My review was written in April 1989 after watching the film on Academy video cassette.
"Bad Blood", originally titled "Son", is an engrossing gothic thriller that allows a tour de force by Gerogina Spelvin, her best performance since "Devil in Miss Jones".
R-rate pic is being shopped at the Cannes fest market and is headed for video release Stateside in July.
Spelvin, billed here under a new pseudonym "Ruth Raymond", plays Arlene Billings, a wealthy artist who's reunited with long-lost son Gregory Patrick after he spots her portrait of lookalike daddy in an art gallery.
Melodramatic plot is set into motion when Patrick and his wife, Linda Blair, visit Spelvin's Long Island mansion. Blair is poisoned and Spelvin starts to make an incestuous move on Patrick, whom she imagines is her late husband come back to life.
Pic plays well in the Robert Aldrich "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" mode, though director Chuck Vincent's pacing drags a bit, especially during a lengthy monolog by Patrick's foster mom, Carolyn Van Bellinghen.
Spelvin's performance is topnotch, mixing dramatic, camp and sexy elements in uninhibited fashion (while she and Vincent keep the pic within the bounds of an R rating). Name talent Troy Donahue and Linda Blair have little to do, but newcomer Christina Veronica makes a nice impression as a ditzy, sexy maid.
