketchup. This fetish is exacerbated when he tries to intervene in his neighbor's beating of a mentally disabled apprentice, and the accountant moves from blood substitutes to breaking into the local cemetery and mortuary to "bother" corpses, mutilating them and drinking their blood, signing his crimes as "Mosquito." As rumors of a "vampire" spread through the city, the accountant makes further attempts at normality but may go over the deep end when his dancing neighbor makes a literal attempt to dance in the clouds.

Somewhere between a piece of German New Wave cinema and something more gothic, BLOODLUST – originally known as MOSQUITO – the third and final feature film of prolific Yugoslavian documentary director Marijan Vajda and was one of the arty exploitation ventures of German producer Chris Nebe who bankrolled three Joseph Sarno films (VAMPIRE ECSTASY, BIBI, and BUTTERFLIES), the neo-Nazi drama THE INHERITORS, and the American productions HEARTBREAKER and the Cannon production THE NAKED CAGE (a virtual remake of CHAINED HEAT by that film's director Paul Nicholas) and the 1990s erotic thriller NIGHT OF THE ARCHER before himself moving towards documentary films as a director. It is a precursor of sorts to the intimate looks into the personal hells of serial killers like MANIAC and DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE but with a formal distance and surreal turns that are too absurd to be tragic. Pochath gives a dedicated, almost Kinski-esque performance, seeming to be at pains to reign himself in with all but his eyes as he fondles dolls, mutilates corpses, pulls out eyeballs, and drains blood with a two-pronged glass straw until the low-key ending. Apart from Pochath, the supporting cast members were either stage performers or veterans of German sex comedies including the SCHOOLGIRL REPORT series, or sometimes both.

Unreleased in the United States until a cassette in 1999 from E/I Independent Cinema – around the same time that they put out Sarno's trio of German-made films for Monarex – and it was presumably this tape master for Celebrity Video Distribution's 2003 DVD as BLOODLUST: THE BLACK FOREST VAMPIRE. Derived from a 2K scan, Mondo Macabro's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.78:1 widescreen transfer gives this film a sense of elegance where once was a paradoxically sterile grittiness that made the film seem even drearier. The credits are in English and the original MOSQUITO title card is wonderfully saturated red, as is the bloodshed throughout the film, while the more sedate shades of browns and oranges have an autumnal warmth. The make-up effects do not hold up as well with the added resolution but still manage to be unpleasant. English-dubbed and German tracks are provide, although strangely they are encoded in lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 rather than uncompressed LPCM as is Mondo Macabro's usual practice with mono films. The English dialogue – sounding like some of the same artists who dubbed Erwin C. Dietrich's Jess Franco films of the period – sounds more recessed in the mix than the German, although it appears to be less of a quality issue than a difference in approach, with the German dialogue often louder than the music and effects no matter the position of the actor in the frame. Optional English subtitles are also included and reveal some differences between the dubs with a prostitute calling the accountant "too dumb to fuck" in German while bemoaning "Why do I get all the dingdongs" in English.

Extras start off with an interview with Marijan David Vajda (11:10), the director's son and assistant director on the film who briefly discusses his father's career and his own. He knows little about the case the film was supposedly based upon, but notes the film's finer qualities like its sense of poetry and the score. The interview with Zamulo (20:54) has her recalling her aspirations to dance and act before her father insisted that she take up something practical. She became a translator and married, moving to Paris, but she would go into modeling and return to Germany where she started landing theater parts and small film roles before being noticed by producer Chris Nebe who cast her in Sarno's BIBI before BLOODLUST. She recalls the film mainly because she fell in love and twice married Peter Ehret who was then the lover of Ellen Umlauf (DRACULA BLOWS HIS COOL) who played her mother. Ehret had a drug addiction and committed suicide at age twenty-six. The disc also includes the theatrical trailer (2:50) and the usual "More from Mondo Macabro" clip reel. Before Mondo Macbro's standard blue case edition, there was a website exclusive red case edition with an exclusive cover, twelve-page booklet written by Michael Gingold, and 14 full color, postcard sized reproductions of lobby cards, posters, and promo materials. That limited edition is now sold out. (Eric Cotenas)

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