'70s Trash: I Drink Your Blood (1971)

One man's trash could be another man's treasure.  Today's Film is I Drink Your Blood, a 1971 Cult Classic restored on Video in recent years.  Let's get the obvious stuff out of the way first- it's not about Vampires.  There is no blood drinking at all.  The Title was changed from something accurate-but-innocuous like Phobia to the one you see purely for marketing purposes.  If you grew up watching sleaze in the '70s, you probably saw the Double-Bill of I Eat Your Skin and I Drink Your Blood.  I guess I need to watch that one too, don't I?  So if there's no blood drinking, what is the Film actually about?  Well, I won't give it all away just yet, but here are the key points: Satanists, Hippies, Murder, Dismemberment and infection.  This is another one of those 'Bad Movies With Good Locations' (like Doom Asylum's actual abandoned Asylum!).  In this case, it is a legit-abandoned Town in Upstate New York.  They could run around and do whatever there- within reason.  This one is all sorts of trashy and I kind of like it. To find out if you will too, read on...

A young woman witnesses a Satanic Ritual and gets beat up.  They don't kill her, because...um, Plot.

The Town is nearly-abandoned, save for a few families and the people doing Construction for a Dam.

They sure won't be important later.

The group comes into Town, aided by the fact that the girl hasn't IDed them yet.  She will soon.

Grandpa finds out the truth and goes to scare the group off, but ends up getting assaulted.  Since that terrible plan failed, the Grandson has an even more terrible one...

1) Kill a Rabid Dog
2) Bake Dog's meat into Pies
3) Trick Satanists into eating Pies, giving them Rabies.

Shockingly, the act of making a crazed group of killers even more insane DOESN'T end well.

Seriously, the Maginot Line worked better than your plan, kid!

Most of the group starts to kill people, while some find other things to do.  One of the women finds the Construction Crew and basically acts out a '70s Porn Film with them (mostly off-camera).

This, of course, infects them all, making a bigger horde of pseudo-Zombies/Infected.

The gang kills many- Poor Bastards of Cinema to come- and only have two weaknesses- Water and, well, Death.

While this Film wants this to be serious, hosing down a yelling man is always funny!

The group is eventually killed and that's where *most* Prints end.  This Version has the complete Ending (with extra Film Grain).

During the last attack, the main Woman was bitten and kills the Sheriff.

Unrelated to that, the kid tries to confess to his actions, but the Police won't listen.  Did...did this inspire American Psycho?!?  The End.

A dumb, trashy Film that is kind of fun if you embrace the insanity.  Think about what happens in this Film.  A Satanic Cult of Hippies is given Rabies from infected Meat Pies and turn into Killers.  If this didn't inspire 28 Days Later, then nothing did!  The whole thing goes from 'Satanists are Evil' to 'Rabies Makes You Act Like A Zombie' over the course of an hour.  It goes from having a small group of obvious villains to a bunch of 'Zombies' chasing people around with knives.  If you just stop and think about what has happened during the 2nd Act of this while you're watching it, it's mind-boggling!  That's not to say that it doesn't have a sort of crazy charm.  It has lots of fake blood, silly Acting (especially from the infected) and some good use of props.  One poor guy gets decapitated and his 'head' is shown as a prize by one infected.  He seems so proud of it!  It's like the one henchman in Samurai Cop who practically fondles his gun the whole time during his Scene- he loves it!  It's definitely not a good Film- just in case you got that impression.  Everything about it looks cheap, other than the location (as noted above- it's great!).  They all seem to embrace the silly premise and take it 100% seriously.  How did Troma not learn this lesson?!?  If you actually look at a Title like this and go 'I'm curious enough to see this,' you'll probably like it.  It's by no means perfect, but it is gloriously-dumb and insane.  It also previewed the face that most unsuspecting people make when they leave a Theater showing Midsommar...

Next time, I might as well cover the other half of the double-bill.  It's actual Zombies this time, so...better?  Stay tuned...