In Arsenic and Old Lace, Cary Grant’s character famously quips “You see, insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops.” Tainted Blood, a 1993 made-for-TV thriller starring the tiniest bits of Raquel Welch and Joan Van Ark’s original faces, takes that premise and stigmatizes it within an inch of its life—it would make you cry uncle, if you weren’t afraid that he, too, would show up and go on a killing spree.
Welch, inexpressive as ever in a series of drably colored power suits, plays Elizabeth Hayes, a bestselling author of books about “the breakdown of the American family” and “prostitute spies in Washington, D.C.” We meet her as she crashes a funeral in Oklahoma, where high school athlete Brian O’Connor (John Thomson) shot his parents and then himself in a crime that left their small town reeling. Her instincts for tabloid journalism are rewarded when Brian’s grieving aunt (Molly McClure) reveals her adopted nephew was born in a psychiatric hospital.
Pressing the facility’s director for information about Brian’s parentage, she says “His natural mother gave birth to him here, in a mental institution. Now, isn’t it logical to assume that there might be some connection? It’s widely known that there are mental disorders than can be proven to be genetically linked.” Elizabeth’s craven interest in “the genetics of criminality” appalls the director, who contends that child abuse is a bigger factor in cases involving violence.
“He got it from his mother,” she insists. “Tainted blood.” Her misguided investigation continues without his cooperation and in record time she learns that Brian’s mother later killed her parents before committing suicide. And, in a suspenseful and admirably ludicrous twist, Brian had a twin who was separately adopted. If Elizabeth’s offensive reasoning is correct, his long-lost sister is a ticking time bomb soon to detonate.
Tainted Blood shamelessly derives its suspense from the mystery of the surviving twin’s identity and, of course, the bonkers question of whether she’ll slaughter her entire family. But once we meet the contenders—confident Tori (Kerri Green) and mousy Lissa (Natasha Gregson Wagner), new neighbors and fast friends who endured similar early traumas in foster homes—it’s obvious where things are headed.
If Kathleen Rowell’s teleplay, adapted from a story by Ginny Cerrella, fails to deliver thrills, it supplies something nearly as fun in the form of Mrs. Drew (Joan Van Ark), Lissa’s abusive, chain-smoking, alcoholic mother. Possessing all the charms of Margaret White while modeling the already-dated wigs and fashions of Naomi Harper, Mrs. Drew causes drunken scenes, casually slaps her kid around, and is prone to pronouncements like “We could’ve left you in the gutter like your real mother did.”
Van Ark’s bizarre performance, equal parts spacey and hammy, reminded me of both Ronee Blakley in A Nightmare on Elm Street and Sally Kirkland on Roseanne, which is to say I loved it, if not in quite the way she may have intended. (Her presence was also jarring in Bea Arthur’s My First Love.) Alley Mills, as Tori’s warm and nurturing mother, is the film’s lone adult actress capable of conveying recognizably human emotions; the corpses in Tainted Blood are more emotive than Welch.
Director Matthew Patrick fares better in comically suspenseful scenes, the best of which I won’t spoil here but respectively involve electrocution and an axe-wielding minor. Green’s charisma and Gregson Wagner’s caginess lend their characters appropriate intrigue, and Tainted Blood’s best sequence involves the two of them taking their fantasies about their birth mothers a bit too far. Alas, their perversions lack the sophistication or whimsy of Poison Ivy or Heavenly Creatures; this is more like Maternal Instincts meets Saved by the Bell.
Additional screen caps will be posted on Instagram later this week.
Looking for more maternal mayhem? Check out our Mother’s Day Marathon reviews.
Streaming and DVD availability
Tainted Blood hasn’t been released on DVD and isn’t currently on authorized streaming platforms, but you can find a VHS transfer on YouTube.
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Cranky Lesbian is a disgruntled homosexual with too much time on her hands. Click for film reviews or to follow on Instagram.
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