The Bloody Judge (1970)
Set in 1685, during the reign of King James II, The Bloody Judge concentrates on ‘Hanging Judge’ George Jeffries (Christopher Lee). His remit is to dispense deadly sentences upon those considered to be in opposition of the monarch. No evidence of treason? No problem. Simply declare the accused of dabbling in witchcraft and dispense of them anyhow. But why rush things? Being the Lord Chancellor, along with a much feared judge, has its perks such as having assorted stripped down nubile ladies tortured at your command, burned at the stake and molested by yourself when the urge get the better of you. With such power you’d expect Jeffries to be a happy man but he’s far from it.
Following Jeffries’ execution of a young woman by the name of Alicia Grey (Margaret Lee) for witchcraft, her sister Mary (Maria Rohm), forlorn and needing some loving, following Alicia’s shocking demise, finds herself without clothes and rolling around in the hay with the equally naked Harry Selton (Hans Hass Jr.). Harry is the son of Lord Wessex (Leo Genn), a powerful figure on the side of the rebels, and the scene is set for Jeffries to face the music as all the while he hankers for Mary to be his.
The Bloody Judge, based incredibly loosely upon a true story, is a Matthew Hopkins – Witchfinder General wannabe without the grimness or oomph to be anything other than mediocre. With torture and cruelty dished out by Jeffries’ henchman Ketch (Howard Vernon), for no other reason than to titillate the less discerning, the effect is undone having Vernon dressed like Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein. Ketch, who along with his colleagues, obviously relish the opportunity to subject their nude/semi-nude victims to assorted diabolical tortures but for the viewer it is all rather dull and over baked.
Despite such scenes The Bloody Judge is never quite a horror film and not really the historical drama it pretends to be either adding no depth to the true story of Lord George Jeffries rendering him to no more than a one note character. In the extras Lee talks up a storm about his character and it sounds like he did his homework working what he knew into his performance. It means little as he’s almost secondary on screen and much of the time just looks like he’s having a really bad time. Lee is hammy at best. Leo Genn as Lord Wessex (who replaced Dennis Price at the last moment) has more gravitas as the father of Harry Selton, and Jeffries’ nemesis.
Maria Rohm, as Mary, either spends all her time crying, gleefully losing her clothes for a tumble in the hay or licking the bloodied naked form of another female prisoner fresh from being tortured. She’s there purely for screen decoration rather than provide weight to director Jesús Franco’s lifeless script. One surprise you will have with your purchase of The Bloody Judge is that the running time quoted is actually around fifteen minutes shorter. One surprise you won’t have is hearing Christopher Lee having one of his customary moans in the disc’s extras. A moan from Mr. Lee is now a standard for him on disc’s extras whether bitching about Peter Jackson excising some of his scenes from his The Lord of the Rings trilogy (an experience that obviously wasn’t worth the grump as the old fart still turned up to grimace his way through The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey) or how he loathed the scripts he was handed for Hammer fare. Mr Lee always seems to have a cross to bear with any film project he signs on to do, unless of course he’s blabbering on about Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man, which for a fellow that has been in the business for what feels like forever he always seems to be astonished at how the film-making process works and then has a good old moan about ninety per cent of the product he appears in doesn’t measure up to how he imagined it would. With The Bloody Judge it’s not like Lee hadn’t worked with Franco before so why is he so surprised that exploitation scenes, including one where Jeffries molests Mary (someone else’s hands were filmed doing so in place of Mr. Lee‘s), were added into the final cut?
The Bloody Judge is for Lee/Franco completists only failing to be either a horror flick or a historical drama. Had the makers veered more towards the crass and shocking then it could have weighed in nicely as a guilty trashy treasure. As it stands it’s a mildly diverting watch bogged down by Lee’s sombre presence and from the feeling that no one behind the camera quite knew what they really wanted from the finished product. God knows what an American audience would have made of it all especially given the rather stupid and irrelevant title of Night of the Blood Monster it received for release there.
