Spanish satanic horror gets fleshy when doused with SATAN'S BLOOD, on Blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome.

While out on an afternoon drive with their dog Blackie, electronics repairman Andy (José María Guillén) and his pregnant wife Annie (Sandra Alberti, DEATH SURROUNDS MONICA) meet Bruno (Angel Aranda, PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES) and Mary (telenovela star Mariana Karr) at a traffic light. Bruno claims to be a school pal of Andy's, even though he is about ten to fifteen years older, and the younger couple find themselves invited to the older couple's house deep in the countryside. After dinner conversation turns towards the older couple's interest in the occult and a spin on the Ouija board that predicts Bruno's untimely death and accuses Annie of still being in love with Andy's brother. The gathering storm means that Andy and Annie will have to stay the night. When Annie gets up to let the dog inside, she is nearly raped by the couple's handyman. Andy and Annie confront Bruno and Mary and are drawn into a Satanic orgy, the aftermath of which spirals into a nightmarish whirlpool of murder and suicide.

Playing like a more sexualized take on ROSEMARY'S BABY with more attractive cultists, SATAN'S BLOOD is illustrative of the more gothic strain of Spanish horror in the wake of Spain's relaxing of censorship standards following the death of General Franco. The introduction of the "S" classification for films with gory and violent content lead to an exploitation film production boom from the mid-seventies to the early eighties with sometimes near-pornographic content, leading to the return of such accomplished Spanish fantasists as Jess Franco – who had spent more than a decade exploring his unique brand of erotic horror in France, Germany, Portugal, and anywhere Harry Alan Towers or Erwin C. Dietrich could strike a deal – and Jose Ramon Larraz who had been directing films like VAMPYRES and SYMPTOMS in England while also offering opportunities for both older jobbing directors and younger filmmakers inspired by some of the same pulp and fantastique sources as Franco and Larraz, including the film's producer Juan Piquer Simon whose own genre output would aim more towards the mainstream with the slasher-for-hire PIECES, his Jules Verne adaptations, the low-budget E.T. ripoff EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL VISITORS (aka THE POD PEOPLE), and THE ABYSS-inspired THE RIFT/ENDLESS DESCENT. The transgressive mix of sex and gore aimed at an audience emerging from Catholic-centered fascism – a painting of Jesus is shown bursting into flames – is mirrored in the film in which the nervous young couple experience a moment of renewed desire for one another in spite of the tension at dinner and before the Black Mass orgy (in which both may have wanted to participate even if they would not admit it to each other). The final twists are a bit silly but de rigueur for seventies Satanism films.

The sweaty, earthy, and explicit sex scenes – as captured by cinematographer Andrés Berenguer (THE STORY OF O PART 2) – are contrasted with some detailed occult production design by producer Juan Piquer Simon (PIECES) himself. Cues from the score of Librado Pastor would be recycled on the Spanish soundtrack of PIECES (the export version replacing the cues with CAM tracks by Stelvio Cipriani). The house is recognizable from various Paul Naschy films like VENGEANCE OF THE ZOMBIES, THE PEOPLE WHO OWN THE DARK, and THE HOUSE OF PSYCHOTIC WOMEN as well as Amando de Ossorio's THE LORELEY'S GRASP, and would be reused by Simon in his later CTHULHU MANSION. Director Carlos Puerto had directed a few shorts in the sixties, and wrote Simon's FABULOUS JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH. Puerto found more work during this late seventies exploitation boom, penning Leon Klimovsky's gory TRAUMA and directing Paul Naschy in EL FRANCOTIRADOR/THE SNIPER. The film was co-produced by Simon's company Almena Films and Cinevision who produced Tomas Aznar's Simon-penned BEYOND TERROR (coming out on Blu-ray from Cauldron Films).

Unreleased theatrically in the United States, SATAN'S BLOOD was released on VHS twice by Mogul Video in the early eightes: first as SATAN'S BLOOD and then as DON'T PANIC using the artwork for that Mexican slasher film with stills from the Puerto film on the back cover. This version represented the cut that went out to many territories that opened with the Black Mass prologue while Spain and other territories including France featured a short academic prologue that was restored as an optional viewing option on Mondo Macabro's 2006 DVD which featured an anamorphic transfer and both the English and Spanish audio tracks with optional English subtitles. Scorpion Releasing's 2011 DVD featured the same master but dropped the English subtitles for the Spanish track and included an English overdub for the prologue which was no longer optional. Vinegar Syndrome's Blu-ray was preceded by releases in the format in Germany and the UK (the latter reportedly not color corrected).

Vinegar Syndrome's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.66:1 widescreen Blu-ray from a 4K scan of the original 35mm camera negative is a gorgeous thing to behold with the scholarly introduction flatly lit and shot in the film's production offices giving way to more vivid reds, inky blacks, and candle-warmed skintones of the interior scenes and a wealth of detail in the textures of the set dressings, locations, and bare flesh. The DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0 mono Spanish and English tracks – Dolby Digital 2.0 tracks are also included – are clean and crisp-sounding, revealing just how sterile the English track sounds in performances and recording compared to the Spanish track (all of the actors are post-dubbed by voice actors on both tracks). Optional English subtitles are included for the Spanish track and English SDH subtitles for the English. Unlike the Mondo Macabro DVD, the scholarly introduction is overdubbed in English on both English and Spanish tracks.

The film is accompanied by an audio commentary by film historians Samm Deighan and Kat Ellinger who note the importance – particularly for viewers who note the excess of sex in the film – of placing the film within the context of relaxation of Spanish censorship, the "S" classification, the seventies "Satanic panic" hysteria, European genre cinema's gothic ties even in contemporary stories, as well as the French fantastique-like Spanish tradition of "fantaterror" which brings together elements of the fantastic and the surreal rather than as a straight horror movie. Besides pointing out some of the more subtle touches of Simon's art direction, they also note the presences of Jess Franco regular Luis Barboo (FEMALE VAMPIRE) and Spanish horror regular Jose Pagan (RED RINGS OF FEAR).