Blood Circus: It Once Was Lost, But Now It's Found!

Stop the presses! The most notorious lost movie made in Baltimore about aliens fighting professional wrestlers, Blood Circus (1985), has been located.


So says the official Web site of Santo Gold, a.k.a. Santo Victor Rigatuso, a.k.a. Bob Harris, former infomercial huckster and Blood Circus mastermind. Rigatuso has announced that the "masters and 35mm negatives" have been located and that "Limited License Rights are now available for Executive Producers to come forward and contact us!"


Code Red, Synapse and Dark Sky -- let the bidding war begin!


Actually, Santo announced his "discovery" last year, but I'm always looking for an excuse to talk about Blood Circus. In the meantime, you can visit Santo's Web site and participate in his talent search, or order the Making of Blood Circus documentary DVD.


You can also listen to some of Santo Gold's music, a portion of which I have helpfully posted below:







For those of you unfamiliar with Santo, he was a Maryland-based personality who sold gold-plated jewelry in a series of outlandish infomercials during the 1980s. Blood Circus, which was filmed in Baltimore by Joseph Ryan Zwick and John Corso, was about invading aliens who challenge professional wrestlers from the U.S. and the Soviet Union to a series of fights. Or something like that. Attendees at the world premiere of the film received a "Scream Bag" that included a coupon for a diamond ring. You can read more about the whole sordid tale at the Santo Gold Museum, which also has links to court documents related to Santo's eventual fall from grace -- allegations of mail fraud.





I'll hopefully have more to share on this amazing story in the weeks to come. In the meantime, Santo encourages everyone to learn from his mistakes:


1. Never hire manufacturers to attempt to make a 24K gold process that would not tarnish when they simply couldn't!
2. Never hire employees to open up your mail-in orders, pocket the cash and throw the orders in the trash cans!


And here are a few other memories of Santo and his movie from the Santo Gold Fan Club on Myspace.