The Sky is Falling aka Bloodbath

            Years ago, I was reading in Michael J. Weldon’s exhaustive and exhilarating second installment to The Psychotronic Video Guide about a bizarre 1975 film, shot in Spain, directed by Silvio Narizzano (Georgy Girl) and reuniting actors Dennis Hopper and Carroll Baker (who had starred in George Stevens’ Giant in 1956). Just the description of the plot made me insane, especially when Weldon declared, “It’s some serious weirdness from the director of Die Die! My Darling!” But when would I ever get a chance to see the damn thing?

            Suddenly, thanks to Vinegar Syndrome, they released an amazing Blu-ray called Villages of the Damned, which includes three folk horror films from Spain. The first film is Beatriz (1976) where a demonic friar enters the house of a wealthy, religious widow while her son (who witnessed the friar slaughtering some bandits in the forest) unsuccessfully tries to warn everyone that this holy man is bad news. The Forest of the Wolf (1970) is based on a true story of a poor Galician peddler (and serial killer) who committed 13 murders in the 1800s, claiming that he transformed into a wolf during the crimes. (Epilepsy and mental illness is more like it). The film has a haunting quality and the lead performance by Jose Luis Lopez Vazquez is just extraordinary. But the third film in the set is The Sky is Falling aka Bloodbath aka Las Flores Del Vicio. I could not believe my eyes when I read the press notice. The movie I’ve always wanted to see. And scanned and restored in 4K from the original negative!

            The movie itself is maddeningly self-indulgent, arty and insane and could only have been made in the 1970s. Set in the small seaside Spanish village of Mojacar, several dissolute expatriates are drinking and reveling all the while the villagers are celebrating Good Friday and having funeral processions. There’s the junkie poet Chicken (Dennis Hopper) who careens through the streets spouting nonsense (apparently, the director just let him say anything that popped into his drug-addled head). He also lives with a gorgeous black woman who he emotionally and physically abuses. A scene where he smashes eggs in her face and forces her to sing “Shortenin’ Bread,” had me covering my head with a blanket.

            Carousing there also is faded American screen star Treasure Evans (Carroll Baker), guzzling champagne, sleeping with (and paying) local studs and waiting for her phone to ring with that magical offer of a great film role- which is never going to happen. She also frequently pulls out her scrapbooks, revealing real publicity stills of Baker when she starred in a series of big budget sexy melodramas like The Carpetbaggers. Baker fled Hollywood for Italy in the 70s, where she was treated royally and starred in a series of fascinating “giallo” mysteries.

            Allen, an incredibly flamboyant gay man, is wandering the streets in gaudy attire cruising the handsome Spaniards and making bitchy comments to the others. He is played by the screenwriter of the film- Win Wells, who was also the director’s long-time partner. Wells was a playwright known for Gertrude Stein and a Companion, and the screenplay for The Greek Tycoon. His death in 1983 caused Silvio Narizzano to spiral into deep depression.

            Richard Todd plays a former British Air Corps Captain, drinking himself to death along with his bitterly unhappy lush of a wife (Faith Brook).

            They nightly get together drinking and dining outside while the villagers pass by them in indifference or disgust. Suddenly a boatload of hippies show up and sexually connect with the expatiates and one by one they die a mysterious death. Who are they? Just a harmless pack of flower-power freaks, or the Manson family?

            Carroll Baker’s boytoy is the frequently nude Salt (played by muscular David Carpenter). His real name was Domingo Codesido Ascanio. Carpenter was a discovery of director Eloy de la Iglesia (El Diputado/The Cannibal Man) and his striking physique and beauty landed him a handful of roles including Murder in a Blue World (1973) and Tarzan in King Solomon’s Mines (1973) before he left acting, became a lifeguard, and then moved to Thailand where he died suspiciously at age 55. For the life of me, I have not been able to track down the mystery surrounding his death.

            Ivonne Sentis plays the pretty blonde (with flowers in her hair) who seduces Dennis Hopper’s “Chicken,” and passively lies next to him nude while he spouts poetry and cries out, “Nothing is real, everything is permitted,” and, “looking in the mirror has fucked me up.” “Chicken” frequently flashbacks to his rabidly religious upbringing. A colorful extra on the Blu-ray is an interview with Ivonne Sentis, who calls herself now a “bourgeoisie hippie.” She also describes working with wild man Hopper and how much fun Carroll Baker was during the making of the film. 

            Now it’s doubtful the movie ever made a dime at the box office. Especially with those lousy titles. “The Sky is Falling”? Really? Is this Henny Penny-related in any way? And imagine the poor suckers who rented the VHS called “Bloodbath” expecting a gory slasher starring Dennis Hopper. Boy, would they be pissed. At lease Las Flores Del Vicio (The Flowers of Vice) has the right kind of arty, evocative feel. 

            If you scroll down comments on IMDB about the movie you’ll frequently see “worst movie I’ve ever seen in my life,” and so forth. And in many ways, they aren’t wrong. But I just love these kind of psychedelic late 60s and 70s experiments by directors trying to connect with the cynical, rebellious youth movement. Often hilariously bone-headedly. This could easily be on a double-bill with either Angel, Angel, Down We Go (1969) or Boom! (1968), movies I also passionately love for all the wrong reasons.