I had never heard of this one until recently, but was definitely intrigued by the involvement of "Euro-Cult" exponent Grau as well as stars Fernando Rey and Marisa Mell. The sensationalistic English moniker suggests a Giallo or even a Gangster epic, but this is a relatively serious treatise of schizophrenia coupled with a plea against capital punishment (PENA DE MUERTE being the film's original title).

The plot is interesting: Rey is a stern ageing judge who goes on holiday, only to find the crimes of people he had sentenced to the guillotine years before literally coming back to haunt him!; Mell is the man's much-younger dissatisfied wife (also irritated by his OCD!) who eventually rekindles a romance with writer Espartaco Santoni, actually there to compile data for his next book – which just happens to revolve around her husband's illustrious career! The subsequent investigation into the multiple murders also takes in a local Police inspector, a girl whom Rey had befriended and who had connections to one of the latest crime scenes, and her actor boyfriend; both the latter and Santoni himself (being familiar with the trials of the original cases, of which we are given intermittent snippets, he is obviously knowledgeable of their killers' modus operandi) are among the initial suspects.

Still, the identity of the perpetrator of the copy-cat killings is not at all hard to guess; in fact, it is virtually a replica of the latter-day Boris Karloff vehicle THE HAUNTED STRANGLER (1958) sans face-twitching antics! As I said, the film makes little concessions to the sleaze and gore which typically exemplified the "Euro-Cult" style – perhaps the presence of Luis Bunuel regular Rey inclined the director towards a more level-headed approach here (though, to be fair, this was also true of the two other efforts of his I have watched so far, and his most popular, BLOOD CEREMONY [1973; whose viewing actually followed in quick succession to the title under review!] and THE LIVING DEAD AT MANCHESTER MORGUE [1974]).

Directed by Jorge Grau (Let Sleeping Corpses Lie), who co-wrote the story with Juan Tébar and based it on a story by Guy de Maupassant, Violent Bloodbath also goes by the titles Death Penalty, Night Fiend, Penalty of Death and The Private Life of a Public Prosecutor.

Judge Oscar Bataille (Fernando Rey) believes in the death penalty and several men have been put to death because of him, some of them perhaps innocent. While he's on vacation with his wife Patricia (Marisa Mell), he discovers copycat murders of those who have been put to death because of his work. At the same time, Patricia is having an affair with her ex-husband Wilson (Espartaco Santoni). As the murders continue, we wonder, could Bataille be the one doing them? Or is it someone else near him?

A lot of people seem to have a problem with the title of this movie, expecting, well, a bloodbath. Instead, they get a soap opera about a judge with OCD dealing with his past and his wife trying to decide between safe love and dangerous lust. It has a solid idea and the story is good, so if all you care about are murders and gore, there are plenty of slasher movies to enjoy.