Blood Circus (partially found Santo Gold film; 1985)
Santo Gold's Blood Circus, produced in 1985 by Santo Victor Rigatuso (aka Robert "Bob" Harris), is a sci-fi movie about man-eating aliens from "Zoran" invading Earth and their clash with professional US and USSR wrestlers. Rigatuso, playing the character of Santo Gold in a scene recorded at the Baltimore Civic Center, performs a song before the film's climactic brawl. The lyrics, however, have nothing to do with the film and are about Rigatuso's Santo Gold business.
The film starred a few professional wrestlers from WWF (now WWE) and was made on a budget of 2 million dollars. It was promoted through infomercials for Rigatuso's Santo Gold mail-order jewelry business.
In 1987, after 2 years of editing the film, Rigatuso was having trouble finding a distributor for it and decided to rent a few local cinemas and screen it himself over the course of one week (although he only held a few showings, and the film didn't gross anywhere near its 2 million dollar budget). "Scream Bags" were also given out at the screenings as a promotional tie-in, each side of the bag sporting a long poem about Blood Circus, with one of the sides containing a coupon for a free diamond ring from Santo Gold.
After 1987, Blood Circus wasn't shown publicly and thought to be lost for years until a secret screening at the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz in 2014. In 2008, the Santo Gold company announced on their website [1] that they had re-discovered a 35mm copy of the film, and were looking for producers for an official release. No producers signed on, and the original 35mm film reels were eventually offered up on eBay in 2011,[2] with a starting price of 21 million dollars and a buy-it-now price of 750 million (including insurance), or an option to buy a partnership in the film. No bids or partnerships were made, and the reels didn't sell.
Two and a half years later, in late December of 2013, the reels for the film were offered up on eBay by a different seller. The highest bid fell below the reserve price, so the reels were unsold.[3]
In April of 2014, the film would finally be screened again at the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz in Austin, TX, as apart of a secret screening.[4] A year later, around May 27th, 2015, an LPP 35mm print of the film (presumed to be the same print from the 2013 listing and the 2014 Drafthouse Ritz Screening) was put up for sale on eBay.[5] However, unlike the previous listing, this print only has a buy option. The print was available for $3,500 in June 2015.
Future plans for releasing the film remain unknown. The only footage of Blood Circus that has surfaced online are brief snippets as seen in an old Santo Gold infomercial.
Gallery
See Also
- AJ Styles vs Kenny Omega (lost footage of professional wrestling match; 2006)
- Alberto Del Rio vs CM Punk vs Dolph Ziggler vs Jack Swagger vs John Cena (partially found master tape footage of untelevised Hell in a Cell match; 2011)
- Awesome Kong vs Melissa Anderson (lost footage of professional wrestling match; 2009)
- Bill Longson vs Whipper Billy Watson (lost footage of professional wrestling match; 1947)
- Braden Walker's "Knock Knock" promo (lost original pre-tapes of WWE backstage segment; 2008)
- Bradshaw vs Christian (lost footage of professional wrestling match; 2001)
- Bret Hart-Hulk Hogan photoshoot (lost professional wrestling promotional photos; 1993)
- Bret Hart vs Tom Magee (found untelevised professional wrestling match; 1986)
- Catch-As-Catch-Can Wrestling (lost early BBC televised professional wrestling matches; 1938-1939; 1946-1947)
- Celebrity Wrestling (partially found ITV professional wrestling reality show; 2005)
- Chowdaheads (partially found unaired professional wrestling cartoon show; 1999)
- Collision in Korea (found professional wrestling event in North Korea; 1995)
- Collision in Korea wrestler sketches (lost North Korean pencil sketch portraits of professional wrestlers; 1995)
- Cultaholic (lost debut video of professional wrestling YouTube channel; 2017)
- ECW Anarchy Rulz (lost build of cancelled Nintendo 64 port of professional wrestling game; existence unconfirmed; 2000)
- ECW at E3 2000 (partially found footage of professional wrestling at gaming trade event; 2000)
- ECW Hardcore TV final episodes (lost episodes of Professional Wrestling Show; 2001)
- FMW at E3 2000 (partially found footage of professional wrestling at gaming trade event; 2000)
- The Game (partially found Disturbed cover of professional wrestling theme song; mid 2000s)
- GFW Amped (partially found unaired professional wrestling show; 2015)
- The Giant's moonsault (lost footage of professional wrestling move; existence unconfirmed; 1990s)
- Girls Gone Wild: Live from Spring Break (found WWE/Girls Gone Wild crossover special; 2003)
- GLOW (lost unfinished final season of Netflix comedy-drama series; 2019-2020)
- Goldberg's pre-television debut matches (lost footage of professional wrestling dark matches; 1997)
- Gotch-Hackenschmidt Match Film (lost world championship match; 1908)
- Gotch-Hackenschmidt Match Film (lost world championship match; 1911)
- Jake "The Snake" Roberts DDTs Hulk Hogan (lost Snake Pit segment; 1986)
- Johnny Gargano vs Velveteen Dream (lost footage of alternate finish to professional wrestling match; 2019)
- Kurt Angle vs Owen Hart (lost footage of professional wrestling match; 1999)
- The Last Battle of Atlanta (found untelevised professional wrestling steel cage match; 1983)
- Lita's training matches (partially found training videos of professional wrestler; late 1990s-2000)
- Low Ki & Mercury vs Ric Blade & TCK (partially lost footage of hardcore wrestling tag team match; 2000)
- Mark Jindrak in Evolution (partially found unaired vignettes of professional wrestling stable; 2003)
- Pat Tanaka vs Rocco Rock (lost footage of "Body Count" professional wrestling match; 1993)
- "Plane Ride From Hell" (lost photographs of drunk wrestler incidents; 2002)
- Radio WWF (lost professional wrestling radio show; 1993-1994; late 1990s-2000)
- Screwed: The Bret Hart Story (lost unfinished wrestling documentary film; 2005)
- Sex University (lost WWE webshow; 2006)
- Shin Nihon Pro Wrestling Gekitou Densetsu (lost build of unreleased Virtual Boy wrestling game; 1995)
- Strange Kentucky People (lost recording of Chris Jericho "tribute"; 1994)
- TNA Impact! 2 (lost build of unfinished professional wrestling game; 2009)
- TNA International and TNA Wrestling Collection (completely lost pro-wrestling TV shows; 2006)
- TNA Xplosion (partially found TV series; 2002-2016)
- WCW 2000 (lost work on unfinished PlayStation 2 game; 2000)
- WCW All Nighter (partially lost professional wrestling compilation show; 1994-1995)
- WCW Classics (partially found professional wrestling compilation show; 2000-2001)
- WCW Internet-only Special Events and PPVs (lost audio streams; 1997-1998)
- WCW/nWo Live (lost build of cancelled PlayStation professional wrestling game; 1998)
- WWE 24x7 (lost professional wrestling compilation show; 2007)
- WWE Brawl (lost build of cancelled fighting game based on professional wrestling; 2012)
- WWE Crush Hour (lost build of cancelled Xbox port of vehicular combat game; 2002)
- WWE SmackDown vs Raw Online (lost build of cancelled online professional wrestling PC game; 2010-2011)
- WWE Wrestlemania 36 (lost footage of alternate finishes to professional wrestling matches; 2020)
- WWF Attitude (lost professional wrestling recap show; 2001-2002)
- WWF Backlash (non-existent unfinished Nintendo 64 professional wrestling game; 2001)
- WWF Excess (partially found professional wrestling talk show; 2001-2002)
- WWF In Your House 8: Beware Of Dog (partially found untelevised professional wrestling matches; 1996)
- WWF Livewire (partially found professional wrestling recap and talk show; 1996-2001)
- WWF No Mercy (lost Game Boy Color games based on Nintendo 64 wrestling game; 2000)
- WWF Shotgun (partially found July to December season of syndicated wrestling show; 1997)
- WWF Xperience (found pay-per-view event footage; 1996)
References
- ↑ The official Santo Gold website. Retrieved 22 Jan '13.
- ↑ The (closed) 2011 eBay auction for the film. Archived 15 Oct '12.
- ↑ The (closed) 2013 eBay auction for the film. Archived 14 Oct '14.
- ↑ Letterboxd page on Blood Circus. Retrieved 22 Apr '14
- ↑ The May 2015 listing of presumably the same print on eBay. Archived 31 Jul '17.