Review of Santa Sangre (1989) by Bryan B — 06 Sep 2009

Santa Sangre (translated as the Holy Blood) is one of my favorite films of all time. If you are a fan of Susperia, you have to see this film. If you have not seen the film, do not read on, because I am going to lovingly give away some spoilers.

Santa Sangre was released in the golden age of the revival of independent film in the early 90's. This was the age of The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, Her Lover; Eraserhead; The Crying Game; and the Hollywood independent film Pulp Fiction. In the early 90's, these little crazy films were suddenly given prominence finally after the era of the 80's blockbusters and gave homage to the intellectual films of the 1970's.

Santa Sangre is the story of a serial killer and the film slowly unravels to reveal the psychosis behind his brutal killings. However, the direction of Alejandro Jodorowsky is a throwback to the great films of Fellini.

This is an absurd, truly visionary film about the limits a human can withstand under the most bizarre circumstances and what evolves from such experiences.

There is really no way to describe this film and to even mention some of the scenes to anyone who has not seen it will seem silly. I mean, this is a story of a boy who grows up in the circus with a cheating father who gets sexual pleasure from throwing knives at his acrobatic mistress while his wife begins to have visions of Christ. This is a film where the serial killer actually believes he can heal like Christ when one of the circus elephants begins to bleed from its trunk from disease. The best scene of all is when the overbearing psychotic mother loses her arms and he sits behind her and plays piano for her as she once did in her cult church.

This is disturbed, deranged, trip-on-mushrooms, psychotic terror at its best. If you smoke pot, light up a joint, sit back with the lights off and let this great film just penetrate your head.

In all of the strange independent films made in the early 90's, none of them hold a candle to this film. This is the best of the best independent films in an era that revived the genre.

A true masterpiece of dementia!