Dr. Gruder (Crispin Glover) and Joy Fontaine (Amy Wright) in A Blind Bargain (2025)

Intensity: 🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Directed by Paul Bunnell

A Blind Bargain is a retelling of a 1922 Lon Chaney Sr. silent film, which is now considered a “lost film”. The only copy of that film was lost in the 1965 vault fire that also claimed several other Lon Chaney films, including London After Midnight. Not all was lost, as the mad scientist’s story was based on a Barry Palin novel, “The Octave of Claudius, A Blind Bargain.”

The biggest challenge for this movie is that you are compelled to follow a protagonist who is hard to root for. Dominic is pathetic. The Vietnam War has left deep emotional scars that he chases away with heroin, and this leaves him vulnerable on many levels. This forces him to make extremely dubious decisions. Traitorous decisions.

In the original film, the censors balked at the science of playing God. Frankenstein touched on this, and with A Blind Bargain, the story centers on a Faustian deal for eternal youth. As is the case with most mad science, it is a serious overreach of power. Vitality restoration reacts badly with fate. The elusive promise of youthful beauty has undone more than a few evil geniuses.

Joy, you’re going on a cosmic trip to be a star again…”

Logos (Jed Rowen)

Crispin Glover plays Dr. Gruder, a mad scientist who has discovered a steroid treatment with incredible youth-restoring properties. Naturally, there are unfortunate side consequences.
Jake Horowitz plays Dominic Fontaine, a damaged young man who has returned from the Vietnam War. He has returned with a heroin addiction. This forces Jake to make some very difficult and unfortunate decisions.
Lucy Loken plays Ellie Bannister, who works as a nurse for Dr. Gruder. Dom is instantly smitten with Ellie when he goes in for treatment for his addiction.
Amy Wright plays Joy Fontaine, Dom’s mother, who was an actress of the silent film era. Dom lives with Joy now as he tries to get his life back together.
Analisa Cochrane plays a younger version of Joy Fontaine, a beautiful and alluring woman in her prime.
Jed Rowen plays Logos, one of Dr. Gruder’s subjects, who acts as Gruder’s enforcer. Joy entrances the lovelorn Logos.
Rob Mayes plays Vincent, Dom’s brutish and swaggering drug dealer.

Dom (Jake Horowitz) makes a blind bargain with Dr. Gruder (Crispin Glover) in *A Blind Bargain* (2025)

Dominic Fontaine is a loser who can’t catch a break. After returning home from the Vietnam War in 1970, his life hasn’t gotten any safer. He has run into deep debt with his heroin dealer, Vincent. He’s a thin, frail fellow who is too weak to stand up to Vincent’s bullying. He also can’t stand up for himself with his mother, Joy, who has been housing him since his return. She is aware that Dom has not been honest with her and sets the conditions for him staying with her that he seek treatment. Joy gives Dom a brochure for a clinic that a social worker gave her: The Gruder Institute, where “Recovery is Within Your Grasp”.

Unbeknownst to Joy and Dom, however, the institute is not what it seems. The addition therapy is a front for some shady de-aging experiments involving steroids derived from insect larvae. Dom reluctantly checks into the clinic. The lovely Nurse Ellie checks him in, and Dom flirts with her shamelessly. She takes his blood, and Dom returns home to inform Joy that he did as she asked. When Ellie calls back, Dom is informed that his blood… or more specifically, his mother’s blood… would be of great value to the Institute. Dr. Gruder would pay handsomely for her blood.

Dom tricks his mother into believing the Clinic is also a spa, and that she should pamper herself there while he gets treatment. Gruder’s more involved experiments take place in an old hotel frequented by Hollywood stars of yore, which sells the ruse of the spa. The eccentric Gruder welcomes “their only spa guest” into the facility. They quickly hustle her off into a treatment room. There, much to her surprise, they restrain and sedate her. Torn between guilt and his vices, Dom agrees to a contract to have Joy convalesce at the Gruder Institute for a month. The money wins out.

The next time Dom sees Joy, things will have changed. Perhaps for the better? Remember, though, Faustian deals never end the way you want them to.

Evaluation

A Blind Bargain is probably more dark science fiction than horror, but as soon as you mention Lon Chaney, this movie has to be at least horror adjacent. The decisions in the film are indeed horrific, and the truth of the experiments (and their inevitable failures)...

Intensity: 🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Directed by Paul Bunnell

The Cast of A Blind Bargain

A Short Synopsis of A Blind Bargain

Evaluation

Intensity: 🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸Directed by Paul Bunnell

The Cast of A Blind Bargain

A Short Synopsis of A Blind Bargain

Evaluation

Intensity: 🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Directed by Paul Bunnell