The Bloody Judge (Il trono di fuoco) (Umbrella Ent) (1970) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Horror	Main Menu Audio Interviews-Cast & Crew-Jess Franco and Christopher Lee Deleted Scenes Gallery Trailer TV Spots
Rating
Year Of Production	1970
Running Time	102:33 (Case: 105)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (58:33)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Jesus Franco
Studio Distributor	Umbrella Entertainment	Starring	Christopher Lee Maria Schell Leo Genn Hans Hass Jr. Maria Rohm Margaret Lee Pietro Martellanza Howard Vernon Milo Quesada
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	?	Music	Bruno Nicolai

Video (NTSC)		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	480i (NTSC)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    The Bloody Judge (as was its original English title), known in various parts of the world as Der Hexentöter von Blackmoor, El Juez sangriento, Night of the Blood Monster, El Proceso de las brujas, Throne of the Blood Monster, Trial of the Witches, Il Trono di fuoco, Witch Killer of Broadmoor and Witches' Trial, is one of Spanish cult/horror/exploitation director Jess Franco's more notorious films. Much of it's notoriety stems from its star Christopher Lee describing it as the most depraved thing he had ever appeared in. It is also notorious for having an inordinate number of substantially different cuts, which is largely due to financiers from different parts of the world wanting completely different things from the film. It is certainly not one of Franco's best, but is nonetheless a fine example of the man's style as of the early 1970s and features some rather extreme scenes, particularly for its day.

    The film tells the tale of the notorious Hanging Judge George Jeffreys in the time leading up to the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Well, sort of. It also tells a completely fictional tale of Jeffreys sinisterly lusting after a young lass whose sister he condemned to burn for witchcraft and his attempts to forcibly drag her away from her lover, the son of a Duke whom he suspects of being part of a treasonous plot against the King. In a muddled attempt to appease a few too many producers, the film cannot decide whether it wants to be a historical drama with gruesome overtones or a horror film with a historical background and lots of rude bits. Ultimately, we are left with a fine example of the whole not being the sum of its parts. Most of the individual scenes are really good, but they don't hang together at all well. This is probably partly due to different bits being intended for different cuts of the film, however even taking that into account the tone and narrative style are all over the place. The whole affair is a lot like a muddled Hammer film, taken one step beyond the point Hammer were willing to tread in terms of gore and nudity.

    This particular disc presents what is being touted as a "complete" cut of the film. Basically, all the bits that were produced have been edited together, including a number of scenes that were previously only featured in particular cuts of the film. Three of the scenes never even went as far as to be dubbed in English (all the dialogue of the film was post recorded, as was typical for low-budget features of the time), so are presented in German with subtitles. As strange as it sounds, it is not really confusing nor does it really break the flow of the film as these scenes are mostly gore and nudity.

    Christopher Lee is typically great in the film. His character is rather under-written, somewhat out of necessity due to the haphazard plot, but the thespian brings his famous gravitas to the screen and gives the judge an ominous presence that hides the shortcomings of the script. The rest of the cast are all adequately rugged or shapely enough to fill their roles well.

    The Bloody Judge is easy to recommend to cult horror fans, though the film is more something to admire than something to enjoy.

Video

    The film is presented in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio and is 16x9 enhanced, but is presented in NTSC format which may pose problems on older televisions.

    The video looks magnificent, at least when you weigh in that this is a low budget shocker that is nearly 40 years old. The image is clear and sharp, although a few of the German language scenes are slightly softer than the bulk of the footage. The colouring is bold and fairly natural, though a little red-biased (which could well have been related to film stock rather than transfer). There is an excellent level of shadow detail, though most of the night-time scenes are of the brightly blue-lit variety.

    Occasional fine tramline scratches are present in the image, though they mostly appear in parts of the image where they are fairly well obscured. There is surprisingly little in the way of dust and film artefacts present in the video. A faint wobble is noticeable in a few scenes, although it is hard to tell whether this is a telecine wobble introduced in the DVD transfer or simply shaky camera-work at the time of recording - probably a bit of both. There is no sign of digital artefacts in the video.

    This is a RSDL disc with a layer change occurring mid-scene at 58:33. The layer change was not noticeable on my equipment.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    A single English (with a small amount of German) Dolby Digital 2.0 (192 Kbps) audio track is present. It sounds very much mono, which would be accurate for the time of production.

    The audio is generally quite clear and easy to discern. The audio is quite clean for such an old film and only a mild crackle and his is noticeable. The few German language bits are noticeably inferior to the rest of the audio, but not by an enormous margin. The lip sync is pretty awful throughout the film, mainly due to the whole thing having been dubbed in post production.

The film features a fairly typical 1960s/1970s period horror orchestral score from Bruno Nicolai.

    There is no surround or subwoofer usage.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    An excellent swag of extras are provided, that clearly target the cult market for the film.

Interviews - Jess Franco and Christopher Lee (25:08)

    Two recent interviews with Jess Franco and Christopher Lee (separately), conducted specifically for this disc, have been edited together to provide a making-of type story for the film. Both are refreshingly honest and do a good job explaining how the film ended up the way it did. Lee also provides a wealth of background information about the era in which the film is set and the real history of Judge Jeffreys.

Deleted and Alternate Scenes

    One deleted scene and four alternate versions of scenes in the film. The deleted scene is an arguably inconsequential extra bit of character development between the film's main wench and its goodie taken from an old bootleg of the lost Spanish release version of the film. The alternate scenes are all toned down versions of gory or erotic scenes (one even being a fully clothed version of the film's first nudie scene).

Theatrical Trailers

    Two versions of the trailer for the US drive-in "Night of the Blood Monster" cut of the film.

TV Spot

    A TV spot for the US drive-in "Night of the Blood Monster" cut of the film. Basically a shortened version of the trailers.

Biographies - Jess Franco and Christopher Lee

    Fairly comprehensive bios for the director and star are provided. More interesting and informative that you would expect from most online sources, which makes them a worthy inclusion.

Stills Galleries

    Literally hundreds of images are on offer, and none of them pointless stills from the film itself. The images are taken from the film's on-set production, International poster art, lobby cards and posed publicity shots. Excellent stuff for fans.

    There is censorship information available for this title. Click here to read it (a new window will open). WARNING: Often these entries contain MAJOR plot spoilers.

    This Region 4 edition is identical to the US Region 1 edition, right down to NTSC formatting. The only difference being that we see an Umbrella logo rather than a Blue Underground logo. As well as being the definitive version of the film itself, this edition features more substantial extras than the various European DVD releases the film has had.

    This release is pretty much identical to the previous Region 4 release, with the addition of a new distributor logo before the disc menu.

    The Bloody Judge is a bit of a shambles as it can't decide whether it wants to be a historical drama or a schlocky erotic horror flick. That said, it has some great bits and is well worth a look for cult trash fans.

    The video and audio presentation are excellent given the material, but be warned that this is an NTSC disc. There is a solid swag of well-targeted extras on offer to boot.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall