BLOOD MANIA (1970; d. Rbt O’Neil, w. Tony Crechales + Toby Sacher)

"You're a bitch. Come here, bitch."

Pasty-faced middle-aged lunatic chases young blonde in prologue (archetypal, In-the-Beginning context/subtext for film to follow: voracious pursuit of bright ideal, to abusive detriment of self) in order to assault (forcible communion), pair turning out 2B bedridden (power fantasy: regaining control over weakness/infirmity, as later character sez daughter Victoria’s painting "overpowers" him) Dr Waterman (incapacitated healing force turning instead to violence à la House of Terror’s nurse) + his other daughter Gail (transcendence wrong + never meant 2B), doubt later cast as to whether fantasy at all (patriarchy – head of clinic – + its effect on women/femininity, as consciousness on unconscious + pragmatism on creativity); soon after dreaming Dr wakes, so too does former protégé Craig Cooper (shared dream btwn all men, his dual initials the divided psyche in need of reintegration), whose mutually beneficial (literally scrubbing each other’s backs) erotic lovenest w/ girlfriend Cheryl cfs Waterman’s adversarial relationship w/ callous, avaricious Vicki (split in self btwn altruistic charge of profession + natural inclination twd self-interest as btwn soul of man + animal nature).

Coop receives 2 coitus interruptus phone calls (messages from unseen Within disrupting creative activity: impotence [Dr W’s waist-down immobility]), 1st wakeup call (he dream-agent roused into action), 2nd from blackmailer Larry Mills (2nd "wakeup call": guilty past "taxing" self – payments later euphemized as same – + holding back potential à la similar Tormented pianist’s situation), procurer of subjects for his med-school abortions (financing lower middle class Coop’s tuition, squelching potential life what he still doing to self, phone calls self-doubt at moment of elevation/ascension [orgasm], intimation of gay hustling in shameful, secret Man in Past); while en route to Watermans’, Vickie seduces mama’s-boy pool cleaner (cf similar Killing Kind character + pools/water in other Crechales – House, beach in Psycho Sisters + water-murders in Impulse: dysfunctional Eden, she here s/mothering inadequacy entrapping main character, seduction rehearsal for Coop’s) then puts unrequited moves on CC (she insatiable – + ruinous – libido all Crechales characters done in by) before he visits mentor Dr W (senex, or wise elder w/i, avatar he dsn’t realize is rotten: unwittingly patterning self after corrupt role model).

After Mills intrudes on home (threatening material imposing on psyche - again interrupting hanky panky) demanding $50k (secret depleting the ego), Coop ’fesses past to forgiving Cheryl (ameliorating anima, still not as pwrful as burdensome animus), he succumbing next day to Vickie’s advances (encroachment of "overpwring" negative anima) in hopes of staving off Mills w/ her $ (proving heterosexuality by carrying on w/ 2 wmn, she mother-figure in care of patriarch whose real wife never even mentioned – Point of Terror, in fact only Crechales featuring married couple, one of whom killed early on) while Cheryl similarly offers sex to Mills (positive anima working behind scenes to alleviate complex) to no avail (his S&M response furthering "gay" subtext, ridicule + abuse reiterating prolog assault, he in turn acting out Coop’s repressed hostility + driving pos anima into repression: never seen again [cf Barbara Bel Geddes character in Vertigo, similarly unable to save atavistic boyfriend from psychic descent w/ voluptuous Other Wmn] – innocence finally lost).

As Coop sleeps (last vestige of ego out of commission in order to enable amoral Other to carry out mission he cd not), Vickie induces father’s heart attack (succeeding where Cheryl failed, in eliminating barrier btwn characters + their ascendance) then does onanistic dance by mirror (in erotic league w/ death + insanity, and deepest solipsistic unconscious communing w/ self in absence of governing consciousness) disrupted by fr’s inexplicable bolt-uprighting w/ bloody grin (engorged phallus the title mania, underscoring opening-fantasy incest; film’s completely ignoring event thereafter denying significance, cut to lawyer as to reason, sensibility, climactic spectacle posing flipside image in response).

Enter blonde other-daughter Gail (anima released by death of oppressive consciousness; not-Cheryl [similar blonde] w/ pwr real one didn’t have - father's $: as "blood" relative, closer to ego-source, Cheryl more like sister than lover [cf sim Point other-girl]) + her elder, lesbian partner Kate Lucas (who never tried to consummate attraction: virtuous not-the-mother showing up incestuous dad + cfg/reinforcing vindictive Mills-as-closet-past; Coop’s later "Why don’t you try your hand at writing" right before she lays out actual ensuing scenario suggesting her as Crechales surrogate, who similarly sets plot for director to screw up as he will) from other-side-of-(conscious)-’States New York for reading of will (mind leaning twd consc’ss now, "will" proper course ego shd pursue, reading setting foundation for lucid dream to follow); shock when Vickie all but cut out + Gail receives fortune (guilty self settling up w/ past, subsequent action furthering project until soul/riches totally dispersed) turns Coop all-out twd Gail/redemption, against Kate’s warning (conscience, she fem God who similarly fails to intercede beyond admonitions, and Coop’s failure to heed better judgment).

After ™ insipid Crechales romantic montage (at Renaissance Fayre; cf Point horsebacking, House’s Vegas, Impulse zoo + Attic park: inability to envision healthy love beyond the received, cliché) where Coop shows Gail how "other side of country" (artistic unconscious, she eroticized reason + responsibility) lives while off-the-deep-end Vickie engages in art therapy (deepest anima to cf Gail’s superficial, fiercely at work painting true self while ego dallies), couple enjoys fireside sex to flashbacks of opening rape (lovemaking shot from behind fire – cf Impulse murder – hell of repressed memory, father’s incest "reason" for crypto-lesbianism) + Kate packs up (à la later, dismissed Nurse Turner: resolved, as Cheryl; loss as well of rehabilitative aspect, leading to disaster).

Gail’s promise to care for Vickie (relationship 2B explored in Psycho Sisters, as Killing librarian similarly becomes Attic’s main character) in father’s absence ("He had quite a hold on us…but he’s gone now" dissolution of masculine consciousness, leaving opposite animas to resolve selves in unconscious isolation) answered by her shocking murder (Coop now unable to ascend, thwarted by Vic/own self-doubt/-contempt), which Coop surprisingly helps cover up (subservient now to Fate of own self-img) on discovering corpse in shower (abortion: recognition of stillborn potential); revelation of Vic’s portrait of him (own harsh self-img) as skeleton-in-lap pietà (he feminized in Virgin role, his Christ/redemption reduced to death/unregeneracy) brings risen Gail to doorway (à la father’s similarly risen corpse: DOA potential + immortality of Coop’s transgressions, she his bloody Christ), which falls to reveal grinning Mills (hetero object yielding to homo past), Coop then superimposing over portrait (becoming one w/ true self + fusing w/ art-unreal as ego dissolves at height of dream; cf similar Lisa and the Devil + Malpertuis endings, all response to 2001’s hopeful/self-deluding closing transfiguration: 70s to be decade of dis-illusion).

Mod Gothic starring beefy co-producer Peter Carpenter sealing own fate à la similarly oedipally doomed Female Jungle pro/actor/nobody Burt Kaiser. No one made ’em cheaper than Crown International.