I Drink Your Blood

I recently saw this forgotten gem, and I had a great time! Satan-worshiping hippies, a dead goat, lots of rats and plenty of nudity;what's not to like? Well, there were a few things I didn't like, sad to say. First on the list is the "Score". Whoever did this should be locked in a tiny room and forced to listen to it for seventeen hours in THX. Basically, it's a car alarm and drums looped over and over at increasingly harsh frequencies, making the audience long for the sweet low tones of a dentist's drill. Second on the list is the distracted acting. It's as if everyone in the town was eating prozac like skittles between takes. Aside from those two peeves, I had a blast watching it, and so might you, just remember to use the mute button. You'll need it.

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.

A band of devil-worshipping hippies take root in a small town that has been evacuated save a group of construction workers, a baker, and a family led by Grandpa the veterinarian. While holing themselves up in a rat-infested hotel(where the hippies actually play a game of who can kill the most rats for the rat barbecue), they are confronted by an irate Grandpa the vet. They force him to take some lsd and beat him up. Grandpa's grandson gets back by injecting a dozen meat pies with rabies from a dog he shot later that evening. The hippies go mad and all those people they infect do likewise. This film is rather distasteful, yet strangely interesting. It is definitely a low-budget affair as no one in it has a name and the special effects are extremely poor. The film is markedly gruesome as you see a man stabbed repeatedly, a leg, hand, head chopped off, and crazed hippies with bloody hands wielding axes, a sword, even an electric carving knife! The producer's name does his film great honor...his name is Jerry Gross.

"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 caught "I Drink Your Blood" at a Times Square theater in New York in 1971. I was writing for a long-defunct but excellent film magazine called Filmfacts, where we covered every film given a theatrical release in the U.S.--running the gamut from the boxoffice blockbusters to the schlockiest of drive-in quickies. Filmfacts was a scholarly publication--most of our subscribers were libraries. For each film, we provided a complete list of cast & credits, a summary of critics' reviews, one-to-four stills (if available), and a thorough plot synopsis. Which is why I saw "I Drink Your Blood," expecting another piece of low-budget garbage, and instead being treated to one of the most truly horrific (and little-known) thrillers ever produced. Even though the obviously heavily-edited R-rated version was pretty strong stuff, it still put me through the wringer and I recommended it to the other members of the magazine's staff, who all loved it. The plot has been sufficiently detailed by other reviewers on this invaluable database, but, aside from urging anyone with a cast-iron stomach to sample this unique, feverish, gorgeously photographed nightmare of a movie ("Night of the Living Dead" please step aside), I'd like to clarify the conflicting accounts of the prints of the movie. The one I saw at the theater was rated R by the MPAA. A few months later, I happened to meet a lovely actress named Iris Brooks, who had given a first-rate performance in the film. We became friends and, on the anniversary of the film's completion, Iris invited me and some friends to attend a cast & crew party held at a Times Square theater around midnight (after the theater was cleared out) and the projectionist could show "I Drink Your Blood," followed by a catered but unpretentious party in the downstairs lounge (apparently, everyone involved with making the movie, its grisly subject matter notwithstanding, had a great time and had formed many friendships during the film). However, the print that was screened was not the butchered 'R'-rated version I'd originally seen but the director David Durston's (a sweet, supremely intelligent, friendly man, and a first-rate filmmaker as far as I'm concerned) unedited cut. It was perhaps 8 minutes longer than the censored version shown at theaters. The violent scenes were considerably more graphic and gory, and there were also some innocuous nude scenes that apparently gave Jack Valenti cardiac arrest, hence the butchered version that the distributor was forced to release. I've read that the original, uncut version has finally been unearthed and will be released on DVD. I heartily recommend that any serious movie buff should buy this film (in whatever version, it doesn't really matter) as soon as it hits the video stores. It's a true 'sleeper' that deserves to be re-discovered and appreciated even 30 years after its initial, shoddily-handled brief release. "I Drink Your Blood" is some kind of deranged masterpiece but, despite its controversial elements (even today, it's pretty far out there), it's never offensive and the people who made it are one of the nicest and most talented group of individuals it's ever been my pleasure to meet!