Suceurs de sang

An Oxford don (Patrick Mower) goes to Greece to study mythology. Suddenly he disappears and nobody hears from him. A bunch of his friends and fiancée travel there to find him. They discover he is traveling all over Greece--and wherever he goes there's a murder. He's also under the spell of beautiful but deadly Chriseis (Imogen Hassell)...

This DOES have some good points. The initial story is intriguing and there is some beautiful location shooting in Greece and a few exciting fights here and there. Also Peter Cushing and Patrick Macnee are in it--they're not given much to do but they're both very good. Also Mower is pretty good and Hassall is VERY good (and beautiful).

But the plot gets increasingly confusing (and sillier) as it goes on. When they threw in the vampirism it was badly handled and just too ridiculous to take seriously. There were obvious production difficulties--quite a few scenes just have narration. Also Madeleine Hinde is just horrible playing Mowere's fiancée.

Basically though--it's boring! I dozed off a few times...and didn't miss a thing. And, as a horror movie, it just doesn't work. It plays more like an action film or a travelogue of Greece.

Not totally worthless (because of Cushing and Macnee) but not really worth seeing. I give it a 4.

Whilst in Greece researching a book on Greek mythology, a young Oxford Don (Mower), falls under the spell of Chriseis (Hassal), a beautiful but sexually perverted vampire who murders her victims for their blood.

An oddity in the history of the British horror genre. Director Robert Hartford Davies disowned the picture due to never fully explained production problems, although it has been suggested that the low budget ran out and that scheduled re-shoots never happened. As a result the film was pasted together quickly and it's disgruntled director was credited under the pseudonym Michael Burrowes. The film got a trade show in 1972 but it wasn't given a London showing until 1976.

The picture does show a few scars of it's troubled production like when a studio rock is quite clearly seen bouncing off an actor's head without doing him any injury, but it's interpretation of vampirism as a sexual perversion is interesting although there quite clearly wasn't enough time to develop it properly. The location shooting in Greece of Desmond Dickenson is first class and the best performances come from Patrick Macnee (who had just finished The Avengers) as Major Longbarrow, Patrick Mower as the ill-fated scholar and Peter Cushing as Dr Goodrich who put the pressure on Mower academically to such a degree that it made him tempted to join the perverted vampire for excitement.

The film has been reissued on DVD under it's alternative title, "Bloodsuckers", featuring a deleted scene which attempted to add drug addiction to the mixture of sex and vampirism.

One of the worst pieces of film I think any of the stars must have been in. Edward Woodward, and Patrick Macnee should really dissasociate themselves from it completely. Peter Cushing makes a cameo appearance, strong and wonderful as always. The film is a complete pile of nonsense. The script is half-baked and confused, and some of the worst editing ever has gone on as well. I was truly disappointed. Having expected a fine piece of British horror, all I saw was a mess of a film and lots of wobbly bits of flesh in a completely bizarre and unneccesary sex scene. My advice is to avoid it, even if it means your Peter Cushing collection isn't complete without it. On the other hand, if you love it, then try No Secrets from 1982. It makes about as much sense.

Blood Suckers is a bit of an oddity really. On the surface it looks like yet another typical British horror movie from the early 70's. A little bit of the occult, some nudity and starring Peter Cushing. But, in all honesty, it's not that typical at all. Despite having a pretty impressive cast – Patrick Macnee (The Avengers), Patrick Mower (The Devil Rides Out), Edward Woodward (The Wicker Man) and Cushing – it doesn't really utilise them very well at all. Cushing is in it at the beginning and end but doesn't really register; Patrick Macnee is killed half way through, Woodward has an uninteresting cameo role, while Mower seems to sleep-walk through his role. Technically the film itself is, at best, a little haphazard. It appears to have been edited together using a hack-saw, while the storyline could charitably be described as a little confused and unfocused. In fact it begins with the kind of voice-over that is normally used to cover for the fact that a lot of material was not filmed; seemingly the film ran into some difficulties so this may explain this.

Having said all this it is a little unusual and that does garner it some points. The story of the are-they-or-aren't-they vampires is a little different, if admittedly not all that successfully told. The varied locations do offer something a little different to the norm too, although it does feel more like an action-adventure than an actual horror film a lot of the time. So, it's a mess but a mess not without some interest. Also, on the DVD release I saw, the deleted scene was an extended psychedelic orgy which was completely removed for some unfathomable reason; it would have easily have been the best sequence in the film proper if it had been included.

I'll be a little less harsh than my fellow reviewers here, who all seem to agree that this `Incense for the Damned' is a giant waste of time, effort and film. I can't deny this is a failure in all viewpoints but I'm deeply convinced that the story's potential, along with the talent of the cast, could have resulted in a much better film. Although the screenplay remains faithful to Simon Raven's novel, the film completely lacks feeling and coherence. Small aspects, like the annoying use of voice-over, ruin the horror atmosphere and the occult-aspects are dreadfully overstressed. There's a drug trance/ sexual ecstasy sequence near the beginning of the film and it takes WAY too long! Even Imogen `the Queen of Cleavage' Hassall doesn't manage to keep you fascinated during this tedious scene.

But I still stand by my idea that the messy `Bloodsuckers' (the more appealing a.k.a of the film) contains several neat moments of clarity! Like a brief appearance by Edward Woodward, giving us a little insight on the unusual and slightly perverted sexual fantasies of humans… Or Desmond Dickinson's brilliant camerawork on location in Greece. I might even say that the entire substance of the story is excellent horror matter! Richard, a young and respected Oxford student has disappeared in Greece and a group of friends, including his girl, go on a search for him. Richard seems to be under the influence of a beautiful, sexy vampire who even forces him to perform sado-masochism. Believing they annihilated the ravishing bloodsucker, the return to Britain. Yet, Richard's behavior when back at Oxford remains bizarre and alarming… The plot is promising enough, no? If `Incense for the Damned' would have been directed by Roman Polanski, I might have enjoyed a classic status by now. Erotic morbidity is definitely more his field! Or, who knows, in the hands of Italian mastermind Mario Bava this could have been one of the greatest horror masterpieces ever. Instead Robert Hartford-Davis directed it and the only appreciation he gets is when people hear he took his name off of this project afterwards. Better luck next time.