Incense for the Damned

One of the worst pieces of film I think any of the stars must have been in. Edward Woodward, and Patrick Macnee should really dissasociate themselves from it completely. Peter Cushing makes a cameo appearance, strong and wonderful as always. The film is a complete pile of nonsense. The script is half-baked and confused, and some of the worst editing ever has gone on as well. I was truly disappointed. Having expected a fine piece of British horror, all I saw was a mess of a film and lots of wobbly bits of flesh in a completely bizarre and unneccesary sex scene. My advice is to avoid it, even if it means your Peter Cushing collection isn't complete without it. On the other hand, if you love it, then try No Secrets from 1982. It makes about as much sense.

A relic of the hippy, trippy, psychedelic early-'70s, this contemporary take on vampirism is a colossal waste of the acting talent involved. Peter Cushing, Edward Woodward, Patrick Macnee and Patrick Mower can do nothing to save this boring mess of a movie that treats vampirism as a sexual perversion, with impotent Oxford don Richard Fountain (Mower) only able to achieve orgasm while having blood sucked from his neck. This leads him to fall under the spell of sexy Greek vampire Chriseis (Imogen Hassall), and become part of a hippy cult that dabbles in ritualistic murder.

Concerned about Richard, his girlfriend Penelope (Madeleine Hinde) and friends Bob (Johnny Sekka), Derek (Patrick Macnee) and Tony (Alexander Davion) travel to Greece where they carry out a daring rescue mission.

Within the first fifteen minutes, a prolonged, multicoloured, kaleidoscopic orgy scene set to prog rock tests the mettle of even the most determined of bad movie fans. Make it past this and you will be rewarded with lots of pretentious dialogue, some incredibly poor action, a perplexing scene in which Richard harps on about an eagle, Macnee plummeting to his death off a cliff, and Richard upsetting his stuffy academic superiors during a banquet (a scene that is both dull and confusing).

The film finishes with Richard snacking on Penelope, being pursued by Bob across the Oxford University rooftops, and falling onto spiked metal railings (not a moment too soon).

Incense for the Damned is a huge mess. The director, Robert Hartford-Davis changed the name he would be credited as for this movie, and anyone that sees the film will see why he did that.

The movie tries to be a horror movie and a social satire, but it succeeds at being neither; it just can't get away from the fact that it's a trashy load of rubbish. The plot is meandering, and is loosely strung together by a narration, which seems more like a way for the movie to save money from it's poor budget than anything else. It follows the story of Richard, an upper class Oxford University student that has got lost somewhere in Greece. A group of his friends then set out to find him, only to discover that he has come under the spell of a female vampire, and then, believing they have killed her, the group take Richard back to Oxford, unaware that he is now a vampire also.

This movie bills Peter Cushing as one of it's main stars, but in actual fact he appears in the movie for a combined time of about five minutes. Furthermore, Edward Woodward appears in the film, just before he would go on to make the best British horror movie of all time; The Wicker Man. However, his appearance is little more than a cameo. Patrick Mower, who was in The Devil Rides Out, also appears in the film, and he is an actor that will be best known by British people for his role in the rubbish, yet popular soap opera; Emmerdale. The movie also features performances from Patrick Macnee, who would later appear in The Howling and Alexander Davion, who appeared some years earlier in the British horror; Plague of the Zombies. The cast is very much B-movie, but all are somewhat experienced in the horror genre. The fact that the cast is B-grade is evident through the acting if nothing else; which, with the exception of Cushing and Woodward (both of which also aren't great) leaves a lot to be desired.

Overall, Incense for the Damned is a waste of time that manages to be neither memorable nor interesting. I even recommend that Peter Cushing fans skip this one.

I'll be a little less harsh than my fellow reviewers here, who all seem to agree that this `Incense for the Damned' is a giant waste of time, effort and film. I can't deny this is a failure in all viewpoints but I'm deeply convinced that the story's potential, along with the talent of the cast, could have resulted in a much better film. Although the screenplay remains faithful to Simon Raven's novel, the film completely lacks feeling and coherence. Small aspects, like the annoying use of voice-over, ruin the horror atmosphere and the occult-aspects are dreadfully overstressed. There's a drug trance/ sexual ecstasy sequence near the beginning of the film and it takes WAY too long! Even Imogen `the Queen of Cleavage' Hassall doesn't manage to keep you fascinated during this tedious scene.

But I still stand by my idea that the messy `Bloodsuckers' (the more appealing a.k.a of the film) contains several neat moments of clarity! Like a brief appearance by Edward Woodward, giving us a little insight on the unusual and slightly perverted sexual fantasies of humans… Or Desmond Dickinson's brilliant camerawork on location in Greece. I might even say that the entire substance of the story is excellent horror matter! Richard, a young and respected Oxford student has disappeared in Greece and a group of friends, including his girl, go on a search for him. Richard seems to be under the influence of a beautiful, sexy vampire who even forces him to perform sado-masochism. Believing they annihilated the ravishing bloodsucker, the return to Britain. Yet, Richard's behavior when back at Oxford remains bizarre and alarming… The plot is promising enough, no? If `Incense for the Damned' would have been directed by Roman Polanski, I might have enjoyed a classic status by now. Erotic morbidity is definitely more his field! Or, who knows, in the hands of Italian mastermind Mario Bava this could have been one of the greatest horror masterpieces ever. Instead Robert Hartford-Davis directed it and the only appreciation he gets is when people hear he took his name off of this project afterwards. Better luck next time.

Whilst in Greece researching a book on Greek mythology, a young Oxford Don (Mower), falls under the spell of Chriseis (Hassal), a beautiful but sexually perverted vampire who murders her victims for their blood.

An oddity in the history of the British horror genre. Director Robert Hartford Davies disowned the picture due to never fully explained production problems, although it has been suggested that the low budget ran out and that scheduled re-shoots never happened. As a result the film was pasted together quickly and it's disgruntled director was credited under the pseudonym Michael Burrowes. The film got a trade show in 1972 but it wasn't given a London showing until 1976.

The picture does show a few scars of it's troubled production like when a studio rock is quite clearly seen bouncing off an actor's head without doing him any injury, but it's interpretation of vampirism as a sexual perversion is interesting although there quite clearly wasn't enough time to develop it properly. The location shooting in Greece of Desmond Dickenson is first class and the best performances come from Patrick Macnee (who had just finished The Avengers) as Major Longbarrow, Patrick Mower as the ill-fated scholar and Peter Cushing as Dr Goodrich who put the pressure on Mower academically to such a degree that it made him tempted to join the perverted vampire for excitement.

The film has been reissued on DVD under it's alternative title, "Bloodsuckers", featuring a deleted scene which attempted to add drug addiction to the mixture of sex and vampirism.