समाचार

By Harris Lentz, III

Filmmaker David E. Durston was best known as the director and writer of the 1970 horror exploitation film I Drink Your Blood, about a Manson-esque gang of Satanic hippies who become bloodthirsty maniacs after being fed rabies-tainted meat pies. He was also featured onscreen in the cult classic in the role of Dr. Oakes

Durston was born in Pennsylvania on September 10, 1921, and began working in local television in Chicago in the late 1940s. He was soon scripting for such national programs as the early science fiction series Tales of Tomorrow, Kraft Theater, and Danger. He wrote and directed a handful of exploitation films during the 1960s including Felicia (1964), The Love Statue (aka The Love Drug) (1966), and Blue Sextet (aka Leap into Hell) (1970). He produced, directed, and scripted 1972’s Stigma, and was involved in providing commentary for the recent DVD releases of I Drink Your Blood and Stigma.

David E. Durston, a writer and director best known for the 1970 cult horror classic "I Drink Your Blood," died May 6 in his West Hollywood home of complications from pneumonia. He was 88.

Durston wrote for such ground-breaking TV shows as "Playhouse 90," "Studio One," "Rheingold Playhouse," "Tales of Tomorrow" -- one of the earliest science-fiction anthology shows -- "Kraft Theater" and "Danger."

He also produced the NBC musical variety show "Your Hit Parade" as well as the annual broadcast of the Tournament of Roses Parade for all three major TV networks during the late 1950s. Durston continued to write and develop original screenplays into his late 80s.

In the mid-'60s, he made the jump into directing his own low-budget, independent features. The first of these was "The Love Statue," a 1966 black-and-white fantasy that explored the effects of LSD on a group of Greenwich Village bohemians.

Later, Jerry Gross of distributor...