Like many Roger Corman productions, the creation of Track of the Vampire, or Blood Bath, has a hell of a story behind it. Starting out life as an Americanised Yugoslavian espionage thriller called Operation: Titian starring William Campbell and Patrick Magee and with a script overlooked by Francis Ford Coppola, the film was quickly re-edited into Portrait in Terror. Corman was unhappy with both versions and hired Jack Hill to salvage the film. Hill shot extra footage and renamed it Blood Bath, turning it into a horror movie. Corman still deemed it unworthy of release and hired Stephanie Rothman to again film extra footage.
The final products were a vampire movie based around a deranged artist retaining the title Blood Bath, which ran at just over an hour in length, and a longer feature-length version under the title Track of the Vampire. The resulting experience is confusing and clunkily-edited, yet bolstered by a goofy sense of humour during the scenes Jack Hill shot of a group of idiotic beatniks (including Sid Haig). Campbell plays Antonio Sordi, a painter of gory grotesques that sell at a high price who also happens to be a vampire capable of stalking people during the day. He is in love with Dorean (Lori Saunders), a ballerina who is a dead ringer for Sordi's former mistress, a witch named Melizza who denounced him centuries ago.
Occasionally Track of the Vampire possesses that Ed Wood-esque charm of being so badly done you cannot help but laugh. Rothman added an eight-minute dance sequence on the beach in order to add bulk to the running time, and since Campbell refused to return for re-shoots, Sordi's vampire form is played by a different actor. Yet it's also occasionally terrific, namely whenever Hill is in charge. A haunted shot of the lovelorn Sordi standing on a deserted beach is just about as impressive as anything I've seen in low-budget cinema, and the aforementioned scenes involving the beatniks antics as they try to come up with a new style of art are witty and well-performed. This clash of qualities make for a strange 90 minutes, but it somehow works.
This Serbian, made for TV movie, tells the folkloric tale of a 19th century rural village, seeped in superstitious paranoia. There are tales of Sava Savanovic who died at least a century ago; his myth embroiled with vampiric tendencies. In the opening scene the village miller, Vule (Toma Kuruzovic), sleeps in the isolated mill. through a montage of close-ups we see staring eyes, surrounded by dirty skin; an ash-blackened hand, adorned with long, sharp finger nails, dip in the flour; sharp teeth are exposed, not in the traditional fang image of western vampire lore, but a full front row of stalactite-like gnasher's. Vule has his throat ripped out. With the discovery of the body, we are informed that this is the fourth miller to die within a year, and the speculation of a vampire murderer is brought forward.
Strahinja (Petar Bozovic) is a very poor local, who is in love with the very beautiful Radojka (Mirjana Nikolic), daughter of the ill-tempered farmer, Zivan (Slobodan Perovic). Strahinja has asked permission of the farmer for her hand in marriage, which he bitterly denies. After this severe knock-back, Straninja decides his only option is to leave the village for good. On his way out, he is stopped by the locals, who convince him to take the miller job. He stays the night there, and is visited by the vampire, only he is not killed. The villagers gather to try to hunt down the monster.
Vampire films are so incredibly prevalent at this moment in time, but most do not hold any form of atmosphere. Leptirica has it in spades. The rural setting offers an eerie sense of doom, with sound created with the sounds of screeching owls. The eccentricities of the villagers reminded me of some of the comedy characters in a Kurosawa film. The sense of isolation in the remote village is palpable also, lending the film an aura of horror. As the film was made for TV, it only runs for a little over an hour, and I felt that it would have benefited from a slightly longer running time. But this aside, I was surprised with the entire narrative, and its simplicity makes it an enjoyable experience. The films title translates into English as Butterfly, which has its meaning exposed in the last moments. Whilst it is clear who the vampire is early on in the film, it does not diminish the climax, which is gaudy, but strangely haunting.
Directed by Serbian filmmaker Dusan Makavejev (also known for directing Sweet Movie (1974), and the Australian produced The Coca-Cola Kid (1985)), the film mixes documentary and narrative cinema, to comment on the infiltration of Soviet Communism, sexual politics/sexual revolution, in a political satire. The main drive of the film to begin with is the work of Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Dr Wilhelm Reich: His theories of Organon therapy (use of static electricity), and the connection between neuroses in people that is rooted in physical, sexual and social surroundings. This connects also with the work of Alexander Lowen, an American psychotherapist (and student of Reich's), who practices and teaches Bioenergetic analysis which uses thereputical body work to associate the mind with the body, and in theory release repressed energy through the body sexually without the act of physical sex. I observed in these sequences a kind of connection to the work of Arthur Janov, and his primal scream therapy.
The narrative section of the film tells the story of Milena (Milena Dravic) and her sexually promiscuous flatmate Jagoda (Jagoda Kaloper), and their theories and speeches of sexual revolution: "The October revolution was ruined when socialism rejected free love". They meet a Russian communist figure skater, Ivica (Vladimir Ilivich), who they seduce. But Milena soon discovers that communism has no time for sexuality unless it is first met with physical violence. This seems to be a metaphor for the struggle against Stalinist communism within Yugoslavia since the second world war. But in the film Ivica seems somewhat deluded by the concept of communism (as he states, "communism is a Latin word meaning communal), whilst almost being made rigid by the sexual intentions of Milena.
The most interesting part of the film is the first part that focuses on the life and work of Wilhem Reich (hence the W. R. in the films title). He first started working in psychoanalysis with Sigmund Freud in the 1920's, but after writing books such as 'The Mass Psychology of Fascism', fled Austria for America, where he settled in Maine. He worked on his theories of orgone therapy, and developed the orgone accumulator, an organic box lined with lead that individuals would sit in and is theorised as giving both therapy to the body's organs and to sexuality (The use of the orgone accumulator was even endorsed by William S. burroughs.). Eventually Reich was arrested (more than likely the victim of situation - i.e. he was from behind the iron curtain), and viewed as insane - despite being tried in court. All of his books were burned in New York, supervised by the federal food and drugs administration agents (take from that what you will).
It is an interesting film. The different strands are connected by the theories of Wilhelm Reich. But it's one of those films that is probably more interesting to talk about than watch as it is incredibly slow moving, and at times seems to focus on activities (such as bioenergetic analysis), as group fad, and seems to almost fall into a 'new age' enlightenment message. Released in 1971, this would make sense, as the sexual revolution was in full 'swing'. Despite all of this it is a relatively enjoyable piece of cinema, with some nice ideas in it. But again, the life of W R far outshines the film as a whole.
The final products were a vampire movie based around a deranged artist retaining the title Blood Bath, which ran at just over an hour in length, and a longer feature-length version under the title Track of the Vampire. The resulting experience is confusing and clunkily-edited, yet bolstered by a goofy sense of humour during the scenes Jack Hill shot of a group of idiotic beatniks (including Sid Haig). Campbell plays Antonio Sordi, a painter of gory grotesques that sell at a high price who also happens to be a vampire capable of stalking people during the day. He is in love with Dorean (Lori Saunders), a ballerina who is a dead ringer for Sordi's former mistress, a witch named Melizza who denounced him centuries ago.
