Movie Review: ‘A Blind Bargain’

by | May 18, 2026 | Featured Post, Movie Reviews, Movies | 0 comments


Greetings again from the darkness. For those of us who love movies and watch entirely too many each week/month/year, we have hardened to the fact that every so often we find one that simply doesn’t click for us. Even then, we hope to latch on to a particular character, setting, or element to the story that will keep us engaged. Sometimes the really odd, unconventional films are the ones with the most to offer – even though they often require the most ‘mental’ effort to connect.

As for oddity, it’s tough to beat a modern-day reimagining of a “lost” 1922 silent film starring Lon Chaney. Writer-director Paul Bunnell and co-write John Falotico have adapted a story by Bing Bailey, while theoretically paying homage to that original, and delivering a trippy story set in 1970. As proof of embracing the bizarre, we find the Master of Odd, Crispin Glover, cast at Dr. Gruder, a twisted physician who seems to relish human experimentations on reverse aging.

Seeing as I spent most of the film’s runtime wondering what was going on and why there were so many bizarre characters introduced, my explanation here will be quite broad. A Vietnam veteran named Dominic Fontaine (Jake Horowitz, the excellent THE VAST OF NIGHT, 2019) is desperate for drug money and cuts some deal that allows the mysterious Dr. Gruder to run his experimental anti-aging treatment on Dominic’s mother, Joy (Amy Wright, BREAKING AWAY, 1979). Joy is a former silent film actor and spends time watching her old flicks. She seems to have only a slight inclination of why she is at the Gruder Institute. Her hope is to be young again.

The film succeeds in creating an eerie atmosphere, and the cars of the era are on full display throughout … as is some wild and creative costuming. Some of the moments and scenes are a bit overly dramatic, and who better to score the film than Ego Plum, who has been known to claim artist Frieda Kahlo and Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky as grandparents (they weren’t). For me, the highlight was the amazing Mary Hopkin singing “Those Were the Days” as the film came to an end.

A limited theatrical release

David Ferguson
Latest posts by David Ferguson (see all)