Director/co-writer Paul Bunnell delivers a 1970’s vintage time capsule in his horror feature A Blind Bargain. After returning from the Vietnam War, Dominic Fontaine (Jaker Horowitz) is addicted to heroin and living with his mother. He struggles to adapt to civilian life. His mother, Joy Fontaine (Amy Wright), an aging former silent movie star, insists he go to a clinic for treatment. At the clinic, he meets a sympathetic nurse named Ellie (Lucy Loken) who takes his blood.
She later calls to tell him that the test indicates that his mother’s blood is unique and could benefit Dr. Gruder’s (Crispin Glover) work at an experimental clinic. She offers to pay him for the blood. Driven to pay off a dangerous drug dealer named Vincent (Rob Mayes), Dominic agrees to bring his mother to Gruder. He tells her she’s going to a spa, and she is excited about the positive changes in his life.
The deal with Gruder appears straightforward and harmless, but Dominic doesn’t inquire about the research methods. It turns out that Gruder is performing unscrupulous, extreme experiments attempting to reverse aging, at great risk to his subjects. When he subdues Joy with chloroform, Dominic begins to grasp what he has done to his mother, but denies his fears and turns to enjoying the party life his new windfall buys him. To further distract him, Ellie seduces him. Oddly, when he goes to his dealer Vincent’s birthday party, members of Dr. Gruder’s staff are present. Weirdness abounds.
“After returning from the Vietnam war, Dominic Fontaine (Jaker Horowitz) is addicted to heroin and living with his mother.”
Crispin Glover chews the scenery flamboyantly with that weird facility that only he has. From George McFly in Back to the Future to creepy cousin Dell in Wild at Heart, Glover is the only actor who can embody that iconic, bizarre undertone in a performance. He is known to be difficult and unpredictable on set, but his talent is undeniable. He has worked consistently since the early 80s, mostly in independent film. In 2005, he directed the surrealist film What is it? featuring a cast with Down’s syndrome. Playing Dr. Gruder, he delivers the goods beautifully as a soft-spoken, mustache-twirling villain with a cheesy fake accent. The artifice makes the character all the more creepy.
A Blind Bargain is loosely based on Lon Chaney’s lost 1922 silent film of the same name. Updated to the decade of free love, Bunnell shot on 35mm film to capture the look of 1970’s cinema, and the film is being shown from 35mm prints in New York and LA. It is pure camp with colorful, psychedelic visuals, with lava lamps and go-go dancers to round out the ambiance. The production value is of a better quality than expected, working from a $2.5M budget. The film bears some resemblance to Honey Bunch, by Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli, and similarly shares DNA with Stuart Gordon’s Reanimator. Bunnell is best known for cult classic films like sci-fi musical comedy The Ghastly Love of Johnny X, That Little Monster, and Final Destinations (unrelated to the similarly named franchise).
Lon Chaney’s film is lost to history, with only a few promotional photos and stories remaining. The original negative was destroyed by MGM in 1931, and the last surviving print burned in a 1965 vault fire. Bunnell’s re-imagined A Blind Bargain is a melodrama in the style of a 1970s exploitation film. He captures the essence of that time in a lively, entertaining celebration, while honoring the silent film roots of Lon Chaney’s earlier work.
Learn more at the official A Blind Bargain website.
"…a lively, entertaining celebration that honors the silent film roots..."
