I Drink Your Blood is a 1970 horror film about hippies, rabies and crazy killin'. It's written and directed by David E Durston who got his script ideas from the Manson killings and a deadly rabies epidemic in Iran. He directed a half dozen films over 12 years and this is his most famous film. And that's probably because it was the first, or one of the first, movies to receive an X Rating from the MPAA for violence alone. They released the film with instructions for the theaters to trim the film in their area and that resulted in a huge number of slightly different prints coming back to the distributor.
Some hippies are having a Satanic ritual in the woods when we meet them. One of the guys brings a local girl and the other members beat her up, rape her and drive her off. The next day they try to leave the area and their van breaks down. Rather than fix it they push it down a hill with one of the guys inside sleeping. Nice bunch of people, huh. Nearby there's a small town that's been evacuated for a dam project the hippies take over a small hotel. The grandfather goes after them and they beat him up. His grandson decides to get even by giving the hippies some meat pies laced with rabies laden blood from a dog he'd killed. The hippies turn rabid and attack the men in the dam's construction crew. There's some general mayhem and the movie is over. Hardly anyone survives.
It's about average, we got a few laughs, though some of it is pretty goofy. Worth a look for the fan of the exploitation film. The new Blu-ray looks nice and there are the two versions of the movie on it. I'd get one if it got cheap enough.
I have a copy of the 2014 psychological horror film The Babadook but I might get rid of it. I found it for a couple of bucks on clearance and we watched it tonight. I had heard of it and people seemed to be liking it. It was written and directed by Jennifer Kent and it's her first director's job. It's Australian and it's based on a Kent short film from 2010. Essie Davis is the main lead and I did not recognize her from Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries where she plays Phryne Fisher.
Essie is a single mom and she lives with her son in a grey house. Really the whole place is a wash with monotonous grey. It's no wonder that weird things happen there. Her son was born on the day his father died. He had been in an accident on the way to the hospital. Essie's son is one of those hyper active kids who just won't shut up. That's a horror to me. When going to bed the son picks a book to read and it turns out to be the Babadook pop up book. It leads evil into the house and they spend the rest of the movie going crazier and crazier. It's a mental illness movie as opposed to a monster movie. I'd prefer the latter thank you very much. Not one I'm going to be bothering with again.
Comments