A young German nanny takes up employment at a large English stately home, where a sinister butler called Tom (Oliver Reed) appears to have power over the master (Derek Jacobi) and the other staff. It has taken me decades to finally see this, having picked it up on DVD. I recall it being screened on TV years ago, listed as a horror, but for some reason I missed it. Sadly it proved somewhat disappointing. Filmed over two weeks for a mere £55,000 it is a far cry from many of Reed's other movies that he had starred in, and it does show. The story is based on a novel by Lord Alexander Thynn, the 7th Marquis of Bath, and was filmed at his home Longleat in Wiltshire. This was one of the film's stronger points, one part shows scenes of visitors queuing up in their delightful looking old cars, it is almost part documentary and brought back memories of visiting it myself back in the 1970's. The film features much drinking and smoking dope (apparently Reed would organise evening pub crawls for the cast and ended up smashing up his Bentley Continental!), plus Lord Gregory spends a lot of time in bed with his wife (Fiona Lewis) and his mistress, all three are seen naked. Oliver Reed is one of my favourite actors and he looks menacing here but unfortunately just mumbles his way through, "As a gentleman's gentleman I sometimes ask myself who is a real gentleman?". Billed as a horror movie this is 90% rather slow drama, only the Satanic looking segment near the end gives it any horror. The bruises on the young children, or baby bashing as it is referred to in the film, was the most horrifying aspect. Overall I felt slightly disappointed, having waited so long to finally watch it, there were elements that did interest me but Blue Blood is certainly not a film for a wide audience.
Review of Blueblood
