I Drink Your Blood

I Drink Your Blood

1970

Country: USA

Alternate Titles

Blood Suckers

Phobia

La rabbia dei morti viventi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Drink_Your_Blood

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067229/

Director: Dave Durston

Staring Rhonda Fultz

Bhaskar Roy Chowdury

Elizabeth Marner-Brooks

Writing about “I Drink Your Blood” is all about back story.

The idea for the movie started when exploitation producer Jerry Gross hired director/writer Dave Durston to make him an ultra gory zombie/cannibal movie based lightly on the “Manson Family” to be shown along side the 1964 horror film “I Eat Your Skin," which he had just purchased. The two had different views on what the movie should be. Durston wanted a fun gory, twisted ride while Gross wanted a more straight up horror movie. Then to make matters worse the finished project was given an “X” rating for violence alone, meaning it would be hard to get a more respectable drive-in cut made. Since the movie's selling point was it's weird violent reality (something that doesn't come apparent till the last 20 minutes mind you) and Gross wanted to get his film in as many theaters as possible a recut was made. Then Gross told projectionists to make their own cuts to get it past any censorship in their own areas. The result is this movie now exists in just under 300 cuts.

Yes you read that right. There is almost 300 different prints and different cuts of this movie.

Some of them, done by very amateurish projectionists, exist with scenes out of order, important scenes missing, and the natural flow of many scenes severely destroyed. The result is that no matter what version you watch, including a supposed directors cut from the early 2000's, with contains much of the original humor, the movie seems very disjointed.

My particular version has most of the gore but two death scenes seem missing. So two characters just vanish half way through.

The movie itself starts when a band of Satanic hippies (is there any other kind?) attack and sexually abuse a local girl who was invited to their little ritual of lameness by one of their members. She returns to her grandfather, who is the local vet of a dying town. The town seems only to exist for the construction of a dam near by and we learn the population has dropped over the years from 400 to 40.

The hippies take up residence in a abandoned rat invested hotel where they begin to run amok among themselves, even going as far as almost killing one of their own members,

When the grandfather tries but fails to extract revenge the girl's little brother secretly extracts a little revenge of his own. He inserts the blood of a rabid dog he killed into their meat pies which causes them to turn rabid and murderous.

They then run amok in the small town; killing, sexing and spreading the virus whenever possible.

The one immediate problem you will find is although the movie is moving along for the first half it feels really slow. It's probably because scenes at first take too long to play out and it's insistence of relying to much on "Mason Familyxloitation" (I think I just made that up) prevents us in getting to good stuff. There is also a great deal of character development, which does start to seem out of place once you get into the second half.

Once this film gets going however, depending one what version you happen to be watching, it does offer what you would expect from a movie from this era and subgenre, and more. It turns into a great little cult movie of sex and violence, but one that will frustrate those who don't particularly admire this form of film making, but then why are they watching this film in the first place.

Each particular cut also has it's own frustrations, as some scenes play out to a climax which may or may not come, depending on what version of the film your watching.

The different versions range from as low as 70 minutes long to just under 100. There is that much variety. Mine is roughly 90 minutes.

One thing that may give people pause is there is some real animal death in this movie (OK it's a chicken, but still). I do agree that animals should never be killed for our entertainment and it's something I've come to terms with in watching these movies, but I have to warn those who can't.

The last thing to mention is there has been some talk about a remake for some time. I generally hate remakes - pretty much all of them. I find a lot of the creative energy is lost over the years and unless it's a remake in spirit only the remake by definition will lose the original idealistic spark. Thought at first it was tempting to be in favour of a remake for "I Drink Your Blood" since this has never been the film it should have been and the original directer/writer is filming it. On further thought I think it should be left in it's time capsule. The landscape for this form of exploitation cinema has changed greatly and a remake is likely just to become an attempt to recapture a stylistic vision that has long since died.

The Body Shop

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069811/

(1974)

Country:USA

Alternate Titles

Doctor Gore

Anitra

Shrieks in the Night

Directed by J.G. Patterson

Staring J.G. Patterson

Roy Mehaffrey

Jenny Driggens

The Body shop is infamously bad, and infamously incomplete.

It was written, directed and stared J.G Patterson Jr, also known as Dr Gore, though here goes under the name of his character Don Brandon. In the movie he takes the role of a strong willed doctor, who can influence and dominate those around him - which was pure fantasy since according to all accounts Patterson was a soft, easily influenced individual. According to what information is available this characteristic seemed to have come to worked against him in the hard world of exploitation cinema. A lot of the time he found himself trying to create realistic gore effects for even less money then his contemporaries. He would also be easily deceived by charismatic, unscrupulous characters one could easily imagine being around during that era.

He died in the mid-70's with most of his projects incomplete, many came out as late as three years after his death. They would find a new life with Herschel Gordon Lewis. Lewis, a big fan of Patterson, would physically introduce many of his incomplete movies when they made it to video in the 1980's, sometimes even warning of the content... ie. bad acting, bad story lines, bad editing, ect.

"The Body Shop" movies opens with a really creepy version of “Sugar and Spice” on a toy piano. Some complain this music is lame, but I found it sufficiently creepy, and besides it's all downhill from there so take what you could get.

Through the radio we learn the great plastic surgeon Dr Brandon has just lost his wife to a car accident. He vows to bring her back. So him and his hunchback assistant dig up a body, I'm assuming is his former wife, and play Dr Frankenstein for 15 minutes. It doesn't work out so well so he orders the corpse tossed into a vat of acid.

He doesn't seem too upset over this. Well upset enough to have a smoke I guess.

So as the movie progresses (kind of) he does several poor melodramatic soliloquies, rose in hand, then goes on a quest to make the perfect woman. This means he must seduce various woman, kill them and then sew them together. Well to be fair he does order one corpse through the mail. (????)

I think it's suggested he seduces these women through hypnotism, but it could just be Patterson pretending to be someone he's not.

I hate to say it but that is the meat of the movie.

Disasters around the set, the inevitable financial difficulties and Patterson's death meant the movie was never completed. So there's no coherent climax to the story and scenes which should have been edited out, like some of the tedium of Brandon working in his lab and a scene where he talks to a cop about nothing, are left in.

The conversion with the cop is particularly funny cause Brandon is talking through a darkened doorway with the camera far behind him and the cop is filmed outside during a completely different period of day. Also the cop says he's heard something suspicious was going on (doesn't say what) then Brandon responds with "Im a doctor", which is sufficient enough for that officer to bugger off.

Once Brandon makes his “perfect” woman, who is more like a daughter/love, the movie goes into overdrive since this part was never filmed.

Dr Brandon gets a call and says he has to leave for a minute. The next time we see him he's babbling about something in a jail cell. How he got there... I have no idea. Then he listens to some country music while the woman janitor is asked out on a date by the head janitor.... what?

His perfect woman tries to sleep with the furnace repair man then we cut to the repair man crying in a bar about her leaving him... what? He really upset over this since she like his hair.... what? Then we see her wandering the roads of Carolina getting picked up by a man who drives a shady white van.... what?

The End.

I'm serious. That's how it ends.

This perfect woman is so not so much as "sweet and child-like" as completely inhuman. She has no empathy for other people beyond what she is taught by Brandon. I don't know if that is what he was going for, but there's no appeal to the character and it directly contradicts what Brandon is saying though his narration. Though her amazing pick-up line, “you're a man and I'm a woman” seems to work on just about everyone. And you thought Ash came up with that during Evil Dead 2. HA!

There's also more filler with a 5 minute country song and several montages of Brandon and his perfect woman hiking and having a boat ride.

There's quite a bit of gore in it but non of it is particularly any good (mostly due to budget restraints). It feels weird too to have all your gore on the first half of the film and then country montages on the second half.

Someone should have edited the country music during the gore. That would have been fun.

Speaking of editing.... oh boy. This is where the movie completely feels like an unfinished project. Characters stare at the camera several times, things wisp by the camera, scenes seem out of place, things are out of focus, lighting is inconsistent from cut to cut, and the clapper appears. Yes the clapper.

See...

There are some edits of the movie which edit the clapper out, in fact it's a scene where two characters never seen before talk about going out on a date to watch some wrastling. It's ill-conceived at best.

One neat thing about the movie is there is a character introduced early in the film when Brandon is out on his killing spree. It's a woman he meets at a restaurant whom he snubs in order to kill a different woman for her hands. That character reappears during the jail scene to gawk at him and show off her new boyfriend in a sort of moralistic twist. But in some ways it's a little stranger then that... you see she was played by Nita Patterson, Patterson's real wife. If Brandon is part of what Patterson could never be then that scene plays out on a different level. It's almost artistic.

If my assumption is correct (and it may not be) then in some ways “The Body Shop” is a small window into Patterson. Trying to be someone he wasn't, trying to a create not a woman that didn't exit but a world that didn't exist. This interpretation would also explain the semi-kind hunchback who is dragged along with promises of redemption and is ultimately destroyed.

Through all the gore, the horrible acting, and the unedited product there is something sweat and noble about the movie once you think about it for a bit. In some ways Patterson needed a little of Brandon in him. It was precisely that he contained non of that character that doomed the project. He was forced to work in an environment which could easily take advantage of his trusting nature, with almost no budget, and having to do more then his little talent could manage.

Well that and dying didn't help.

Terror on the Menu

Terror on the Menu

1972
Country USA

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069362/

Alternate Titles: Terror House

Club Dead

Secrets Beyond the Door

Terror at Red Wolf Inn

The Folks at Red Wolf Inn

and probably many others

Directed by Bud Townsend

Staring Linda Gillen

John Neilson

Arthur Space

Mary Jackson

Margaret Avery

Well it's time to write a little about one my favourite low-budget 70's horror films, "Horror on the Menu", or "Terror House", or "insert alternate title".

The movie opens with a young college student, Regina, going to her room after class and finding out she won "something"... she goes onto the balcony and yells a few times, “I won! I won!” No one seems to care.

After a short plane ride she gets into a car to drive out to Red Wolf Inn, where she won a small vacation. During the ride her driver, Baby John, asks her if she likes to drive fast. Then he precedes to speed down the highway, dodging the police as he goes. After a small chase he hides in a darkened yard until the police drive by unaware. He then turns to Regina and says, “your Ok you know.” Regina is quite pleased by this revelation. “Im Ok?” She smiles.

At Red Wolf Inn (A sort of Bed-and-Breakfast) she meets an elderly couple, the grandparents of Baby John. They are to take care of her and two other girls, feeding them, as if they were fattening them up.

It doesn't take a horror genius to see where this movie is going.

One interesting thing about this movie is it's focus on it's characters. The first half of the movie is purely development with some sinister undertones, for example the large freezer the girls are forbidden to enter, or the phone with it's line cut. There's even a budding romance.

It does have one of the greatest scenes in cinema history, where Baby John professes his love to Regina while he's fishing on the shore. Not to give anything away but it starts with an awkward kiss then goes starts to go downhill when he catches a shark, and it falls into complete hilarity.

This is also the sign that the real movie is about to start. With very little on screen trills by this point the foundation is set for the chase to begin, mild by today's standards sure but still effective if, like me, you've come to like the main character.

Everything hinges on how much you like Regina.

It just so happens that Regina is probably one of the most charming characters this subgenre has produced, but she is played with such innocence that it begs the question; is Regina as psychologically damaged as the villains? She sure is socially awkward, and reacts a if she's lost in a fairytale... ironically that is also how the two villains are portrayed. There is a clear difference in Regina and the elderly couple when compared to the other two girls. The two other girls are clearly concerned with things outside of the happenings of the Inn. Regina allows herself to become part of Red Wolf Inn. Her complete disconnect with the outside world becomes apparent when we learn that her own mother had no clue where she was all this time.

The lead actress only went on to play a few bit parts, which is unfortunate. Veteran B-movie/TV actors Mary Jackson and Arthur Space portray the old villainous couple and their experience will be noticeable to fans of exploitation. Future Oscar nominated actress Margret Avery (The Colour Purple) appears in one, if not her first, motion picture role as one of the other girls.

On the negative side the movie is sloppily made; scenes play themselves out twice (sometimes in reverse), the boom mike noticeably appears in one scene, everything seems overly exposed, there seems to be missing dialogue, there's a lack of lighting occasionally, the script is incoherent in some places, it's poorly paced, and it hasn't aged particularly well.

To say it is predictable though would a mischaracterization. Predictable to what? Perhaps movies that came afterwards. Yes "I" can predict where this movie is going from the second scene onward, but it's forgivable cause this form of horror movie was in it's infancy and, much like Baby John's infantile speeding down the highway, it still turns out to be a fun ride. It's far more fun then most of what will precede it.

But the biggest problem with this film is how the subgenre was miring itself down at the time. It's become a casualty of the environment which allowed it to flourish.

Although my video says it's the uncut version it is clearly the cut version made to a deceptive length with trailers. It is common for movies like this to have several cuts under several titles, also severals cuts under the same title, or even several titles for the same cut. This actually has it roots back during it's creation. Basically the film makers would be showing a version of the film in one city until they were "run out of town" and then they would have to repackage the movie and move to another city. Almost like carnies. I suspect some of that happened with this movie, though I can't be sure. Plus there is the whole mess with these movies having several cuts made specifically for the drive-in theaters.

I don't even know if the uncut version is even available right now and I wonder if the original had some good old 70's gore, something lacking in the version I watched.

The DVD era actually has been even less kind to this movie, despite it's exposure. It's become a chore to see some of these films as the directors intended them to be seen thanks to several public domain cuts masquerading as uncut versions. This is a left over of the video craze in the 80's, where the public would watch just about anything that was in focus – and some things that were not. In the spirit of the old carny grindhouse/drive-in films video companies released several cuts of the same movie under different titles, sometimes the movies were even reedited out of order.

Exploitation cinema's creativity was able to flourish out of the studio system, but in a way it was exploitation's very roots that would bog these movies down and sink them into the void.

The Child (1977)

The Child

Alternate Titles: Kill and Go Hide
La casa degli zombi
Zombie Child

1977
Country: USA
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075838/

Directed by Robert Voskanian

Staring Laurel Barnett
Rosalie Cole
Frank Janson

By the end of 70's the grindhouse theatres where starting to the plod down to their eventual decline and disintegration, thanks in part of the video craze of the 80's. Drive-in theatres where playing similar material, but much of the same forces were working behind the scene to also bring that era to an end. "The Child" came out in late 70's and it was basically a low budget zombie gore film with a nod to “The Turn of the Screw” (the 1898 Henry James novella) in the setup.

Alicianne Del Mar is brought in as a care giver to a troubled young girl named Rosalie. Rosalie has just lost her mother and since her father is distance and quite frankly insane she becomes prey to the will unexplained supernatural forces, or possibly the other way around. People she holds responsible for the death of her mom start getting picked off at the mid point of the movie. Interestingly the mother's death is left slightly ambiguous, but the woman's former mental state seems to be a prime concern.

Made on a “questionable” salary “The Child” is shot almost entirely with short cuts and edited together, much like “Manos the Hands of Fate,” though here there is much more skill on display.

“The Child” in many ways is almost a perfect display of the late 70's American splatter movies. The world, situations and characters constructed are at best illogically surreal. Atmospheric dreamlike imagery precedes any form coherent storytelling. Everything from dancing scarecrows, to a constant barrage of cemetery fog, to moving Jack-O-Laturns take up the screen time until the zombies arrival in the final 20 minutes. This should be enough to appeal to a certain segment of viewers and repulse the rest.

I have developed quite a fondness for the movie, but in no way could anyone pretend it's a good movie. An entertaining movie perhaps for those looking for the kind of illogical atmosphere you felt as a child roaming the dark streets on Halloween night in search for hardened corn syrup.

The acting is horrendous - with some exceptions - and although the heroine strikes the perfect state of lovely 70's womanhood for most of the movie she breaks down into annoying screaming and weakness by the end. To be fair this more due to her dubbing then her acting.

The climax while really good has very little pay off and the music is a mix mash of piano and synthesizer notes. Some of the most effective moments of the movie break down into full on silliness, ie. the death of a certain neighbour.

Despite all these concerns this is an interesting movie in it's lack of coherency and it's focus on the kind of nightmarish unreality one would write in their dream journal (I would not be surprised if that is where the script was actually developed). Also despite some slow parts it does deliver what would be a very excellent climax if it wasn't for the annoying screaming.

Even if one doesn't like the movie it should be interesting to them as a time capsule for a style of guerrilla horror films who's unseen decline was starting to close in.

Werewolf Woman

Werewolf Woman

(1976)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074829/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werewolf_Woman_(film)

Alternate Titles

Wolf Woman

La Lupa Mannara

Daughter of a Werewolf

Naked Werewolf Woman

She-Wolf

Terror of the She Wolf

The Legend of the Wolf Woman

and probably many others

Staring Annik Borel

Howard Ross

Dagmar Lassander

Directed by Rino Di Silvestro

Italy

Wow That fall WAS gay

Werewolf Woman is pretty much a B-movie among Italian exploitation films. If movies from directors like Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci are what comes to mind when you think of raw, graphic Italian fare the movie Werewolf Woman, and it's director Rino Di Silvestro, is what you think of when you try to visualize of their B movie, grindhouse equivalent.

In his short career Silvestro made around 8 movies which some might call pure sexploitation trash, Werewolf Woman being one of the most notorious.

Is that a fair label for this movie?

When you first look at the cast, Dagmar Lassander and Frederick Stafford in particular, that label is already put into question. But giving credence to it, and also giving the movie some notoriety, Werewolf Woman was dubbed a video nasty in the UK during the days of video censorship and banned in that country.

The movie opens like all movies should open... with a naked female werewolf. She does some sort of black mass and then hides from a gang of villagers who are out looking for her. She comes to stalk what seems to be the alpha male among the villagers and precedes to tear his throat out. If you can't see the sexual significance in this I guarantee you will see it throughout the movie. Like all horror openings this all is part of our heroine's, Daniella's, dream.

Through exposition with a psychiatrist we learn Daniella had been raped at a young age and that has left her mentally unstable. She's both repulsed and attracted to the opposite sex. She has also developed a connection with a old small painting of one her ancestors, who looks identical to the young Daniella. This ancestor was involved in an ancient legend, which we are led to believe ended with her being killed and burned as a werewolf.

Daniella's father then learns from the psychologist that lycanthropy is scientifically proven. My first thought - I'm obviously going to the wrong school.

When Daniella's sister returns from America with her new husband Daniella has an obvious attraction to the man - but she's is also repulsed. The man is the splitting image of the man who appeared in her dream - the one she killed. There's also some Oedipus complexion going on as the sisters visit interrupts the planning of a vacation between Daniella and her father.

This is when the movie gets weird. It becomes almost a soft-core porn with our “heroine” having sexual hallucinations of lizards, and pleasuring herself as she watches her sister and her new brother-in-law in bed together. This all ends with a murder, and Daniella ending up in a mental institution.

By now your probably wondering where's the werewolf and why is she using an axe? Well this is a totally different movie then the title suggests. Remember the psychologist claiming werewolves are science.

By now one of the main complaints made, that this movie just soft core mascaraing as horror, has become apparent. This IS a valid argument, some of the more sexual scenes linger on, but I think this also ignores the themes of the script. And for horror fans, themes of both repulsion and attraction are very potent. We're used to molding these duel aspects of our personality together, which probably says something potent about us.

At the hospital they tie her up but don't sedate her very well, if at all. When she manages to steal some scissors from a nurse you know this isn't going to end well. After another extensive sex scene she escapes with another killing.

Keeping with all the sexual imagery she even dresses in red - like a reverse little red riding hood - and then roams the forest watching people have sex and attacking them.

But she does manage to find some happiness later in movie, despite being pursued by the police. But like other Italian films the world doesn't allow for happiness. It will destroy you internally, and externally.

There are some complaints I think can be legitimately thrown at Werewolf Woman. The first being that it doesn't leave anything ambiguous to the viewer. There are several scenes where the good psychiatrist explains everything to the audience, using the police or the father as a stand in. Sometimes it gives the impression of the writer saying, “hey look how clever our script is.” This becomes awkward and leaves too much exposition.

The second is the implication of the ESP into the movie. This is difficult to explain without ruining the movie but certain supernatural aspects of the story don't need to be there.

The third complaint is that aspects of the plot seem missing. Time becomes a liability. We go from Daniella starting a relationship in montage form to revenge territory to the exposition so quickly none of this plot can be appreciated.

One of the complaints I think can't be made is that this film's a gore fest. There is some gore yes, but Werewolf Woman has surprisingly little. This may actually be a disappointment to many movie goers but this movie is more concerned with the psychological aspect behind a series of events.

You can't say this movie is just pointless sex either. There is a lot going on here. Yes sometimes the sex drives the plot, but this is an over generalization. It doesn't work all the time, but there are times in which our main character is moving towards inevitability. These moments are very effective.

Do I think this movie successful overall? Partially. Overall it has a good atmosphere and deals with some interesting themes. It does explain everything, but in some aspects the explanations seem to be there as mere convenience. Despite what I think are some flaws I did enjoy this movie quite a bit.

Also the music, despite being grainy, is great. Then again the music in most Italian films is good to begin with.

I'm not sure if its the film stock, or just my copy, but this is a very grainy, gritty film. It's sometimes hard to notice what is going on, but that just adds some atmospheric “class” to the experience.

I didn't know this but according to IMDB Quentin Tarantino selected the movie for the First Quentin Tarantino Film Fest though he had not seen it at that time. Apparently he loved it so much kept adding surprise movies to his later festivals calling them the “Wolf Woman” picks.

Probably one of the more stranger things I can address is French actress Annik Borel's career. She played bit rolls in sexploitation flicks all the way till Werewolf Woman. She made two other movies, one of which was just another bit part. After she quit acting and according to B-Movie legend she then pretty much vanished off the face the earth.