I Drink Your Blood (1971)

I Drink Your BloodThis grimy, low-budget Grindhouse classic wastes no time as we are thrown straight into an obscure Satanic cult ritual in the woods in the middle of the night, led by the charismatic sociopath Horace Born. He is a self-proclaimed Capricorn who was born in Hell and reborn on Mother Earth to do Satan’s work with his group of hippie Satanists called The Sons and Daughters of Satan. Sounds wholesome. They drink blood spiced with LSD as they’re buck naked before sacrificing a poor chicken (for real). A trigger warning for animal cruelty. The whole act is spied on by Sylvia, who is the girlfriend of one of Horace’s cult members. And Horace won’t have any of that. After a quick chasing scene with some funk music, she is caught, where we can only assume that she is gang-raped off-screen, before she barely makes it home alive. Next day Horace and company’s hippie truck won’t start and have to walk to the nearest town, which is Valley Hills, a small hillbilly town in the bumfuck of nowhere.

 

They buy a box of meat pies at the local bakery before they seek shelter in an abandoned hotel – where they completely trash the place and wreck havoc while they chase a bunch of scared rats to barbecue and eat for dinner. Yum, Burp and Hail Satan. These were trained rats, by the way, which were also used in Willard, another horror film from the same year. The dead rats we see in the barbecue scene were already dead prior to the film, if we’re gonna trust the trivia section on IMDb. Anyway, when Sylvia’s grandfather learns that this Satanic cult is in town, he decides to pay them a visit to confront them with a shotgun. But because he’s a slow, old fool, he fails miserably and gets beaten before they pour some LSD into his mouth. Even though they’re kind enough to spare his life, his grandson and Sylvia’s younger brother, Pete, who’s also been spying on them, is the next to spit on their grave. He takes the shotgun to finish his granddads’ revenge, but on his way he shoots and kills a rabid dog. And one can say that things gets really interesting from here on.

 

Because listen to this: Pete, the smartass, takes a sample of the dog’s rabies-infected blood, mixes it with the meat pies that Horace and co eventually eat and… well, it doesn’t go exactly as imagined. Instead of dying instantly, they slowly turn into deranged zombie-like foaming flesh-eaters, who end up attacking the townsfolk and turn Valley Hills into an apocalyptic rabies warzone which can be described as Night of the Living Dead meets The Crazies. Only, this one is far more out there than these two combined, sprinkled with more LSD, schlock and unhinged, unapologetic B-movie madness. We can say the intention of Pete was good, but man, talk about shitting the bed. Heads are rolling, limbs chopped apart, and one dude has his teeth falling out as he gets piggybacked stronghold, and some other bizarre WTF moments. It’s a full-on riot with lots of sadistic, goofy fun. Plain and simple, and not much deeper than that. I Drink Your Blood was also the first film to have the historic achievement to be stamped with an X-rating. Hats off.

 

I Drink Your Blood is available on Blu-ray from Grindhouse Releasing, and was once upon a time on Tubi. Don’t bother looking for it on YouTube as it’s filled with pixelization censoring.

 

I Drink Your Blood I Drink Your Blood

 

Writer and director: David E. Durston
Country & year: USA, 1971
Actors: Bhaskar Roy Chowdhury, Jadin Wong, Rhonda Fultz, George Patterson, Riley Mills, John Damon, Elizabeth Marner-Brooks, Richard Bowler, Tyde Kierney, Iris Brooks
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067229/

 

Tom Ghoul

 

 

 

 

Octaman (1971)

Octaman Octaman, or Octamaaaan, like Johnny Depp would have said it, is exactly what you think it is a mutated, cheesy-looking octopus humanoid who shuffles around and kills people, played by a poor actor who can barely see shit through the costume. Yep, it’s one of those films. This is the type of vintage Z movie amateur campy schlockfest that could easily be mistaken for a lost Ed Wood film. And if you get some strong Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) vibes, you’re not wrong. Octaman is written and directed by Harry Essex, who also was a co-writer of said film.

 

The plot is something like this: we follow Dr. Torres as he goes on an expedition with a small crew to a primitive Latin fishing community in Mexico to uncover some atomic radiation. And they, of course, encounter Octaman, who’s actually credited in the opening sequence as Octaman, not the actor, just to add some extra flavor of mystique. It worked with Boris Karloff with Frankenstein way back in 1931, but here, though, with the cheesy costume and all that doesn’t even fool a blind person, it’s just comical. Anyway… Octaman starts to stalk and kill people one by one.

 

Octaman goes pretty fast into the monster action. And I’m using the words monster action very loosely here, because there’s nothing much to get excited about, except for having some laughs at its overall incompetence, as the action has the impact like a pillow fight in your sister’s bedroom. The way Octoman attacks its victims is pure retarded slapstick comedy. He leaves his bodycounts with open wounds and an eye that almost pops out of some poor dude’s skull, yet he only slaps them like a drunk bitch with his overlong rubber suit tentacles as he also struggles to not lose balance. He’s as intimidating as, well, Octaman. Fun stuff. The monster costume was designed by the one and only Rick Baker, who later became one of the most prominent effect makers in Hollywood. This was his very first gig, and… we all have to start somewhere.

 

Octaman Octaman Octaman

 

Writer and director: Harry Essex
Country & year: Mexico/USA, 1971
Actors: Pier Angeli, Kerwin Mathews, Jeff Morrow, David Essex, Jerome Guardino, Robert Warner, Norman Fields, Read Morgan
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067515/

 

Tom Ghoul