Kulay dugo ang gabi

An evil genius vampire whose minions include a hunchback, a midget, a hot chick with sunglasses, and a rubber bat tries to save the life of his vampire lover by transplanting her with the heart of her long, lost sister. The sister, inconveniently, is still alive. Plays at times like an Ed Wood movie, at others like a classic, albeit low-budget, horror film. Made in the Philippines, which lends jungle atmosphere, interesting architecture, and enough catholic iconography to satisfy the Pope. Badly dubbed in English, including the fact that three completely different characters are, evidently, supposed to be mute and make the exact same, "Uhn, uhn, uhn," noises in the exact same voice, which is blissfully confusing. Features one singing cowboy scene, Captain Kirk-style martial arts, and a musical score that sounds like it could be library tracks but nonetheless is very effective. The film is sometimes black and white, sometimes color, and sometimes tinted a garish magenta, which actually works to heighten the atmosphere at least part of the time. Anyone who has read this far and is still interested will not be disappointed.

I'm late to the game on this one, having just discovered it as referenced on the commentary track for Film Detective / UCLA's The Vampire Bat Blu-ray. Apparently, the producer of the latter had a yen for The Blood Drinkers. As countless others have noted, watching this flick is a visually beautiful, sumptuous experience. If you're a fan of Bava's Planet of the Vampires or Michio Yamamoto's Bloodthirsty Trilogy there's an excellent chance you'll get into Blood Drinkers.

If you're interested in a great review that delves into why this is such a cool flick, check out Bleeding Skull dot com. The low IMDb average indicates that a lot of people just don't get it.

Dr. Marco (Ronald Remy) - a bald, acne-scarred vampire wearing Bono shades - tries to resurrect his dead girlfriend Katrina (Amalia Fuentes), but to do this he needs the heart of her twin sister Charito (also Fuentes). Charito's love interest Victor (Eddie Fernandez) tries to stop the bloodsucker from stealing his woman's heart - literally!

I can't totally hate on a horror film that features a rubber bat with glowing eyes, a hairy-faced hunchback AND an evil dwarf, but The Blood Drinkers is not a good film. Advertised as 'the first color horror picture produced in the Philippines', this is a cheap, shoddily assembled piece of schlock that doesn't even make good on its claim: SOME of the film was shot in colour, but much of it is merely black and white with a colour tint added in post.

The story plods, the acting is terrible (well, the dubbing at least), and Gerardo de Leon's direction is sloppy, the whole thing being somewhat confusing and incredibly cheesy at times (particularly the overuse of a smoke machine to try an add an eerie atmosphere). The worst scene, or the best depending on your point of view, is a fight between Victor and Marco's henchmen (the hunchback and the dwarf), with the little fellow delivering some particularly ineffective punches and being repeatedly thrown to the ground. Sadly, the bulk of the film isn't as funny and proved quite tedious.

3.5/10, generously rounded up to 4 for IMDb.

N. B. Aspiring suitors should never underestimate the aphrodisiacal effect of a water buffalo when serenading a young woman.

Polished performances, outstanding effects, pathos, delicious and powerful antagonist, nod to spirituality, eerie atmosphere, scary moments, moody, and superb. A feast for cerebral viewers. Inclusion of diversely enabled cast members is an ingenious touch.

Sorry to demystify the cinematography but it was a question of COST. Color film stock was prohibitively expensive then and the producers couldn't afford to shoot all the scenes in color. This practice was prevalent in the Philippine film industry in the late 60's/early 70's. I remember a billboard advertising a comedy as "filmed in partly color"(sic). If the visual inconsistencies tended to enhance the narrative and add to the creepy character of the movie, well and good. So, there it is--another mystery gone.

Incidentally, it is not widely known that Gerry De Leon was an MD but never practiced this profession. His family was in the movie business and he promptly went into it after graduating from med school.