Suceurs de sang

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.

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.

A relic of the hippy, trippy, psychedelic early-'70s, this contemporary take on vampirism is a colossal waste of the acting talent involved. Peter Cushing, Edward Woodward, Patrick Macnee and Patrick Mower can do nothing to save this boring mess of a movie that treats vampirism as a sexual perversion, with impotent Oxford don Richard Fountain (Mower) only able to achieve orgasm while having blood sucked from his neck. This leads him to fall under the spell of sexy Greek vampire Chriseis (Imogen Hassall), and become part of a hippy cult that dabbles in ritualistic murder.

Concerned about Richard, his girlfriend Penelope (Madeleine Hinde) and friends Bob (Johnny Sekka), Derek (Patrick Macnee) and Tony (Alexander Davion) travel to Greece where they carry out a daring rescue mission.

Within the first fifteen minutes, a prolonged, multicoloured, kaleidoscopic orgy scene set to prog rock tests the mettle of even the most determined of bad movie fans. Make it past this and you will be rewarded with lots of pretentious dialogue, some incredibly poor action, a perplexing scene in which Richard harps on about an eagle, Macnee plummeting to his death off a cliff, and Richard upsetting his stuffy academic superiors during a banquet (a scene that is both dull and confusing).

The film finishes with Richard snacking on Penelope, being pursued by Bob across the Oxford University rooftops, and falling onto spiked metal railings (not a moment too soon).

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.

Got to say I agree with much of Wayne's comments on this film and the note that the director refused to be associated with the screened version doesn't surprise me. This film was shown on TV in the UK in 2004 and I have to say it has to be the worst quality film I have seen on the box. It seems to be made up of the film shot by the director covering the story, inter-cut with stock travelogue shots of Greece. The lighting is such that the black character's facial features are lost in a lot of scenes. The acting from the supporting cast is wooden and even the stars are on the verge of rabbit-in-headlights unease. Not a pleasant evening's viewing!