I DRINK YOUR BLOOD The pros and cons of devil worship are so eloquently revealed in I Drink Your Blood (1970) that one can only wonder: what else is left for evil? Ironically named producer Jerry Gross bestows upon the cinema this tasty tale of Satanist hippies gone wild. "Let it be known that Satan was an acid head," decrees Horace Bones (Bhaskar), leader of the nude cult that inaugurates the movie with rape and animal sacrifice. Yet these followers of the Dark One reveal a lighter side the next morning when they laughingly toss a friend down a hillside...in a truck. The group's only fault, though, is taking residence in a rat-infested hotel (shish kebab anyone?) located near the house of the raped girl. Once her grandfather learns of the shenanigans, he takes his shotgun and confronts the hippies. Quickly disarmed and pummeled, Grandpa falls to the floor only to receive the group's favorite breath freshener: LSD. But vengeance comes in the shape of grandson Pete, the boy who shoots a rabid dog, extracts its blood with a syringe and contaminates the hippies' breakfast. With an incubation period of at least a month, rabies somehow overtakes the Satanists within hours, giving the actors a chance to smear shaving cream around their mouths. According to the soundtrack, rabies sounds a lot like repetitive techno guitar music that seamlessly complements scenes of the Satanists' murderous rampage. Axes, swords, machetes, wooden stakes and electric knives find their way into flesh and bone as the film descends into virulent madness. Soon, even local construction workers fall victim to the disease, presumably after encountering the hippies on the cutting room floor. As the demonic pandemonium reaches its bloody climax, we think the heroes will escape in the car, but wait - the car clich�ly won't start! Luckily, as the rabid people overturn the car, cops from the Deus Ex Machina Precinct arrive in a multi-shot sequence of them firing guns randomly off-screen. Cut to: bodies lying everywhere and not one bullet hole to be found. In all, the film's strongest point is its political correctness, demonstrated by the make-up of the eight hippies: men and women who are either White, Black, Asian, Native American, pregnant or mute. Delicious as it is thirst quenching, I Drink Your Blood should be allowed to breathe a while after uncorking, served chilled in a dark room. Cheers!

Back to Main Page