Not So Violent Blood Bath: Penalty of Death (1974)

Oscar Bataille (Fernando Rey) is a French prosecutor who specializes in violent crimes, pleading punishments for murderers and fiends to the full extent of the law. He’s been a big proponent of the guillotine death penalty. Over his career, Bataille has killed dozens in this way, saving society from the burden of supporting monsters for the rest of their natural lives.

Now retired and while he is on vacation with his wife Patricia (Marisa Mell), Oscar discovers himself caught up in a strange mystery. A cheque was sent to the home of a man he put in the guillotine years before, a family that was assumed to have fled their home are found murdered in it an exact reproduction of one of Bataille’s high profile cases, and his future will have him encountering the local constabulary making similar gruesome recreations. Never the same dead killer twice. What kind of maniac is running amok on the countryside?

Aligning himself with the local inspector (Julián Navarro), Bataille is going to do everything he can to find out. However, the suspects at this resort are many. There’s the sinister actor and ladies man Javier Durán (Máximo Valverde), the true crime writer who abhors Oscar’s death penalty cases Wilson Vargas (Espartaco Santoni), a lovely hitchhiker with ties to several victims Laura Castro (Elisa Laguna), and others.

And with increasing health issues troubling the former prosecutor, a wife who is both concerned about him and sleeping with one of the suspects, another suspect with an attraction to Oscar, and plenty of strange circumstances surrounding the crimes, the old lawyer has plenty of challenges to overcome if he’s to discover the terrible truth and uncover the villain. Spanish director Jorge Grau helms a slow burn chiller in the Italian giallo tradition with his adaptation of a Guy de Maupassant story, Penalty of Death (1974).

The label on the tin (and poster) for this picture is often Violent Blood Bath, at least for the UK and US releases. It’s certainly a name that seems guaranteed to get butts into the seats. What exploitation, drive-in, or grindhouse fan doesn’t want to see a picture called Violent Blood Bath. It evokes Fulci gone wild, or Argento’s more elaborate slayings. Sadly, it’s a title that has nothing whatsoever to do with the picture at hand.

The original Spanish title of Pena de Muerte is much more accurate, at least as far as the story goes. And that translates to either Penalty of Death or Death Penalty. Admittedly, the latter sounds like a Death Wish (1974) rip off, so I can see why distributors in the states wouldn’t want to use it after the Charles Bronson picture found the levels of success that it did. However, Penalty of Death has a nice ring to it. So, that’s the one I’m going with.

One big hurtle to get past before considering this movie’s merits and weaknesses is a simple one. Guillotines? As methods for performing the death penalty? Really? Aren’t they like from the French Revolution? Well, it turns out that the last use of a guillotine for exercising the death penalty was 1977. As this film was being made, that old time implement was still seeing plenty of activity.

There’s a lovely scene where the guillotine is readied for one of Bataille’s previous cases, which is chilling not because we see the heads roll, but because of the utter blasé manner in which the people responsible for its use get it ready, put the steel bucket down to catch the head and blood, connect the piece that will keep audience members from seeing the blade bite into the neck and the head roll free … Theirs’ is a methodical, almost bored approach to methods of extermination, and it’s probably one of the more unsettling pieces of the film once you appreciate it for the emotionless work it is.

At the heart of the piece is a clever mystery with plenty of suspects, a playful interweaving of Bataille’s past and present circumstances to provide context, and sexy people often behaving badly. The cinematography from Fernando Arribas (who would go on to shoot Dennis Hopper’s quirky 1975 thriller Bloodbath/The Sky is Falling) is rich with color and mood. He does a solid job capturing the smoldering sexuality of certain characters as well as their cigarette smoke (these people fumar quite a bit, which is no surprise given this is from the 1970s).

What the film sorely lacks is suspense and surprise. A lot of the information and even the identity of the killer is telegraphed fairly early. Scenes that should build up a sense of dread can’t manage to provide even a single chill. Instead of a suspenseful thriller, Jorge Grau has built himself a kind of cozy crime whodunit. There are bodies aplenty, but not of the sort we ever see slain. The corpses left behind are not terribly shocking. We feel some sadness for the lives cruelly snuffed out, but not a lot. Mostly, it’s a matter of wondering how long it will take before the characters see the obvious madman among them.

It is crucial to come to this film not expecting another minor masterpiece in the vein of Grau’s Let Sleeping Corpses Lie/The Living Dead in the Manchester Morgue/Don’t Open the Window (1974). That picture manages to use the Night of the Living Dead (1968) ideas along with some quirky additions to build suspense, intrigue, and no small amount of terror. This picture is a much more reserved project, passionate about the philosophical arguments for and against the death penalty as well as the way people connect and disconnect from one another. However, it is utterly uninterested in providing the same kinds of thrills and chills as that other one.

Fernando Ray delivers a good performance as the man who has spent his life in the pursuit of justice for the slain, finding himself on one last case. It’s hard to see him in French legal regalia, however, while listening to his commanding flow of Spanish. Still, that’s one of the quirks of the film. He’s a lot of fun to watch.

Even more fun to watch are the many lovely women in the picture. Marisa Mell excels as the dutiful wife who finds herself torn by an attraction to a younger man. Elisa Laguna is a delight as the redhead suspected of being more than she appears, who actually is more than she appears but not necessarily in the way the police believe. Nené Morales might have a brief role as a Telefonista, but she makes a memorable impression in her few scenes.

Sadly, Máximo Valverde and Espartaco Santoni are playing flipsides of the same coin. They are there to be suspects, first and foremost, and there are a few moments when the lines between their actual characters can blur a bit.

Julián Navarro is entertaining as hell as the inspector who wants to find his criminal, no matter how much of a bully or bastard he needs to be. The actor has fun playing the power dynamics with his fellow actors, and it is entertaining.

Ultimately, Penalty of Death is a film that appeals to the Agatha Christie side of the mystery/suspense equation, and wonders how much exposure (even inadvertently) to death might prove to be too much for one fragile human mind. With numerous discussions of the death penalty between Oscar Bataille and Wilson Vargas, the film feels an awful lot like a message piece. Horror fans will be left wanting. Mystery fans can find some joy in the way the puzzle is arranged (though the ending is inevitable and easy to deduce).

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Penalty of Death/Violent Blood Bath is available in Vinegar Syndrome’s Spanish Blood Bath Blu-ray set.

Later today, we will finish off the Spanish Blood Bath set with a look at The Fish with the Eyes of Gold. It is available in DVD and VOD editions as well as the aforementioned set from Vinegar Syndrome.

Writing for “Not So Violent Blood Bath: Penalty of Death (1974)” is copyright © 2024 by Daniel R. Robichaud.

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