Diagonaldi Very well executed

Murphy Howard I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

lonchaney20 In observance of Christopher Lee's passing, I decided to rewatch this Jess Franco film - one of several Franco made for the lovably shady Harry Alan Towers. I last saw it ten years ago, and all I remembered was a then shocking scene in which Lee's hand-double molests an accused witch in exchange for her lover's life. The film is set during and after the Monmouth Rebellion, during which the Duke of Monmouth, the illegitimate son of Charles II, attempted to depose James II and claim the English crown. The real life conflict is pretty interesting, and parallels modern events in several ways, but the film follows a different path. In the wake of the surprisingly successful Witchfinder General (1968), producers scrambled to cash in on it by making increasingly sleazy and violent witch-hunting films. Thus a legitimately interesting historical figure and his political dealings are sidelined by fictitious nonsense about torturing and executing witches. The film is sumptuously photographed by Manuel Merino, features a typically great soundtrack by Bruno Nicolai, and is skillfully directed by Jess Franco (who was reaping the benefits of the bigger budgets that Towers afforded him), but the pedestrian script (derived from a story by Towers) lets the film down. The scenes of torture lack the disturbing authenticity of their equivalents in Witchfinder General, and they're certainly not sleazy enough to compete with other "classics" of this sub-genre; Franco would explore similar ground to far greater success with The Demons (1973). Thankfully Lee is in fine form here, bringing his usual presence and professionalism. While the dolled up women fail to convince as Restoration-era witches, Lee's diligent research and attention to detail result in a frighteningly plausible human monster: Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys, the "Bloody Judge" of the title. In an interview included on my DVD, he talks about how much of his performance is based around the painful kidney ailments Jeffreys suffered in real life. This is never directly referenced in the film, but it demonstrates the thoughtfulness and dedication that Lee brought to the table, even when the producer was more interested in making money than exploring history.In short, I would mostly recommend this only to die-hard fans of Lee or Franco. There are several more interesting movies of this type, and certainly better ones to explore from either man's oeuvre, including the several projects they made together. On that note, skip this one and watch Eugenie...the Story of Her Journey Into Perversion (1970) instead.

Spikeopath Il trono di fuoco (AKA: The Bloody Judge) is directed by Jesus Franco and written by Anthony Scott Veitch and Peter Welbeck. It stars Christopher Lee, Maria Schell, Leo Genn, Hans Hass Jr., Maria Rohm and Margaret Lee. Music is by Bruno Nicolai and cinematography by Manuel Merino.Based on the real life Judge Jeffreys, the so called Hanging Judge who presided over what became known as The Bloody Assizes in Winchester 1685.Spaghetti horror with plenty of blood but nothing else. Christopher Lee was known to say this performance as the cruel Judge Jeffries was one of his best, you have to think he was bluffing by way of trying to be on the same planet as Vincent Price's turn as Matthew Hopkins in Witchfinder General two years earlier. Not that Lee is bad, far from it, he's the reason to watch this, it's just that he is planted in the picture for a number of scenes and everything else is spliced around him in hap-hazard fashion; and that's the uncut version as well!Ponderously paced and done on the cheap, it also comes off as tacky exploitation, where sex and glimpses of flesh serve for titillation, while exposition rules the day. It's a real hack job, aimlessly directed even. A battle scene stands out, but is at odds with the film, the costuming is smart, the set design equally so, and the colour photography decent. Yet the over riding sense of boredom and amateurism strips the film of any real entertainment factor. Apart from Chris of course, but even then we don't really get a great deal of him! 3/10

Michael_Elliott Bloody Judge, The (1970) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Jess Franco directs this tale of Judge Jeffries (Christopher Lee), a sadistic and evil judge who would constantly force women to be tortured and eventually burned at the stake for a variety of crimes but mostly stuff to do with Satan. After sending an innocent woman (Margaret Lee) to her death, her sister (Maria Rohm) joins forces with a man (Hans Hass, Jr.) and the two plan on bringing the judge down. THE BLOODY JUDGE has been shown in countless versions over the years and even when it was first released it seemed like every country got their own version. Some focused more on the story while others focused on either the sex or violence. The edition released by Blue Underground clocks in at 104-minutes and it's certainly the longest that's ever been released and includes a few torture sequences including one where Rohm is forced to lick the blood off of another woman. This film has several problems with it but overall it's a fairly good movie and one really could argue that it's one of the best films, technically speaking, that Franco has ever made. The budget was cut short before production but the director still manages to get some pretty good stuff including the cinematography, which makes the film seem like a bigger budgeted film. Another major plus are all the sets and costumes, which again, make the film look much more expensive than I'm sure it was. We also get a very good musical score by Bruno Nicolai. Franco's direction is able to build up a pretty good atmosphere as you really do feel as if you're back in the days where this sort of thing goes on. Of course, it doesn't hurt that you've got Lee delivering one of the best performances of his career as the sadistic judge. Lee might object to the violence, gore and nudity but when he's on the screen he's certainly giving it his all. You can just look into his eyes and it's as if the actor is possessed with the spirit of Jeffries because he's just so cruel and cold in the part. Rohm is as beautiful as ever and does a nice job in the role of an innocent woman who finds herself being tortured and raped. Hass is rather bland in his role but we do get Howard Vernon playing one of the torturers. The nudity level is quite high and if you're easily offended you should be warned that a lot of it comes from women being chained up and tortured. The violence is also fairly high but while it's more graphic than something like WITCHFINDER GENERAL it's still miles short of what we'd see in other films like this including MARK OF THE DEVIL. The one major flaw with the film is the fact that it runs too long and there are way too many slow spots where nothing much is happening. It also doesn't help that it's really hard to care for any of the characters. With that said, even those who spit on Franco should find enough here to enjoy.

mido505 O.K., it's no Witchfinder General (but then again, what is?), but Jess Franco's The Bloody Judge is a well-written, well-acted, well-made historical-horror hybrid in the tradition of it's obvious model, Rowland V. Lee's The Tower of London. Franco stalwart Howard Vernon delivers a delicious homage to Karloff's Mord the Executioner from that film, and Christopher Lee is excellent, if somewhat insecurely emphatic and earnest, as the cruel, narrow, and hypocritical Judge Jeffries. The score, by Bruno Nicolai, is majestic and memorable, and the film as a whole is vividly entertaining. Having seen this film over 25 years ago, on television, heavily edited, under the title Night of the Blood Monster, I was amazed at how much of it had lain dormant in my memory, ready to be jostled into consciousness. Whole scenes played out in my mind as I re-watched them on my wide screen TV.There are a few people, including the otherwise estimable Glenn Erickson, of the hugely insightful and informative DVD Savant site, who have claimed, based on the evidence of this film, that Jess Franco could not have "directed" the legendary Battle of Shrewsbury in Orson Welles' Chimes at Midnight. First, lets get a few facts straight. It is well documented that Franco shot the second unit on Chimes at Midnight, which included much of the battle scene. This means that Franco shot a lot of coverage of the battle, working from a general outline given by Welles. Later, Welles took the miles of footage into the editing room and, many months later, emerged with the shattering sequence that appears in his picture. Franco, obviously, had nothing to do with this editing process, and, as far as I can tell, has never claimed otherwise. To compare the battle scene in The Bloody Judge with Welles' magnificent achievement is grotesquely unfair, as I am sure that Franco was allowed minutes rather than months to assemble The Bloody Judge for exhibition. Given the strictures under which he was working, Franco, his cast, and his collaborators should be commended for having produced a film with such a high level of professionalism. Welles, that most populist of auteurs, who once stated that he would rather watch paint dry than sit through an Antonioni film, and who responded to energy, verve, iconoclasm, and enthusiasm, had seen and appreciated those qualities an early Franco effort, which eventually led to the offer to work on Chimes. If Franco was good enough for Welles, he should be good enough for us. The two are closer than you think...