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When
the Dean family clan reunites to bury the
family patriarch, their father,
Christopher (John Carradine),
it's safe to say that it took the death
and the opportunity to bury their
domineering, and overbearing (John Carradine),
it's safe to say that it took the death
and the opportunity to bury their
domineering, and overbearing (and
soon to be revealed psychotic),
father as the only thing that would
bring all these estranged siblings back
together. There is no love lost here, but
greed has brought them all back to face
each other one last time. After
the graveyard service concludes, where all
they do is stop just short of dancing on
the old man's grave, the entire clan meets
in the ancestral mansion for the reading
of the will:
Roll
call: Eldest son, Gregory (Jeff
Morrow), and his wife, Laura (Merry
Anders); Eldest daughter, Victoria (Faith
Domergue); Younger son, Johnny (Richard
Davalos); and rounding them out is
youngest daughter, Leslie (Brooke
Mills), who is under the care of
her psychiatrist/boyfriend, or maybe
husband, Carl Isenburg (John Smith). (Jeff
Morrow), and his wife, Laura (Merry
Anders); Eldest daughter, Victoria (Faith
Domergue); Younger son, Johnny (Richard
Davalos); and rounding them out is
youngest daughter, Leslie (Brooke
Mills), who is under the care of
her psychiatrist/boyfriend, or maybe
husband, Carl Isenburg (John Smith).
Via
a recorded will, the elder Dean speaks
from beyond the grave and chastises his
family for only bringing him shame and
humiliation. Then to business, where he
first makes a stipulation that one million
dollars, each, be set aside to pay the
salaries of the hired help for the
continued upkeep of the familial estate.
This includes Igor (Buck
Cartalian), the butler, his wife,
Elga (Ivy Bethune), the
housekeeper, and Frank Mantee (John
Russell), the chauffer and
groundskeeper. Next, as all the children
exchange venomous glances at each other,
the deceased reveals the remaining
inheritance, $136 million, will be split
among them, equally. But! There is one
catch: they all must stay at the mansion
and live together for one whole week or
forfeit their share. And if something
should "happen", like one of
them, say, dies!, the money will
then be split among those who are left
standing at the end of the week.
You
do the math. (Now where's that
axe?)
The
family lawyer assures them that the will
and and all its stipulations are
uncontestable, meaning they're stuck, and
Christopher gets to have his way and pull
their strings one last time.
But,
seriously, how hard could it be? A week
isn't that long, no matter how much you
dislike your siblings. Especially for the
kind of money we're talking about, right?
However,
when you factor in all the family
skeletons that are about to come
a-tumblin' out of the closet, the brewing
psychosis of our players (about
half the people cooped up in the house are
stark-raving certifiable), and the
fact that everyone is already conspiring,
plotting, and playing one against another,
a week's stay might as well be a year.
One
week. That's all they have to do. But by
the time the first night ends, come the
dawn, only one of them will be left
alive...
Producer
Ben Rombouts wanted to make a movie, but,
like a lot of people who wanted to make a
movie, he lacked the proper financing.
Then, fate stepped in. Involved in a
horrible auto-accident, he spent a lengthy
stay in a hospital in a full body cast.
But it paid off because, during his stay,
Rombouts convinced several of his doctors
into backing his project, a morbid murder
mystery in the mansion thriller called Blood
Legacy.
The
project was blessed with an outstanding
set piece: the Van Valkenburg estate. The
movie was the first to film inside this
expansive, Pasadena mansion, but it's the
exterior of the main house that might look
a little familiar to you for it was used
for the establishing shots of stately
Wayne Manor in the old Batman
TV show. Unfortunately,
the set proves to be the most interesting
part of the whole thing.
Rombouts,
this was his first film, then turned the
production over to a director whose only
credit at the time was The
Acid Eaters,
and a screenwriter who wrote mainly
westerns for TV. And this noxious
concoction was already fermenting before
the cameras even rolled. Don't believe me?
Read on...
...As
the first day progresses into night, there
are many, less than subtle, hints that
something terribly, terribly wrong
happened between Johnny and Leslie when
they were younger. And if you're guessing
incest, you win a cookie. (Now get
your mind out of the gutter.) Which
explains why Carl insists that Leslie stay
secluded in her room, away from Johnny,
despite her insistence on seeing him.
While Leslie is plagued
by strange dreams about her brother,
Johnny's got a few hang-ups of his own,
and he tries to work out the obsession
with his sister, among other issues, by
doing his best William Shatner
impersonation and ranting at a large,
stern portrait of his dead father.
Flashing back to the past, things get
pretty surreal as Johnny recalls several
secret rendezvous with Leslie, only to be
ratted out by either Gregory or Victoria.
But no one escaped Christopher's
punishment. Said punishment being forty
whacks with his wooden cane across the
back. And then Johnny's delusions veer
into Felini territory as Gregory is about
to get his when Igor jumps on top of him,
taking the blows for him -- and Igor seems
to like it!
While
Johnny raves on, and on, and on,
andonandonandonandon, elsewhere, Igor
fondles that very cane in his bedroom.
When Elga tells him to throw the infernal
thing away, Igor refuses, and even insists
that his wife routinely beat him with it
in the future. Wow. And down
in the game room, with the highly
noticeable, huge-mungous aquarium, teeming
with Piranha, lurking in the background,
Victoria runs hot and cold with both the
pompous Carl and surly Frank. Seeking any
advantage she can take, Victoria makes
both men, who can't read her signals
right, very confused. Then things start to
turn from just plain sick to sinister when
Gregory and Laura's dog gets loose and
runs outside. They hear a lethal yelp, and
then find the dog, dead, floating in the
gold fish pond.
The
dog homicide brings a visit from the
Sheriff (Rodolfo Acosta).
When his search of the grounds turns up
nothing, having wasted enough time on the
kooky Dean family, and probably wanting
nothing else to do with this movie, he
leaves -- only to find the road out
blocked by a car. Getting out to
investigate, he promptly takes several axe
blows to the head from an unseen assailant
for his concern. (Rodolfo Acosta).
When his search of the grounds turns up
nothing, having wasted enough time on the
kooky Dean family, and probably wanting
nothing else to do with this movie, he
leaves -- only to find the road out
blocked by a car. Getting out to
investigate, he promptly takes several axe
blows to the head from an unseen assailant
for his concern.
Back
at the mansion, Johnny's paranoia grows
deeper, Leslie's acting hasn't gotten any
better, Laura fingers who she thinks
killed her dog, and Victoria and Carl
decide to raid the refrigerator, together,
and find the leftover ham wrapped in
tinfoil. And before you can say "Boy
that tinfoil ball looks about the same
size as a human head," they peel it
off revealing, sure enough, the Sheriff's
dismembered head. After
this grisly discovery, a quick check finds
the phone dead and the distributor caps
removed from all the cars, and fear and
paranoia prevent anyone from being allowed
to go for help; so they'll have to wait
until daylight before mounting an
expedition into town on foot.
As
we creep past the midnight hour, tension
mounts and inheritance shares grow
substantially as the first family members
start biting the dust at the hands of our
mystery killer; namely Gregory and Laura,
who die in each others arms, killed in
bed, electrocuted by a booby-trapped lamp.
Even though Igor and Frank move the bodies
into the garage, that really doesn't help
matters inside. Suspicion runs rampant,
and Carl and Johnny are at each other's
throats because, well, Johnny brags that
he had Leslie first.
And
you have no idea how disturbing it was
to type that statement, let alone watch
it on screen. Dude! That's your
sister!
Everyone
decides to go to their "own
corner" in the large house, but
 Victoria sneaks into Frank's room and
marvels that he still has the lamp that he
made out of the Nazi who tried to kill him
back in the war. (The
skull is the base and the skin is the
lampshade. Yeah, lot's of nice folks in
this house.) In another corner
of the house, Leslie
tries to tell Carl about the latest dream
she had about Johnny. Something about
being buried in a long, dark tunnel but
she can hear Johnny coming through the
rocks to get at her. And I find it doubly
disturbing about how much this excites and
arouses Leslie. (Especially that
"coming" part. Gah.) With
that, Carl can't takes no more, and after
he leaves, Johnny sneaks in to see her to
*ahem* rekindle their relationship...
I
REPEAT.
DUDE!
THAT'S YOUR SISTER!
LADY!
THAT'S YOUR BROTHER!
STOP
THAT!
They
embrace, and try to kiss, but, thank
you jeezus, this triggers a flashback
for Johnny; who remembers Pop's rage when
he caught them the first time. Johnny
quickly retreats, screaming all the way,
and a shadow holding an axe takes up the
chase and finally catches up to him
outside the game room. Back
in the bedroom, the jilted Leslie hears
someone calling her name. So, she follows
the voice -- Down. Down. Down. -- down
into the game room, where she sees
Johnny's corpse being consumed by the
Piranha in the large tank. She screams,
alerting the others, who follow her
panicked cries outside where she fled. Too
late, though, as Leslie spies the killer
following her, flees, and is cornered near
the grotto. A shot rings out, and if the
shooter was aiming for right between her
eyes, their aim was a little off -- but
effective enough.
Carl
finds the body first and the discarded
revolver. Unwisely, he picks it up just in
time for the others to find him standing
over the corpse with the murder weapon.
That's enough evidence for Frank, who
convinces the others that Carl is the
killer (even though there is no way
for Carl to benefit financially),
and the clincher is Johnny's now skeletal
remains in the aquarium. Obviously, Carl
killed them both in a jealous rage.
Despite
his protests, and we know he didn't do it,
Carl is tied to chair and locked in the
cellar while Frank leaves to go and make a
lamp out of what's left of Johnny and
Leslie. (Okay, I made that last
part up.) Victoria lingers behind,
and finally believes Carl when he asks her
to lock the door so he won't be completely
helpless against the real killer. And while
Victoria pleads his case with the help, we
slowly realize she's the only one left --
and did I forgot to mention if none
of the heirs make it, all the money goes
to the hired help? Franks calms her down;
seems they used to have a thing, too, back
in the day, but Victoria wouldn't
consummate it because, well, he was just a
chauffer. Now, their romantic rekindling
is interrupted by several buzzing bees. Bees?
The hell?! Well, ya see, the killer --
who we now know can't be Victoria or
Frank, is busting a bee hive open inside
the cellar. The others hear Carl screaming
and rush to see what's going on, open the
cellar door, and find Carl's face swollen
and pockmarked with bee-stings. Lethal bee
stings, I guess. Whatever. The two then
spy a figure fleeing into the shadows and
chase him up(?) into the wine cellar,
where they finally corner the
killer.
So
they caught Igor, right? Wrong. The man
they caught is Christopher! Who -- not so
miraculously -- isn't quite as dead as
they thought. You see, they buried an
empty casket; and the old man raves that
he new it would take his funeral to bring
them all back so he could put them out of
his misery. He rants on about none of them
being his real children, anyway, and how
he killed their mother for lying to him
all these years. But before he can expound
further on why he done it, the nearest
wine rack, loaded with several barrels,
teeters and then crashes down on top of
the trio, crushing all three of them to
death.
And
who did the pushing? Igor and Elga, who
had enough of all of them. (And I
probably would have helped push if they'd
have asked.) Retiring to the
kitchen, Igor admits that he knew
Christopher was alive all along. He had
made a deal with his cousin, the
undertaker, to do something before
they buried the old man. (And the
way he's looking at the wooden cane makes
me shudder as I think about what he was
probably going to do.) But
wait? you say. You said, come the dawn,
only one person made it. Yeah, well, all
that new found wealth went straight to
Igor's head so his wife took the liberty
of poisoning those cookies he's eating
right now.
And
you thought the butler finally did it.
The
End
Who
wrote this crap?
Well
that would be Carl Munson and Eric Norden;
a tandem that would flame out the next
year with the slightly more enjoyable, and
slightly pornographic, Little
Shop of Horrors
knock-off of Please
Don't Eat My Mother.
Their inspiration for this film, however,
can be drawn from any number of country
cottage murder mysteries. And that's what
this whole movie comes across as: a bad
stage production of Agatha Christie's Ten
Little Indians
a/k/a And
Then There Were None
that's captured on film by the local High
School A/V club.
Buoyed
by a cast of genre veterans -- Carradine,
Morrow, Anders and Domergue (and
how do you pronounce that name, anyways?)
-- they all struggle mightily to keep the
production afloat; but the whole thing is
weighted down by the wooden performances
of Smith and Russell, taking on water with
Davalos' less than subtle performance, and
then completely scuttled by the
embarrassing attempts at acting put on by
Brook Mills. She is something to truly
behold. And if I could go back in time and
offer one piece of friendly advice to Ms.
Mills -- Stop acting with your
cleavage!
According
to an interview with Anders in Tom
Weaver's Double
Feature Creature Attack,
she states that the cast got together and
rehearsed the film like a play for six
weeks before the cameras rolled. Now, you
might immediately think that they didn't
rehearse enough but I believe the
opposite. I think the whole production
seems over-rehearsed, and what's caught on
film looks like the 645th run through.
Everything seems stale, tired and
stagnant. So the bad -- and now boring --
dialogue is rushed while the actors
overcompensate for this by over-emoting
those lines and it totally spins out of
control.
This
film was the original inspiration for Bad
Blood Month.
I had envisioned a cadre of films with
twisted family issues that were usually
punctuated with murder and mayhem. Now that's
good therapy. Somehow I veered off course,
though, and focused mainly on the gruesome
aspects of the collected films. But in my
defense, that's mostly because that is the
only front where these films delivered the
goods. Legacy
of Blood
pulls this off, especially that scene of
Johnny's body in the aquarium where the
fish are nibbling on his head, making this
film another stepping stone from the old
school spooks to the grisly and graphic
shocks of modern horror films. We're
starting to linger a little longer while
looking at the deadly carnage, and the
reasons behind it are getting a little
more twisted.
And
you can't get much more twisted than the
Dean clan. Murder, incest, and madness,
combined with some fascinating set-pieces
and several, morbid and sickening twists,
should result in a more ghoulish tale but
the cast, as a whole, ultimately sinks it.
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