Highly Overrated But Still Good

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Blistering performances.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

This starts with a Manson style cult performing a Satanic ritual, which was quite popular in horror movies from this period. But when they force feed young Pete's grandfather with LSD the boy gets revenge by providing them with rabies infected meat pies. Genius! The gang were already violent but now, with froth foaming from their mouths, they embark on a senseless & bloody killing spree. Plenty of gore & action here, fair bit of nudity, a psychedelic soundtrack & some memorable performances make this essential viewing for lovers of cult exploitation. Scream queen Lyn Lowry has an uncredited, relatively minor role (she plays a mute so doesn't even speak), yet she is given much recognition for her part by distributors wanting to capitalize on her name.

Originally shown as a 2-parter alongside I Eat Your Skin (you can see what they did there) in the Grindhouse theatres of the 60's and 70's, the film follows a group of Satanic hippies as they arrive in a ghost town, devoid of inhabitants due to a mining project nearby. They make themselves comfortable in one of the many abandoned homes and attack a young girl. Her grandpa goes apes**t and confronts the Manson family- esque group, only to be dosed with LSD and almost killed. The girl's young brother rescues the old man, and exacts revenge by infected a tray of mince pies with rabies (!), only for the remaining occupants of the town to one by one become infected by the disease and begin a rabid, frothy-mouthed killing spree.I thought I'd seen it all when I struggled through s**t-fest Island Of Death, but I Drink Your Blood is another example of how the genius of Grindhouse flashed an exploitative and lie-filled title in my face, only for me to giddily clap my hands in excitement only to be exposed to the cinematic equivalent to an anal raping. At least Island Of Death had a little bit of gore to appease my blood lust, but this just has a bunch of hippies waving their hands around and spitting what looks like soap from their mouths. Even though the film was one of the first movies to receive an X-rating due to violence rather than nudity, it spends most of its time painfully building up to violence that never comes. Utter crud.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

Certainly Charles Manson deserves to be in prison the rest of his life, not just because of the murders committed by his "family" but for inspiring a bunch of movies about lethal Hippies, such as this one. (In the book "Fatal Vision," about an army doctor who tried to blame the death of his family on lethal Hippies, there's a line "Four people on acid couldn't even organize a trip to the bathroom, let alone a trip to go kill people.") The leader of this wild bunch is played by a 40-year-old Indian dancer (Indian Indian, not American Indian) who in fact is great, jacking far more enthusiasm into his performance than this flick really deserves. He detects the group ritual being gawked at by an outsider (as per the later and vastly superior "Race with the Devil") who then gets mauled by some of the group. This victim, Sylvia, staggers into the nearby largely abandoned town and collapses; the local baker woman, Mildred (this actress eerily resembles Audrey Campbell from the "Olga" series) assumes that the culprits are some nearby construction workers. Meanwhile the Hippies show up in the same town after their van breaks down, setting off the main revenge plot which is basically a reworking of "The Virgin Spring"/"Last House on the Left" (although the latter appeared a few years later). The "gimmick" here is that the Hippies and the construction workers get rabies, after Sylvia's younger brother Pete injects dead dog blood into some meat pies (Sweeney Todd, anyone?) eaten by the Hippies. According to a medical website, "contact with the blood, urine, or feces (e.g., guano) of a rabid animal, does not constitute an exposure...." But I guess we need to allow for some "artistic license..." As to whether "I Drink Your Blood" is worth your time, there's some nice violence, limited of course by the minimal budget; the mass shooting at the end is unfortunately all off camera. The actors playing the rabies victims have varying degrees of frothing at the mouth---by the way, according to that same medical website, "The rabies incubation period may vary from a few days to several years, but is typically one to three months"---in other words not an hour or less, as per the movie, but again, artistic license... Other than the Indian dude, the best performance is by Rhonda Fultz, who unlike most of the cast has a "real movie" on her credit list ("In Cold Blood"). Since she manages to inject some recognizable humanity into her character Molly, Molly's death (by her own hand) is more affecting than what happens to most of the others, plus her being pregnant and all. Bottom line, "Blood" passes the "free/beer" test---if you can see it for free and have plenty of beer handy, then yeah, go for it. By the way don't bother looking for that scary face on the video cover, it's actually from another movie....

Bad dreams are elusive... waking up in terror, feeling helpless or alone is an awful feeling. I can only speak for myself when I admit to having been traumatized by nightmares. And yet I think we need bad dreams... what other way is there to confront our deepest fears than in the safety of sleep?There's always the movies..."I Drink Your Blood" is a spectacular nightmare. It captures the disjointed feeling of cold terror and the perverse sense of fun that are the hallmark of bad dreams. The story is about a group of Satanic hippies who wreak havoc on a small town, a metaphor for the culture clash at the time of the film's release but also a perfect recipe for a "Night of the Living Dead" homage: the zombies are going to get you sooner or later.This is by no means a great film... the script and dialogue only serve the purpose of setting up the scenes of bloody mayhem and mindless insanity that dominate the movie. I wouldn't suggest the movie to you if you're squeamish- outrageously gory shots and actual dead animals pop up frequently- but as a vicarious release of violence and depravity the movie is unmatched.There's something to be said for a movie that just "goes": no back-story, character arcs of foreshadowing. "I Drink Your Blood" is pure pulp, and a wonderful reminder that movies don't have to feature zillions in CGI or award-minded dialogue to be vital, primal, and fun. If you want to be sickened and reminded of a nightmare you'd be lucky to remember, I highly suggest you check this out.GRADE: B