Blood Legacy [1971]

EMM# : 4144
Added: 2015-11-30

Blood Legacy (1971)

Rating: 2.6

Movie Details:

Genre: Horror (Mystery| Thriller)

Length: 1 h 22 min - 82 min

Video: 480x360 (29.970 Fps - 261 Kbps)

Studio:

Location:

MOVIE TRAILER WEBLINK

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Plot
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In order to qualify to inherit the family fortune, the four heirs must spend the night in the family estate. However, during the night someone starts killing them off.

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preppy-3 from United States
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Ridiculous horror film about a wealthy man (John Carradine) dying and leaving everything to his four children, and his servants to be divided up equally. One condition--they must spend one week in his estate to get the money. And if any of them die, the others get more. Guess what happens next....

I saw a brand new print of this film on cable. The colors were bright and vivid and the house itself looks beautiful. That's about all the good things I can say about it.

Let's list just some of the problems this film has: the killer is screamingly obvious; the servants are called Igor and Elga--come on!; some of the sound recording was so bad I couldn't make out the dialogue (no great loss I'm sure); the gore was sparse and very poorly done; the other murders were simply boring, stupid or impossible and this movie contains some truly abominable acting--so bad you just stare at the screen in disbelief. Even pro Jeff Morrow was terrible! The only fairly good acting was from trouper Faith Domergue (who deserved better than this) and John Carradine (who looks painfully old and frail here). I do have to admit though--the closing line in this movie is a gem!

Why this was renamed "Legacy of Blood" is beyond me--there's another 1978 horror film with that name!

Whatever its name is, it's a bad movie. To be avoided at all costs.

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BaronBl00d (baronbl00d@aol.com) from NC
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A mega-wealthy man dies and leaves his money to his four heirs to divide. The only catch is that they must spend a whole week in the house. Also, to add some suspense, the will states that if none of the heirs live, then the money is to be divided between the three servants. Well, naturally we know that everyone is going to try to kill everyone in this rather typical storyline. What is not so typical is the level of incompetence used to achieve this goal. Now, unlike the other reviewers, I was able to sit through the whole film in one showing. And as bad films go, and make no mistake here.....this is a BAD film, you could do worse(try sitting through The Wizard of Mars in one sitting for a test of real endurance!) The murders are atrociously executed(both literally and figuratively). The editing leaves much to desire as we see...for seconds only...a head on a turkey platter...some piranhas devouring something, and so on. The acting is ridiculous despite the cast. The film not only has the Grand-master of Bad Horror films, John Carradine(very VERY briefly), but also Merry Anders(her last film), Rodolfo Acosta(his last film), and Jeff Morrow and Faith Domergue from This Island earth fame! Not to mention that guy that played Julius in The Planet of the Apes! You know what kind of film you have when two of the servants names are Igor and Elga, and that Igor has a fetish/need to be whipped by a cane every so often. The other servant, Frank the driver, has a lamp made of the skin from a German he killed during the war. They say good help IS hard to find! The ending is suppose to be comical I think, but more of a relief as you no longer have to see the messy proceedings anymore.

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spasmo dunson (kzintichmee@lycos.com) from WestVirginia, USA
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I caught this on a Brentwood 10 movie compilation. The first thing I noticed was how bad everyone's hair looked. The only guy I recognized was John Russell. I said to myself, "That's the guy from Lawman!" He played Frank the chauffeur and was probably the only sane person in the whole film and was evidently a badass. Some wacky, wacky stuff going on here. The butler, Ygor, looked just like Mel Brooks. He was nuts. The beautiful young daughter, she was nuts. The greasy haired brother, he was nuts, too. All these people had to stay in their dad's/employer's house for a week to get his dough. That was the late, great John Carradine. He had died and evidently hated everybody. Well, naturally, the bodies start to pile up. This movie kept me interested. I was not expecting Citizen Kane. It dealt with some hot button issues for the time it was made. Overall not too shabby. I mean, you gotta take in to account the budget, state of the art of cinema at the time, things like that. Only the ending left me scratching my head. Were there multiple killers or what? Give it a shot.

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Paul Andrews (poolandrews@hotmail.com) from UK
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Blood Legacy starts with the arrival of lawyer Tom Drake (Norman Bartold) to the Dean estate formerly owned by the now deceased Christopher Dean (John Carradine), upon his arrival he is greeted by Mr. Dean's four children, Gregory (Jeff Morrow) & his wife Laura (Merry Anders), Victoria (Faith Domergue), Johnny (Richard Davalos) plus Leslie (Brooke Mills) & her fella Carl Isenberg (John Smith). Drake plays a tape recording of they're late Father's wishes after his death, the estate worth 136 million dollars is to be split equally between his four children, if any should die then the money would be split equally between the rest & if all were to die the freaky servants Elga (Ivy Bethune), Igor (Buck Kartalian) & the more mundanely named Frank (John Russell) would pocket the lot. Well, not satisfied with a quarter share of $136 million (which is still almost $35 million back in 1971 which doesn't sound too bad to me) someone decides they want it all for themselves & it's not long before decapitated heads are turning up in the fridge...

Co-written, produced & directed by Roy Monson Blood Legacy disappointed me on two accounts. For starters this film's alternate & much more common title is Legacy of Blood which is also the title of an obscure horror film directed by Andy Milliagn back in '78 which I've always wanted to see, both films are regularly mixed up as both have similar stories & when I checked my on screen cable TV guide for Legacy of Blood I was excited because it said it was the Milligan film & even listed him as director so when I actually sat down to watch it & I heard John Carradine's voice & I then knew it wasn't the Milligan film that I had wanted to see, my heart sank. Then, of course, there's the simple yet undeniably straight forward fact that Blood Legacy is a total utter piece of crap that is literally painful to watch at times. The script by Monson & Eric Norden is slow, boring & extremely predictable. The character's are absolutely bizarre in an annoying way, the freak of a servant who ask's his sister (?) to cane him, the strange set of Brother's & Sisters who are just downright unlikeable & so far removed from reality that any tension or mystery that the simplistic whodunit story could have achieved is sorely missing & then there's the awful twist ending that you can guess within the first 10 minutes. It's boring to watch, it's poorly paced & it's just a chore to even think about it. Please, someone save me as this is really bad stuff. I could go on all day about how bad Blood Legacy is, I really could.

Director Monson was either working with a none existent budget or judging by this he shouldn't have even been directing traffic. The entire film looks ugly, it's poorly photographed & there is no atmosphere or scares. The blood & gore is tame, there's an axe in a head, a decapitated head, a scene when someone is stung to death by wasp's & the best murder when someone's face is eaten by piranha. However there are question marks over this scene, so there's the victim, right. There's the tank of piranha, right. Victims head is placed in piranha tank, right. Pirahna eat victims face, right. Water remains crystal clear despite said victim having his face eaten, erm where's the blood?

Technically Blood Legacy is terrible, it looks awful, the sound was obviously shot live & it's muffled & hard to hear which considering the terrible dialogue is maybe a blessing in disguise. The acting was not going to win anyone any awards that's for sure, the least said about it the better.

Blood Legacy is an awful film, there really isn't a single positive aspect to it or if there is I can't think of it. Do yourself a favour & don't bother with this one, there are much better films out there.

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Woodyanders (Woodyanders@aol.com) from The Last New Jersey Drive-In on the Left
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After a wealthy old geezer dies, his four greedy and no-count backstabbing kids get together at the family mansion so they can get their grubby paws on his sizable inheritance. Naturally, there's a catch: They all have to spend an entire week at the estate before they can collect the dough. Of course, a vicious killer starts brutally bumping folks off. Carl Monson's blunt direction fails to wring much tension from Eric Norden's trite, yet deliciously lurid script (a sleazy incest subplot is especially tasty), but does succeed in creating a compellingly seedy atmosphere and stages the murder set pieces with considerable go-for-it grisly gusto (said kill scenes include an axe to the noggin, a bullet to the head, an electrocution and a guy being stung to death by bees). The stand-out trash movie cast qualifies as another significant asset: Jeff Morrow and Faith Domergue from "This Island Earth," rugged Western film perennial John Russell, the luscious Brooke Mills from "The Big Doll House, Buck Kartalian of "Planet of the Apes" (very funny and creepy as a masochistic butler), Richard Davalos from Jack Hill's "Pit Stop," and the ubiquitous John Carradine as the mean, overbearing patriarch of the extremely depraved and dysfunctional clan. The gritty, washed-out photography by Jack Beckett and Ben Rombouts, Jamie Mendoza-Nava's spooky'n'shuddery score, and the delectably hammy performances add immensely to the picture's oddly appealing and engrossing ratty charm. Entertaining low-grade junk.

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Lee Eisenberg (lee.eisenberg.pdx@gmail.com) from Portland, Oregon, USA
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That's right, the easiest place to find this stinker is Elvira's Movie Macabre. The top-heavy hostess offers her share of commentary on "Blood Legacy" (also called "Legacy of Blood"). The plot - to the extent that there is one - is that a patriarch has died and his offspring gather at the estate for the inheritance, but then someone starts killing everyone off. Unfortunately, it's one of the slowest movies that I've ever seen. I bet that the reason why it's most readily available from Elvira's Movie Macabre is because no one wants to release it as its own movie. That's right, there are some movies only worth watching when presented by the Mistress of the Dark, or by "Mystery Science Theater 3000" or by Joe Bob Briggs.

It's so weird to think that John Carradine starred in some of the all-time classics, such as "The Grapes of Wrath", but mostly starred in these sorts of movies.

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Wizard-8 from Victoria, BC
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"Blood Legacy" is one of the most boring and tedious movies I have seen in a long time. It's one of the rare movies that had me almost dropping off to sleep while watching it. Is there anything positive to say about it? Well, despite a low budget, it doesn't look particularly cheap, and director Carl Monson does occasionally makes a striking visual. But for the vast majority of the time, the movie feels extremely flat. There's no feeling of tension or horror at any time, even when the body count starts to pile up. It doesn't help that the movie unfolds at a really slow pace; there's only one murder in the first half of the movie, for one thing. By the way, if you are a fan of John Carradine, you should know that all of his scenes combined add up to less than five minutes of the total running time.

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Chris. from Australia
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Talented cast is all that saves this turkey from the mincer, as John Carradine plays a recently deceased father whose family and servants are set to gain a sizable inheritance, if they can spend one week together in the family mansion. Carradine had nothing but scorn for his selfish offspring and has twisted the terms of the will to increase the proportions paid to each, should any die. A recipe for murderous abandon, which is exactly what prevails over the course of one, frenzied night.

The film itself is pure hokum, absurd and spectacularly poor in almost every dimension. The cast is what makes it vaguely watchable. Aside from horror maestro Carradine, Jeff Morrow, John Russell, Faith Domergue, Dick Davalos, Merry Anders, John Smith, Norman Bartold, Buck Kartalian and Rodolfo Acosta feature, a talented cast that will appeal to many film buffs. Glamorous Brooke Mills in an early role, has a sizable part as the youngest offspring, mentally precarious and under the watchful eye of treating psychiatrist Smith, who may or may not be connected with the crimes that begin depleting the dysfunctional progeny.

While the twist ending suggests that it's done tongue-in-cheek, it's difficult to detect that tone throughout the film, which labours through one, dark night to a blood-splattered conclusion, far less satisfying than one could have imagined. But still, there's the substantial cast of some distinction, and performances that belie the limited content (Morrow, Domergue and Russell in particular give dedicated performances). If you can see the potential in the cast, then this one will be worth a look.

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sol1218 from brooklyn NY
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***SPOILERS*** With a gathering of family members and servants of the late Christopher Dean, John Carradine, to hear his last will and testament they get somewhat of a surprise in that the Dean fortune, some 140 million dollars. The money is to be divided between them but only after they successfully spend a week at the Dean mansion. There seemed to have been a mix-up in the story when we later find out that it's really an overnight sleepover, not a weeks vacation, at the mansion for the guests to qualify for Dean's money since almost everyone ends up dead by sunrise.

The first victim of the Dean Curse have nothing at all to do with getting and money from the departed Christopher Dean estate the local sheriff Dan Garcia, Rodolfo Acosta. Acosta has his head chopped off refrigerated and then served on a platter to a shocked group of guests. Later that evening cute little Chin Greg and Laura's,Jeff Morrow & Marry Anders,little pet pooch is found dead outside floating in the pond.

The movie has all the people staying at the Dean Mansion being picked off one by one until it's revealed who the killer really is. We then have what seems to be a double-twist in the story where the original killer is suddenly killed together with two of the last remaining guest. The real killer ends up not only getting all the loot, 140 million dollars, but then ends up not having to split it with his accomplice by doing him, or her, in by giving him a poisonous cookie that kills him on the spot.

Nonsensical who done it, and haunted house, movie with a cast of such immoral and unlikable characters that even a mother, much less the audience, would have trouble liking. There's everything you can possibly think of in the move involving the selective guests that includes incest S&M sadism and of course double-dealing and back-stabbing not even counting murder. You just couldn't care less who of the guests survives to collect the Dean fortune at the end of the movie hoping against all hope then none of them do.

Even the big surprise at the end isn't really that much of a surprise since the killer's identity is divulged with the film-maker having forgotten to keep his face in the shadows so you actual see who he is even before he reveals himself! We then have a plot-twist that eliminates the killer together with a number of remaining guest just to make the movie a little more confusing then it already is. The final plot-twist, that you can see coming from as far as ten miles away, was just to show how smart the very obvious killer was which fooled almost nobody watching the movie.

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acidburn-10 from United Kingdom
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After reading the plot which does seem interesting with a family gathering at their childhood home after the death of their father to claim their inheritance, but have to spend one week there first and of course there's a killer amongst them and they start to get picked off. But even with the Gothic house setting, nothing good can be said for this piece of rubbish, it's just awful and weird and fails on almost every level.

Even with plot lines involving incest, deceit and death isn't enough to keep the story going and it just splits apart between too many characters, and the constant flash backs just made me confused, plus the obvious errors was just strange, even the characters are all horrible. The four siblings Johnny, Leslie, Veronica and Gregory are just over the top and unrealistic, even the dead father in the flash backs was just stupid and strange. Even the shady servants Nanny and Igor fail to become interesting and all of them are just paper thin looney tunes.

All in all "Legacy Of Blood" is just plain awful, an interesting premise that's just wasted on this piece of rubbish and even the silly over the top ending wasn't enough to save this mess, and even the running time just seems to go on and on.

AKAs Titles:

Certifications:
Canada:13+ (Québec) / Germany:BPjM Restricted / UK:18 / USA:R