DOCTOR BLOODBATH – From the director of 'Criminally Insane' and 'Satan's Black Wedding'. It's a shot-on-video flick from 1987. Before you tune out, I will try to convince you that 'Doctor Bloodbath' is not bilge, but genius. Or genius-bilge. I understand. I speak all the time to people who tell me that “most of that early shot on video stuff isn't just dreck, it's boooooring”, and then hit me when I say I like 'Cannibal Campout'. Well OK, some of that stuff is pretty dire. I admit that I wouldn't be in a great position to navigate my through it all were it not for the likes of websites such as Bleeding Skull, the primary source for many a trash fancier. But those strange gems are out there. Nick Millard has harvested quite a few of said gems. His films have a natural but very conscious freakiness about them. Poverty row budgets only accentuate their weirdness. I'm a big fan of post HG Lewis trash like 'Criminally Insane', even more so the trippy strangeness of 'Satan's Black Wedding'. 'Doctor Bloodbath' came later. It's about a guy, a doctor. Doctor Bloodbath. That's probably not his real name, but we're never on first name terms with this dude anyway. He performs abortions, then kills the women he 'services' in their homes. Again and again and again. That pretty much sums up 'Doctor Bloodbath'. Except, there's more. His wife is having an affair with a Polish poet. She falls pregnant, but her poet lover panics. You can tell where that's heading. Doctor Bloodbath isn't big on talking. His eyes are always somewhere else. Even when he's killing people, he does it in a detached, 'going through the motions' kind of way (which looks ludicrously stylised the way Millard films it, like a disinterested ten year old miming dagger slashes). People in this film are really dissociated. They seem like extensions of their suburban interiors (there are lots and lots of shots of suburban interiors). They speak like they're reading lines from a piece of paper held in front of them. They probably are, but that also feels like the intended vibe. Again, Doctor Bloodbath doesn't say much. He keeps it clinical, formal. He does blurt out “murder” or something during one of the kill scenes, but doesn't even give it an exclamation mark. Otherwise, he lets his hands do the talking. He's always fidgeting. We see close ups of his fingers, knitted together, twitching, straining in repetitive little patterns which are presumably meant to convey suppressed anger or something. This whole aspect of the film is mesmerising. Honestly, it's like a whole hidden film-within-a-film. The threadbare nature of 'Doctor Bloodbath' mirrors the emotional poverty of the characters. It's really, really cheap. Whole sections repeat as it chugs away, pretty amusing when you consider that these 'flashbacks' are being used to pad out a film which is all of 57 minutes long. Even worse, Millard throws in bits of filler from (I think) 'Satan's Black Wedding'! Primarily, scenes of someone doing some housework! That's the kind of flick we're dealing with here. But, in the end, what should just be gibberish is surprisingly affecting. I actually felt kind of empty and a little bit sad after watching 'Dr Bloodbath'. I know that there are 'proper' films about suburban ennui, but 'Dr Bloodbath' nails things in a way which seems both melancholy, bleak and laughably odd. It's a strange concoction to be sure, even odder when you look at it as a film not about a misogynistic killer, but instead about a bored man and his meaningless life. Whichever way you choose to take it, 'Doctor Bloodbath' is ripe cinematic gunk from one cat strolling on the wild side of the psyche.
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