Movie Review: I Drink Your Blood (1970)

I Drink Your Blood

Written & Directed by David E. Durston

Horace Bones...Bhaskar Roy Chowdhury
Sylvia...Iris Brooks
Pete...Riley Mills

Love, Peace and Devil Worship.

That's what Horace Bones and his hippie band of Satanists are all about. When their tripped-out evilmobile breaks down, they find themselves stuck in the nearly abandoned town of Valley Hills. In a town that size, you gotta make your own kicks, which Horace and his cohorts do by terrorizing a few of the locals.

Young Pete's family gets the worst of it. His older sister Sylvia is attacked, possibly raped, and beaten; and his grandfather is roughed up and dosed with LSD, turning him temporarily into a simpering and whimpering weirdo.

Pete is a clever and resourceful young buck, and seeks out justice the only way he knows how: by poisoning the hippies breakfast with the contaminated blood of a rabid dog.

Before you can say give peace a chance, these already lunatic long-hairs are foaming at the mouth, really losing their shit on each other and the remaining citizens of the town.

None of the characters are what you would call "fully fleshed-out". They're thin and sometimes unbelievable, but a few of them are worth mentioning.

Horace Bones is the creepy cult leader, the self-professed "First Son of Satan". The power he wields over his followers is striking, and obviously (duh!) inspired in part on Charles Manson and his own nutjob collective. He must've been teased a lot as a child, too, almost as much as Calvin Spleen, Farnsworth Organ, and Louis Endocrinesystem. No wonder he went off the deep end.

Grandpa seemed like an old school badass, the way he went charging after the hippies to defend his granddaughter's honor, full of piss and vinegar, waving his shotgun around. He was no Clint Eastwood, though, and this wasn't Gran Torino, so old gramps got a little roughed up. But he had heart, and that has to count for something.

That strength of character got passed on to Pete, obviously. He also went in with both guns blazing, so to speak, and even if his scheme sort of backfired in the end, you have to admit, it was some kind of genius.

Grimy, gritty, down and dirty...this violent revenge flick is a true grindhouse classic. It has plenty of flaws--mediocre acting, occasionally bizarre musical cues, poor special effects, etc. but it's got just the right balance of sleaze and cheese to make it a hell of a lot of fun. Against all odds, the cinematography is pretty damn good, too.

It should be noted, though, that there are a few scenes of (presumably real) animal cruelty here--a chicken gets its throat cut, rats are strung up and thrown on a fire. I'm never in favor of harming animals for a movie (there are countless ways to fake it, so why do it?), but they are at least brief scenes that pale in comparison to the zoological snuff scenes depicted in a lot of Italian cannibal cinema from the same decade.

My advice is to crack open a few drinks and watch with some likeminded pals. If you're feeling adventurous, pair it with I Eat Your Skin, just like they did back in the day.

1970
Rated R
83 Minutes
Color
English
United States

"Drink from this cup, pledge yourselves, and together we'll all flip out."
--J/Metro