Eu Bebo seu Sangue

A Satanic cult, apparently loosely based on the Manson family, moves into a new hunting ground. After terrorizing a local store and the family that operates it, one little boy finds a way to get revenge: infect the killers with rabies. While in the real world this would result in death, in the world of cinema it leads to a massive murder frenzy.

This film came to me highly recommended from the same man who passed along "Spider Baby" and "Dr. Humpp", both impressive and memorable films. It also happens to be the first film rated X for violence, which gives it a strong street credibility, in my opinion. As you may imagine, my expectations were a bit higher than average.

The film starts out a bit slow. Killers, with a strong attachment to Satanism and LSD, drifting from town to town. It's not a particularly interesting plot, and none of the characters -- even the leader (played by Bhaskar Roy Chowdhury) -- stand out as anyone worth caring about. The family is a bit more interesting, but for the most part the first half served no real purpose besides building up the potential for a bloody Hatfield and McCoy-style feud. But then the second half came.

Once the gang is infected with rabies (served in tainted meat pies), all heck breaks loose. Foaming at the mouth, thirsty for blood and wielding axes... these maniacs aren't going to rest until everyone in the county is dead. Limbs are hacked off and carried around like trophies. Today this level of violence wouldn't get you an X -- more likely an R or at most an NC-17 if the censors were feeling frisky -- but for the time period you're unlikely to find anything on this level. The blood is on par with Lewis' "Blood Feast", if not surpassing it.

I don't feel that "I Drink Your Blood" is a must see. I wouldn't rank it as high as "Spider Baby" or "Dr. Humpp", for example. However, I also wouldn't call this a don't-see film. It had all the exploitation and gore that any classic horror fan would be looking for, and it would scare the pants off your grandmother if she wasn't already dead. If your grandmother even wears pants, that is. Let's put it like this: if you get a chance to catch this movie, catch it, but don't go out of your way to put it at the front of your Netflix queue.

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.

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.

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.