Buveurs de sang

"I Drink Your Blood" (1970) is a film that I'd been wanting to see for a very long time. By now, what horror-film fan worth his Judith O'Dea Fan Club membership card has not heard of the movie in which a band of hippies dose Grandpa with LSD, and grandson Petey gives them rabies-infected meat pies in revenge? Only these aren't your typical peace, love and groovy button type of hippies, but rather Satan-worshiping, sadistic thugs, whose violent tendencies only get worse when they start to foam at the mouth... A film that is consistently suspenseful and that keeps the viewer riveted, this is actually a very well-done horror shlocker. The use of bizarro freakout music really helps to punch across the frequent scenes of carnage, and the picture grows increasingly wild as it proceeds. In one scene, a rabid hippy girl practices "free love" with a construction crew, infecting the entire bunch with the disease; a sadly resonant scene in today's AIDS reality. This film's debt to George A. Romero's "Night of the Living Dead," made two years earlier, becomes fairly obvious in the final third, when some defenders cower in a cellar to escape the crazed mob. And speaking of debts, could David Cronenberg have borrowed from this picture, when he was busy putting together 1977's "Rabid"? In any event, "I Drink Your Blood," while never overly gross, is surely not a movie for the faint of heart. It's no "Old Yeller" (1957), that's for sure! And wait till you see all the extras on this deluxe DVD. Fifty chapters for an 80-minute movie! Now that IS crazy!

I saw this film a while ago when I was on a big Z-grade zombie movie kick. I was not disappointed by this little number. Naturally, there were some problems with the film. The biggest one I can think of is the soundtrack. It sounds like some kids decided to have fun with a synthesizer and the film makers wanted to put it in for kicks. The acting wasn't too good either, but it's obviously on a low budget, so I can forgive that.

The plot is that a group of Satan worshiping hippies come to a small town to wreak havoc on the local population. The hippie bunch end up molesting a local girl and then shacking up in an abandoned hotel. They run afoul of a local brat after feeding his grandfather acid (oh, it was his sister that they molested earlier by the by). So little lord Fauntleroy decides to get even with that counterculture bunch by feeding them rabies laced meat pies (trust me, I'm not making this up). The traveling satanists become blood thirsty cannibals and terrorize the town.

Overall, the film is pretty much a blood and sex packed piece of celluloid, but it's not without its charm. If you're into graphic, low budget violence and shock, this is a film for you. "Citizen Kane" it obviously isn't, but it still manages to retain its overall fun and shock value.

Happy viewings B movie fans.

Pete Banner (Riley Mills), his pretty older sister Sylvia (Iris Brooks), and their gramps, Doc. Banner (Richard Bowler), sure don't have much in the way of smarts.

When Sylvia catches hippie Andy (Tyde Kierney) stealing a chicken for use in a black magic ritual, she doesn't call the police: instead, she lets him take the bird, just so long as she can spy on Andy and his pals performing their ceremony. Spotted lurking in the woods by the naked Satanists, the girl is pursued, beaten and abused. In retrospect, calling 911 would have been the wiser option.

Gramps also displays a remarkable lack of common sense. When Sylvia is found in a catatonic state, he quite rightly thinks that the gang of hippies staying at the local deserted hotel are responsible. However, rather than contact the sheriff (does this family not own a phone?), the old man grabs his shotgun and goes it alone to have it out with the drug-crazed drop-outs. One doddery pensioner against eight devil-worshipping lunatics on L.S.D. -- unsurprisingly, it doesn't go well for Doc. Banner.

As for young Pete, he has to be the stupidest of the lot: in order to take revenge, the lad extracts blood from a rabid dog and injects it into a tray of meat pies that he sells to the hippies. Soon, instead of lawless Satanists, the town is under siege from crazed maniacs foaming at the mouth (I wonder how many tubes of toothpaste went into the making of this film) with a lust for blood who can pass on the deadly disease via a bite. Pretty soon, there are machete wielding maniacs everywhere!

Produced by exploitation movie legend Jerry Gross, and written and directed by David Durston, I Drink Your Blood is exactly what a drive-in/grindhouse movie should be: cheap, totally trashy, with over-the-top performances, gratuitous nudity and plenty of gore. It takes until the halfway point to really get into full swing, but when it does, the film is an absolute blast.

The mayhem starts proper as Manson-like cult leader Horace (played with wild-eyed relish by Bhaskar Roy Chowdhury) and his followers start to feel the effects of the rabies, black Satanist Rollo (George Patterson) being the first to go full-on bonkers, stabbing fellow hippie Shelley in the gut with a dagger and then hacking off his foot with an axe. The rest soon follow suit, with cultist Molly (Rhonda Fultz) infecting a whole crew of construction workers (with rabies, although they might well have contracted something else as well), making matters even worse. Meanwhile, Sylvia and uninfected Andy (now a couple, the girl having bounced back from her earlier ordeal) and Pete try to avoid being sliced and diced until construction site foreman Roger Davis (John Damo) can alert the authorities.

I Drink Your Blood was one of the first films to be rated X by the MPA based on its violence, and its easy to see why: there are plenty of shocking scenes of brutality, with an evisceration, an uncredited Lynn Lowry (who appeared in George Romero's similarly themed The Crazies) cutting off a woman's hand with an electric carving knife, a pregnant woman impaling herself with a stake, self-immolation, a pitchfork in the throat, a sword in the back and out of the mouth, and my favourite moment, the shock decapitation of a major character, the victim's head carried around by the killer. As I watched the violence escalate, my rating kept getting higher and higher!

A neat downbeat ending tops off what is a hugely entertaining exploitation classic that demands to be seen by any self-respecting gore-hound or trash movie aficionado.

I saw this as a pre-teen in 1970 at the drive in, my father was very hip for letting us see this. The acting is a little over the top and the script needs a little tlc but this movie left a lasting impression on me. Charles Manson turned a lot of people against hippies so this movie capitalized on that fact by making hippies murder the local townspeople after they are infected with rabies. It was quite an idea to infect them by injecting rabies into meat pies! I'm sure Banquet and Swanson were horrified! And even better to have a kid think of doing this. The violence is also a bit over the top but quite effective. One scene that sticks out is a housewife being a good samaritan and taking in a hungry hippie-chick and using an electric knife to slice her a piece of meat for a sandwich. Well, the close-up on the knife is a give-away as to what is going to happen to the housewife. Next thing we know she is staggering out the back door with a stump where her hand should be.

I love campy schlock and if you do then this movie satisfies. I would love to see a clear DVD version and not the crappy tape I rented a few years back.

Formerly known as Phobia, I Drink Your Blood is a fine example of raw, unflinching, horror. Horror, with a chip on it's shoulder. Horror with a small budget, a smaller cast, often humorous dialog, but let me tell you, that on this day, there is evil in the air, and it's awfully humid.

A gang of Satan-worshiping hippies, with bad intentions, ends up in a nearly-abandoned town, after their van breaks down. With only a population of 40, the gang figures that this is their town now, so they pick a house, settle in, but soon grow bored with all the acid taking, and rat killing, and take out their frustrations by forcing some acid on a defenseless, old man. I would imagine, forcing LSD on the elderly would be a real keen time for most hippie-satanists. Unfortunately for the gang, the old man's grandson, little Pete, takes offense to this prank, and seeks vengeance for grandpa's psychedelic misery in a way that any level-headed boy would. The portly, little fellow finds a rabid dog, shoots the damn thing, fills up a syringe with the blood, and injects it into some food in the bakery, which would end up in the stomach's of the acid-fueled satanist's. Evil has just got a double-dose of madness, and it's feeling real bad, and that can only mean bad news for the unsuspecting "town" .

Contrary to what I had heard, I Drink Your Blood is not exactly a Lucio Fulci blood bath, or even what I would consider a gore film, in fact, I see no reason why they couldn't have squeezed in an R rating. With that said, gore, or even moderate amounts of blood, ain't everything. I Drink Your Blood, from beginning to end, is a nightmarish hell, with no redeeming qualities. With this one, you can feel the evil, as if it's in the room, with you, plus, the psychotic score, and nerve-racking sound-effects couldn't be more fitting. I recommend I Drink Your Blood to anyone who appreciates quality, low-budget horror from the dark side, but regardless of what Bhaskar tells you, I sincerely doubt Satan was ever an acid head. 8/10