User reviews

I guess I am the odd man out here. I rather thought this film - a troubled production that took years to complete and finally hit the screen - was rather entertaining in a sick, undeniably twisted, bad way. Yes, it has some lamentable aspects. Karloff is ancient and it shows. The story has lots of continuity problems(remember it was completed over several years and was not released till a couple years after Karloff's death). It has a very perverse story line about Karloff, a great artist living in Spain, and his demented, tormenting wife, played with zeal by Viveca Lindfors, needing bodies for his sculptures. You see, even though he is blind, he still can sculpt based on armatures based on real remains. Karloff believes his wife is getting them one way, and she is definitely getting them another way. French photographer Jean Pierre Aumont smugs for the camera saying silently, "God, don't I look so charming." He isn't, but he is an adequate leading man if nothing else. The girls in the story, particularly the girl playing Elga and Rosenda Monteros as Valerie are lovely creatures at the very least. And what about Karloff? He is still good and still one of the best things about this film(though my greater inclination is to side with one of the nastiest female portrayals in film I've seen in some time by Ms. Lindfors). Karloff still has a commanding voice and presence, and this film role is much meatier than any of that garbage he did for Mexico at the very end of his life. This movie has much greater continuity and story line than any of those four horror stories of film. Cauldron of Blood is by no means a great film - nor a good film, but I did find it reasonably entertaining and I, for one, was never bored watching it. Really, how can you go wrong with King Karloff, Viveca Lindfors wearing a Nazi-like uniform with riding crop and nylon netting under her eyes having flashbacks of her youth as a pig-tailed blonde no less, a cauldron of acid that burns the flesh off of any carcass, and a fight scene in the dark with a blind man and his hateful wife. As Karloff's character says to his wife, having just accused her of causing him to be blind, "Till death do we part I suppose." Nobody ever said a line like Boris!

I loved horror movies as a kid. Now when I go back to the genre I once loved it is sometimes surprising just how good Boris was. Not long ago I bought the complete series of the Colonel March of Scotland Yard British TV series. And man Boris was good in that. Even here, a dying man, he still has that commanding voice and charisma.

This movie in it's parts is quite good. The cast is strong, the plot has potential, the production values look good. There are moments where you think this movie is going to start to kick ass. However the whole does not equal the sum of it's parts. It drags in spots. There are long sequences that add little to the story. I know the movie was produced over many years and the continuity is lacking. Some careful editing down may have made this a more enjoyable film. Still, another evening with Boris is never a bad thing.

Watching the film on videotape, I got to wondering about the incredibly meandering plot and how many of the characters don't really have anything to do with each other. Then it hit me-- this flick was assembled over a period of years! The original movie centered on Karloff but his ill health left that section far too short. Over the next couple years, it looks like the producers added to the flick whenever there was cast and money available. And of course as movies got more explicit, they added more scenes to make this stew commercially viable (like the lesbian model scene).

A bad movie and a mediocre one coexist under the same title: first, a bland story of a horny French journalist turned tourist promoter, courting a blank Spanish girl, who falls prey of a sadistic bitch; and second, a horror tale involving a blind sculptor and his crazy wife, who kills animals and people with her lover's assistance to provide real bone structures for her husband's 3-D evocations of famous paintings. Characters go back and forth from A to B for 97 endless minutes. Pity is that both Lindfords and Karloff try hard to make any sense of the whole affair. Not a bad idea, but poorly executed, with dreadful music and silly special effects and nightmares. Be warned.

Acceptable horror movie revolving around a mysterious sculptor and an eerie basement with plenty of murders , creepy sculptures and ghastly events . A blind sculptor called Franz Badulescu (Boris Karloff) works on his magnum opus unaware that the skeletons he has been using for armatures are provided by his nasty wife , using them as foundations for his projects : some evocations of famous paintings . As Karloff unaware that the bones come from the unfortunate victims of his heinous wife Tania (Viveca Lindfors) and her murderous lover , the evil Shanghai (Milo Quesada) . Along the way , the French journalist Claude Marchand (Jean-Pierre Aumont) is in the little town of Torremolinos (Spain) to interview Badulescu for a magazine and posing as a photographer attempts to know some strange issues about him . Things go wrong when his sweetheart Valerie (Rosanda Montero) stumbles upon the body of her latest victim . Tops In Total Horror!

Thrilling Spanish horror with typical characteristics of the Sixties , displaying chills , shocks , fights , violence and a creepy acid-filled cauldron with abundant smoke . Despite a few escenarios and its shot budget the movie results to be passable , thanks to the adequate filmmaking , atmospheric cinematography taking nice use of lights and shades as well as camera positioning to complement appropriate horror set pieces , especially at its final . And main attraction of the movie lies on watch as Torremolinos (Malaga) has changed from a little tourist village to become , nowadays , a holiday metropolis . Here Karloff plays a blind sculptor , who creates his masterpieces-3D representations of figures from old masters-using real skeletons as armatures provided by his wicked wife by delivering undercoverly the remains of the victims , being well played by Viveca Lindfords , though she gives overacting , at times . One of the several movies Karloff played outside the US shortly before his death , along with his Mexican period ; this one is far from one of his best , but better than those directed by Jack Hill and Juan Ibañez . Karloff had a long and important career from his big hit Frankenstein (1932) by James Whale , he quickly appeared in many other sinister roles , including Scarface (1932) , the black-humored Old dark house (1932), as the namesake Oriental villain of the Sax Rohmer novels in The Mask of Fu-Manchú (1932) or as undead Im-Ho-Tep in The Mummy (1932) and the misguided Prof. Morlant in The Ghoul (1933) and special mention for his role as a religious fanatic in John Ford's The Lost Patrol (1934) that hee thoroughly enjoyed . He donned the signature make-up , neck bolts and asphalt spreader's boots again to play Frankenstein's monster in the extraordinary The bride Frankenstein (1935) and the less thrilling The son of Frankenstein (1939) . Karloff , on loan to Fox , turned up in one of the best of the Warner Oland Chan entries , Charlie Chan in the Opera (1936) . He was a wrongly condemned doctor in Devil's Island (1939), shaven-headed executioner "Mord the Merciless" in Tower of London (1939) , a crazed scientist surrounded by monsters, vampires and werewolves in House of Frankenstein (1944), a murderous grave-digger in The Body Snatchers (1945) and a Greek general fighting vampirism in Val Lewton's Horror Isle of the Dead (1945). Main starring Jean Pierre Aumont , Karloff , Viveca Lindfors , Rosanda Monteros are well accompanied by a good Spanish support cast , such as : Milo Quesada , Dyanik Zurakowska , Manuel de Blas , Rubén Rojo , all of them ordinary actors who played a lot of films of the regular genres of the Sixties and Seventies as Spaghetti/Paella Western , Terror , Giallo , and Eurospy .

The picture was professionally written/produced/directed by Santos Alcocer and Edward Mann, but it has a lot of failures , flaws and gaps . These filmmakers use ordinary visual tricks, sustaining interest enough through the dark and well-designed scenarios and when there shows up the really creepy acid-filled cauldron that definitively steals the show. The picture will appeal to terror genre buffs and Boris Karloff fans . Rating 5.5/10.

Boris Karloff was an unusual actor in that as he aged, he didn't slow down making films even though he was a physical mess. He had advanced emphysema and could barely walk due to a crippling back injury and arthritis....but he kept plugging away...mostly in very cheap international productions. But here's the weirdest part of it. He knew he was dying and deliberately filmed parts of MANY films...Mexican and Spanish...with the assumption that the filmmakers would later make the rest of the movie after Karloff's death! So, a couple years AFTER Karloff had assumed room temperature, his films continued to appear in theaters. I cannot think of another actor who did this....and it's a bit creepy. "Cauldron of Blood" is one of these films where they filmed Karloff and filled in the rest later.

Apart from the neat opening credits, I was surprised just how bad "Cauldron of Blood" was...as well as how irrelevant many of the Karloff scenes were. In fact, it was so poorly patched together and incomprehensible, it reminded me of the scenes Bela Lugosi filmed for "Plan 9 From Outer Space". The story COULD have been interesting, but choppy editing, inappropriate music, bad writing as well as terrible production values make this a film only of value to Karloff completists who insist on seeing everything the fine actor made. But filming a few scenes with the actor and then patching together a film two years later....well, that's an idea that is doomed to failure...and it was.

There are a few things that do save Cauldron of Blood from total doom. The scenery is very picturesque then again this is Spain we're talking about, the animated title sequence is brilliant and the best scene of the film easily(sadly also one that deserved a much better film), Boris Karloff's presence is still magnetic despite his health and Viveca Lindfors is wonderfully nasty and in a rather scary way. In the acting stakes though Karloff and Lindfors are the only ones that come off as remotely well. Jean-Pierre Aumont looks thoroughly disengaged and as though he didn't want to be there, and others like Rosenda Monteros and Ruben Rojo over-compensate wildly and painfully. Cauldron of Blood is devoid of tension, suspense and chills, mainly because of how cheaply rendered the atmosphere is and also because of the appallingly cornball script- if you get any chills it will be from this component alone, the writing really is that bad- and how much the weirdly constructed story drags, to the extent that the only feeling you get from watching Cauldron of Blood is boredom. The pacing is erratic, on the ponderous side rather than rushed mostly, and the ending is anti-climatic and poorly resolved. Apart from the scenery and animated sequence, Cauldron of Blood is not a well-made film at all, the effects are hokey and the camera work is as erratic as the pacing but worst of all is the editing which is all-over-the-place, slow and choppy in feel and look and it was clear that the making of the film was spread out over a few years which seriously affects the continuity. The music is more strident and over-bearing than stylish and atmospheric. So overall, not Karloff's worst film, it's much better than those wretched Mexican films he made in a similar time frame to this( especially Fear Chamber, though one of them- The Incredible Invasion- made for one of the worst final films of any actor), but it is far from one of his best. If we were to just exclude the Mexican films for a brief second, Cauldron of Blood is still down there with The Invisible Menace and Voodoo Island as one of his weakest. A very generous 4/10. Bethany Cox

Legendary Boris Karloff is completely wasted in this mind-numbingly boring piece of trash.At the end of his life,seriously ill he plays the blind and crippled Charles Badulescu,a famous sculptor.He works on his final magnum opus completely unaware that the bones he has been using are the remains of the victims of his murderous wife."Cauldron of Blood" is a chore to sit through.The acting is painfully bad,the suspense is non-existent and the editing is awful.The film is terribly boring and filled with tons of uninteresting talking.The only reason to watch this utterly worthless bore is Karloff,but even his classy performance can't save it.Avoid this one like the plague-you'll thank me later.1 out of 10.

Boring doesn't begin to describe this waste of time. Just talk, talk, talk about a scheme to lure tourists to a sculptor's museum. Karloff's minimal role adds nothing, not even curiosity value. Unlike "fun" bad movies (such as Horror of Party Beach, The Creeping Terror, etc.) there's no fun in this empty Cauldron at all; it's just plain bad. Pass this one by - you're not missing anything.

CAULDRON OF BLOOD is, with all it's admitted faults, in reality a very important minor entry in the early stages of the Euro Horror boom years of 1967 to 1975 or so. The film's main draw is Boris Karloff, brought in to play an aged, blind, semi-invalid artist who is unwittingly using the bones of murder victims to create his world famous sculptural works.

The reason why this is important is that Karloff's presence has lent the film a certain populist appeal that has nothing to do with the nature of the production, and indeed his performance is not only the best thing about the movie, but one of his most effective from what was sadly the twilight period of his career. Point being that thanks in part to repeated screenings on local Creature Feature Monster Movie Matinée slots during the 1970s (and of course as a home video rental era staple), a lot of people who might not otherwise be drawn to regional Euro Horror have managed to see it ... even though as most of the comments here reveal, many may have wished that they hadn't.

But the point is still valid: Mention "That movie where Boris Karloff plays the blind guy with goggles and cane who fights over the acid vat" and most fans of grade C minus horror from the 1960s/1970s will know what you are referring to. And of course for Boris Karloff fans it's a must see effort, even though it managed to languish for 3 years between it's filming in 1967 and eventual release in 1970, by which time Karloff had passed away. Further research reveals that the role of the blind sculptor was originally intended for Claude Rains who himself inconveniently kicked the bucket during pre-production, and Karloff was brought in as a replacement. And when you think about it, his casting is somewhat reminiscent of a Spaghetti Western approach, with an A list star of some caliber being brought in to a European genre film to provide that box office kick -- and in this case it worked out like gangbusters, even if the end result is a bit esoteric for many.

The film is essentially a pre-Giallo murder mystery with the requisite overcoat wearing gloved killer, red herrings, spooky overtones of psycho-sexual deviancy, kitschy fashion & pop culture references, offbeat local Spanish colorings, and a parade of supporting players who would later go on to play prominent roles in the Euro Horror cycle: Manuel de Blas, Rubén Rojo, Al Pereira, Milo Quesada, an over the top Viveca Lindfors as a sex crazed bisexual S&M freak, and most importantly Euro Sex Kitten Dyanik Zurakowska, who serves as a perversely unwitting muse to the blind artist's master work. The only member of the cast who genuinely seems out of place is the absurd jet-setting photojournalist/playboy romantic lead embodied by noted French ham actor Jean-Pierre Aumont, who apparently thought he had been cast in the movie's Maurice Chevalier role. The best thing that can be said of his work is that at least he wasn't given a chance to sing.

Shot on an appallingly low budget, oddly paced, seemingly edited by someone on Quaaludes and consisting of a dozen or so loose ends that don't seem to match up, the film doesn't have much in the way of traditional horrors (or story structure) to recommend it, beyond some wonderful Euro horror ambiance and of course the presence of Karloff. Devotees of his classic era work may be saddened to see him reduced to playing a blind old man, but without necessarily intending to the movie emphasizes that by 1967 Karloff was getting old and frail and sick. Is it wrong for a film to reflect that which is true about the people who participate? Boris Karloff lived to make movies, appears to have approached the role with a certain amount of zeal and holds his own quite well, given the circumstances. Other "big names" like Joseph Cotton, James Philbrook and Guy Madison all had their twilight era Euro genre periods, and it's high time that the snobbish Americanized manner of looking down at such work was done away with. These aren't that bad compared to 90% of the horse hockey playing at your local multiplex this weekend.

My attachment to the film is purely nostalgic: I vividly remember the movie scaring the wits out of me as a young chap sneaking in a monster movie instead of doing chores on a Saturday afternoon, and being confused by the Filmation stock music used to flavor the score that I was familiar with from shows like SHAZAM! and the animated "Star Trek" cartoon series from the early 1970s. But I admit it's a wretched movie, with about forty minutes of pretty decent Euro horror broken up by another hour of dreck that most contemporary viewers will have very little use for. Nonetheless it's historically important, actually gets better with multiple viewings as you work out the seemingly disjointed parts, has some great decrepit atmosphere in certain sections, and in the middle an overlooked Boris Karloff role that is better than the movie's detractors -- including his fans -- may lead one to believe.

5/10: By the way, all known versions currently in existence for home video are censored, though those edits may have been pre-release chops done by Franco era Spanish authorities, in which case it's probably an irretrievable loss. Further proof that totalitarianism does indeed suck rather hard.

Producer Robert D Weinbach originally wanted Claude Rains for the role of Badulescu, but due to Rains's illness, he was replaced by Karloff. Originally titled Blind Man's Bluff, the film was shot in and around Madrid. Filming began in Februrary 1967 and lasted almost three months. Karloff was in ill health himself, but never wanted to give up acting and worked in his craft until he died in 1968. Karloff worked hard as a laborer and even a truck driver between acting roles when he was first starting out in Canada and knew what it was to miss a few meals. Karloff made this film a classic and it will be viewed and talked about from generation to generation whether we like it or NOT!

1967's "Cauldron of Blood" (El Coleccionista de Cadaveres or Blindman's Bluff) was shot on location in Torremolinos on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, about the same time that Boris Karloff guest starred on I SPY's "Mainly on the Plains" (sharing one sequence with the unknown, unbilled Paul Naschy), amazingly spry for a man about to turn 80. Following on from Michael Reeves' "The Sorcerers" and just prior to "Targets," this badly scripted ripoff of "Mystery of the Wax Museum" offers no surprises for viewers well versed in the art of using murder victims as wax figures, except that Boris plays renowned sculptor Franz Badulescu, both crippled and blind since an accident which he blames on his 'adoring' wife Tania (Viveca Lindfors), the one responsible for building up his social status after years of impoverished struggle. His latest commission has fallen behind, so scarlet Tania and her younger lover have resorted to supplying the corpses for Badulesco's work, not even sparing a dog, all dumped in an underground vat of acid to remove all traces of identifying flesh. Most of the picture focuses on local color with top billed Jean-Pierre Aumont truly earning his paycheck, poor Boris replacing a terminally ill Claude Rains in a part even smaller than in the entire Mexican quartet that concluded his career (just over 13 minutes screen time, mostly saved for the end). Viveca Lindfors enjoys this juicy role, whether having nightmares about being whipped as a child or exhibiting a clearly bisexual nature in come ons to female victims. While the men go at it with fisticuffs, the heartbroken sculptor takes aim at his faithless wife in a poorly shot, uncinematic showdown in dank, dark surroundings, assuring a halt to the reign of on screen terror and off screen misery. At an agonizing 99 minutes it's way too long to have any impact with a fine Karloff performance almost permanently sidelined, a good half hour that easily could have been lopped off for its frequent TV airings. Quite a comedown for director/cowriter Edward Mann, a US-Spanish production that can't compare with his previous script for the expert Peter Cushing vehicle "Island of Terror," an interesting career starting out as a cartoonist and later author of Donald Pleasence's "The Mutations" from 1973 plus two features shot the following year, Oliver Stone's "Seizure" and Burt Kennedy's "The Killer Inside Me," starring Stacy Keach and John Carradine.

Poor Frankenstein (Boris Karloff), they convinced him to appear in this worthless production, probably because he was very old and sick (it's one of his last movies). Except for two bodies of young women in bikini, nothing to see.

Boris Karloff, probably the greatest horror actor who ever lived, passed away in February 1969 and you can almost consider this a blessing since he didn't had to experience the release of this movie that way. "Cauldron of Blood" is an awful 70's Euro-trash production and Karloff-admirers shouldn't remember like he looked here: an ill and crippled old man who had to star in inferior productions until his death. Like another reviewer around here cleverly pointed out, this film looks like it was edited together in bits and pieces and new footage was only shot when the makers had an extra nickel to spend. Karloff stars as the blind sculptor Badulescu who isn't aware that his fiendish wife and her masked lover provide him with murder victims to use as armatures for his artwork. Their idea is to get rich real quick but the whole plan threatens to get revealed when a reporter arrives in the seaside town with the idea to attract more tourists by making a publicity campaign about Badulescu's work. The basic premise is promising enough (it even reminds me a little of "House of Wax") but the execution is too incompetent for words. "Cauldron of Blood" is barely watchable, with entire sequences that seem to be missing and the camera that freeze-frames every time something terrible is about to happen to one of the characters. This could have been an exhilarating movie (and a worthy closure to Boris Karloff's career) but it turned out an unendurable mess, instead. It's a damn shame...

A woman turning into an animated skeleton, a title constructed from bones, credits written in a 'dripping blood' typeface, a cauldron bubbling with dry ice, and a skull lit with garish colours: the schlocky ingredients that make up the opening credits set the tone for this trashy, somewhat psychedelic 70s euro-horror starring an aged Boris Karloff in one of his last screen roles.

Karloff plays blind sculptor Franz Badulescu, who creates his masterpieces—3D representations of figures from old masters—using real skeletons as armatures, unaware that the bones come from the unfortunate victims of his wicked wife Tania (Viveca Lindfors) and her murderous lover Pablo. French journalist Claude Marchand (Jean-Pierre Aumont) is in town to interview Badulescu for a magazine; when his girlfriend Valerie stumbles upon the body of Pablo's latest victim and she is abducted, he must rush to her rescue before she too is stripped of her flesh in Tania's acid-filled cauldron.

I'm going to go against popular opinion and declare Cauldron of Blood a very enjoyable slice of lurid Euro-nonsense, the cheeze factor so high, and the competence so low that I couldn't fail to have a good time: Lindfors (Aunt Bedelia from Creepshow) makes for a terrific villainess, hamming it up big time. There's a cool, jazzy, brassy score with ridiculously urgent wailing trumpets for the action scenes. Male viewers are treated to some quality eye candy in the form of tasty blonde Elga (Dyanik Zurakowska) and mute housemaid Pilar (Jacqui Speed). The frantic finale is utterly daft yet surprisingly tense, and delivers a nifty bit of gore when Lindfors has her arm plunged into her own acid bath. And for those still left wanting, there's a redundant sub-plot about Claude investing in beach property, plus a few random shots of birds of prey and a big crab for good measure.

6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.

Jean-Pierre Aumont plays Claude Marchand, a debonair, jet-setting photographer whose latest assignment is blind, aged sculptor Franz Badulescu (Boris Karloff). Marchand spends a lot of his time charming sexy Spanish ladies like Valerie (Rosenda Monteros), while sometimes the peace of this exotic locale is disturbed by murders - of men, women, and even a dog. What is done with the remains of these murder victims? It involves a cauldron of acid, not blood.

More of a murder mystery (akin to an Italian Giallo) with horror elements than an out-and-out horror film, this was filmed over the course of a few years, and not released until after Karloffs' death. One has to give the genre star credit, as he was not letting ill health slow him down; his performance is as delightful as many others he gave over the decades. The film is unique for incorporating a loud and lively soundtrack of American jazz, as well as surrealism (there are lots of stylized images in some sequences), psychedelia, and the carefree attitude of the swinging 60s. It includes a dungeon setting that is right in line with horror films of years past. The performances are engaging, especially from an unhinged Viveca Lindfors as Badulescus' conniving wife. Aumont is NOT as charming as he seems to think he is, but he does a decent job in the lead. Monteros is highly enticing as an intended victim, as is Dyanik Zurakowska as Elga. The Spanish locations utilized also help to give this a certain stature; while this is of course not up to Peter Bogdanovichs' great thriller "Targets", it's still superior to those VERY low rent Mexican-American horror films that constituted Karloffs' final film work.

Undeniably, this can get pretty crude. The filming and the editing are not exactly slick. A case in point is the ultimate fate for Badulescu; it comes off as laughable. But this Euro-trashy production manages to provide its audience with an amusing diversion, even in light of its troubled history. Karloff and Lindfors make it all worthwhile.

Seven out of 10.

Not until three years after the death of Boris Karloff, EL COLECCIONISTA DE CADAVERES had his premiere at the cinema in August 1971. For me, it verges on the miraculous that this could happen anyhow. This obscure Spanish-American production was one of the last movies in which the master of the horror film appeared, but he could not enhance the movie in any way, being only a shadow of his former screen presence. The entire film, on which work began in February 1967 and lasted about three months, has not a single appealing scene to offer. It is so tedious that it is a real challenge to follow the "plot" without falling asleep. To make matters worse, J.P.Aumont and V.Lindfors are spectacular miscast. Especially Aumont torments the viewer, acting bored and arrogant. He is nothing less than a constant provocation for the paying audience. R.Rojo and R.Monteros on the other hand tend to heavy overacting, which doesn't support the film either. Thanks to the depressingly dumb screenplay, indifferent direction and annoyingly bad actors, EL COLECCIONISTA DE CADAVERES is one of the most wretched and unedifying movies of all time. In comparison to this, the movies Karloff made shortly after in Mexico are pure entertainment.