Blood Song (1982) Australian Daybill

As an actor, crooner Frankie Avalon, (apart from the Beach Party variety of films) had quite a fantasy pedigree. Providing the singing voice for the monkey king of the animated Alakazam the Great (1960) is a natural, but after that Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961), Dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965) with Vincent Price, Lindsay Shonteff’s The Million Eyes of Sumuru (1967), Michael Armstrong’s The Haunted House of Horror (1969) and finally this, where he gets centre stage as the psychopath, and is effective as a killer whose switch flicks from normal to kill in an instant.

He winds up pursuing Donna Wilkes, whose own credits are just as impressive, Jaws 2 (1978), Schizoid (1980) and the teen prostitute in Angel (1984). In Blood Song she receives a blood transfusion from the madman after an accident, and as a psychic, begins to see him commit his murders. When he realises this, he knows she must be silenced. Their lumber yard cat and mouse chase is the most effective part of the film.

Lenny Montana, the fearsome hitman Luca Brasi in The Godfather (1972) was co-producer, co-writer and pops up as a tugboat skipper. This was director Alan J. Levi’s sole feature film in a packed TV career.

Aka: Dream Slayer

Condition: VERY FINE / NEAR MINT

Cast: Richard Jaeckel, Antoinette Bower – Superbeast (1972), Die Sister, Die! (1978), Prom Night (1980) and the sleazy Bronson actioner The Evil That Men Do (1984), Dane Clark, Noelle North