My mother already thinks I'm crazy for investing as much time as I do into something I'm not getting paid for- aka this blog- and she may be right, but I've got to do something to keep the crazy away after being locked up for so long. Whatever works, right? Anyway, apologies for all of you patiently awaiting the next installment of "The Cronenberg Chronicles"- it's coming... eventually, lol. Until then, here's a look back at an oldie-but-goodie...
I first saw this one back in the day on VHS, before buying a copy of my own, via the company Something Weird, I do believe- remember them? It's one of those movies that people either write off as ludicrous or love with a fiery passion. It's the literal definition of a "cult" film, with an emphasis on the cult part, as in it revolves around one.
I Drink Your Blood was written and directed by David Durston, a US Army vet- he served in WWII- who segued into acting briefly, before deciding he was better off behind the camera, for the most part- though he would occasionally take small roles in his own films. He started off producing the musical TV series Your Hit Parade, before turning to writing and directing for the well-respected anthology drama series Playhouse 90 and the sci-fi series Tales of Tomorrow, all in the 50's.
His first film as a writer and director was Felicia in 1964, which marked the motion picture debut of famed actor Raul Julia, of the Addams Family films. Sadly, the movie never received a theatrical release, but he fared slightly better with the exploitation flick The Love Statue, which purports to be the 1st such film to tackle the perils of LSD use. It revolves around a nerdy guy that falls for a snooty cabaret dancer and later fears he might have murdered her after a wild three-day acid trip finds him waking up to see she's dead.
Around five years later, he got the green light for this film, which was inspired in part by the then-recent horror classic Night of the Living Dead, to which there is a nod in the film- if you look closely on the wall at the pie shop, you can see an ad for it in the background- as well as the also-then-recent Manson Family murders. (Note the scene where one cult member scrawls "Pig" on someone in blood- a direct reference to something the Family did for real, as seen above.)
Durston combined those two influences with the subject matter of an article he read about an attack by rabid wolves on an Iranian schoolhouse, which resulted in the schoolteachers and kids inside being infected with rabies themselves! After researching the story, as well as consulting a specialist, who showed him pictures of kids affected by rabies that were locked in cages with foaming mouths, Dunston thought it would be perfect for a horror film.
The film begins with a cult leader, Horace Bones (an effectively nutty Bhaskar Roy Chowdhury) performing a Satanic ritual in the woods, as local Sylvia (Arlene Farber) watches on in horror. Bones catches her and sends two of the cult members after her, who subsequently rape, beat and leave her for dead.
The next day, she emerges from the woods very much alive and goes back to town to tell everyone what she saw, with help from little brother Pete (Riley Mills) and local bakery owner Mildred (Elizabeth Marner-Brooks), who escort the traumatized girl to her grandfather's place, the town doctor, Doc Banner (Richard Bowler).
Horrified, Mildred seeks help from her boyfriend, construction worker Roger (John Damon), who doesn't take her seriously at first. Meanwhile, the hippie cult's van breaks down, forcing them to stay in town. Lucky for them, the town is mostly vacant, as it's due to be demolished soon, so they take up temporary residence in an abandoned former hotel.
Eventually Doc Banner realizes that the hippies are responsible for what happened to his granddaughter and unwisely goes to confront them for their actions. Bad idea. They likewise beat him up and, to add insult to injury, dose him with LSD, which goes about as well as you might think. Observing all this is young Pete, who hatches a plan for revenge when he sees a rabid dog and shoots and kills it.
Then he goes and gets a syringe from Doc Banner's place and fills it with the blood of the dead dog, which he subsequently injects into some of Mildred's pies, which he then sells to the hippies! You know, that old plot. Gee, can't Hollywood ever come up with anything original? Lol. 😆
Needless to say, further mayhem ensues, with the hippies eventually literally foaming at the mouth and going on a violent rampage, killing anyone who gets in their way, and occasionally infecting others as well, which is where the zombie-style antics begin. Their only Achilles' Heel seems to be an inherent fear of water! (Shades of the wonky-if-enjoyable M. Night Shyamalan flick Signs.) Because of this, Dunston's original title was Hydrophobia, or later, simply Phobia.
However, producer and CEO of the exploitation film company Cinemation Industries, Jerry Gross, who bankrolled the film and who would later produce the legendary Blaxploitation flicks Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song and The Black Godfather and distribute the animated cult classic Fritz the Cat, had secured the rights to a film called I Eat Your Skin (aka Zombies), and thought Phobia would make for a great double-feature, albeit with a different, more appropriate title for such a pairing: I Drink Your Blood.
Shooting for the film took about eight weeks, and it was shot on location in Sharon Springs, New York, a former spa town-turned-ghost town. As such, they had access to a lot of abandoned buildings, including a hotel due to be demolished soon. Given that fact, Durston had the permission to trash the place, which he and the cast and crew took full advantage of, practically demolishing it themselves.
Everyone concerned in the cast performed their own stunts, and locals so feared what they were seeing that they reported Durston to the cops, telling them he should be replaced or even arrested, as he was endangering his cast and crew!
However, no one was badly hurt- save the chicken in the opening scene, that is (fair warning, animal lovers)- and young Mills, who sprained his ankle crossing the creek in one scene. Contrary to what some think, though, the rats featured were not harmed.
Instead, in addition to the live rats obtained for the shoot, Dunston secured some dead ones from a nearby lab and painted them the same color as the ones in the film and put fake blood on them. Some of the live rats would later get their own close-ups as the stars of the ratsploitation flicks Willard and Ben.
The film would go on to obtain one of the very first "X" ratings for violence alone, but Gross was able to secure regular theatrical release by allowing theatre owners to re-edit the film themselves and cut out anything they deemed too offensive, which is pretty unheard of. As such, there were all manners of different versions of the film available, with each featuring varying degrees of violence. It did eventually secure a R-rating, however, in time, with the proper level of cuts to the violence involved.
The same goes for home video- the first version I saw of the film was wildly different from the more recent one I watched, which featured multiple endings tacked on that were shot but not used in the original cut of the film, no matter which version one saw, as well as all the extensive violence put back in the film.
The two "new" endings include a confession from Pete to the cops for his role in the whole nasty affair, which they laugh off as nonsense, causing Pete to storm off in anger; and a bit after the big climax in which a bedridden Mildred is (spoiler alert!) shown to also be infected with rabies and attacks her boyfriend, which is considerably darker than the original ending, obviously.
This is the version known as the "Director's Cut" and the one more readily available on DVD and Blu-Ray. The latter also features a commentary, interviews with the cast, trailers and radio spots, as well as two bonus features: the aforementioned I Eat Your Skin and Dunston's follow-up feature, Blue Sextet, which also features star Chowdhury. I don't have this version as of yet, but I'd definitely like to pick it up for the bonuses alone.
The film was a modest hit, particularly on the drive-in circuit, though its reputation has grown over the years, with critics responding more favorably as the film has been reassessed. It has also proved a solid seller on home video, and has never been out of print, which is rarer than you'd think with certain cult items, some of which have never seen the light of day on home video, or have yet to be released on anything but VHS.
Though Gross went on to much success, also including distributing such cult fare as Zombie, The Boogey Man, Blood Beach, I Spit on Your Grave and the notorious Mondo Cane and Faces of Death documentary series, Durston did not repeat his success with this film in subsequent efforts.
After Sextet, he did the decent Stigma, featuring a pre-Miami Vice Philip Michael Thomas about a different kind of virus- this one sexually transmitted- but had to resort to hardcore porn to make ends meet after that. Even then, he stumbled, as one of his such films, Manhole, was blocked from release after one of its stars landed a role in the Clint Eastwood vehicle Escape from Alcatraz.
His reputation was further sullied by his association with not one, but two suspicious deaths, one actress Carol Wayne, best-known for her numerous appearances on the Johnny Carson Show and popular game shows like Hollywood Squares, who drowned in the ocean after being seen arguing with Durston at their hotel in Mexico; and the other actress Diane Linkletter, who committed suicide by jumping out of her apartment window in Hollywood while Durston was present.
As Durston was known to be homosexual, he wasn't really suspected of being involved with either death, as those who were involved with the lovely ladies romantically might have been, but the optics weren't great, obviously. Funnyman Art Linkletter, Diane's father, thought that LSD was the culprit, as seen above, though no drugs were found in her system. Cult director John Waters would go on to dramatize the latter death in his short film, The Diane Linkletter Story, shot the day after her death.
Durston made his last film in the late 70's, but was trying to stage a comeback with a modernized remake of this, his biggest hit, with cult favorite Sybil Danning (seen above) set to produce and star, in the 2000's. But the project ultimately fell apart when Durston took ill with pneumonia, which eventually claimed his life, sadly, in 2010. He did, however, live long enough to see his best-known film be reassessed by modern critics as a cult gem that deserved a second look, so there's that.
The cast was mostly made up of unknowns, as per usual for a low budget feature, but there are a few notable names in the mix. Jadin Wong, who plays Sue-Lin, was a former dancer who cropped up in the likes of The King & I, before turning to proper acting, appearing in Year of the Dragon, Skin Art, China Girl and the Steve Martin version of The Pink Panther. George Patterson, who played Rollo (that's him in the above pic in the middle), was also in the cult classic God Told Me To.
Elizabeth Marner-Brooks, who played Mildred, was also in the horror flicks The Deadly Spawn and Dogs from Hell, aka Rottweiler, both under two different names! And Arlene Farmer, who played Sylvia, was in The French Connection and Slumber Party '57, alongside a young Debra Winger, as well as several other films produced by her then-husband Jerry Gross, such as Teenage Mother and Female Animal.
Faring decidedly better were Tyde Kierney (top pic on the left), who made his motion picture debut here as Andy. He went on to a solid career, landing roles in such solid flicks as Stand & Deliver, Internal Affairs, In the Line of Fire, Casino and Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas; and Alex Mann, who played Shelley, was an exploitation regular who appeared in the likes of Malibu High, Microwave Massacre and Invasion of the Love Drones, as well as working with drive-in movie legends like Joe Sarno (Passion in Hot Hollows, Wall of Flesh, Abigail Lesley Is Back in Town), Michael Findlay (Take My Head, Funk) and Doris Wishman (Keyholes Are for Peeping, Satan Was a Lady).
But far and away the most well-known face in the film is cult actress Lynn Lowry, who isn't even credited for her work here. I discussed Lowry at length just recently in my review of Shivers, so I won't go into depth in this review, but you can go here for more on the lovely actress, whose work is well-worth a look, and most of which provides her with much more of a showcase than she gets here.
Durston met Lowry and liked her look, so he cast her in the film based entirely on that, not even bothering to write her a proper character, really. Her defining characteristic as Carrie is that she is mute, so Lowry doesn't speak a word in the film. However, she does get what is easily one of the most notorious and best scenes in the film, when, after being infected with the virus, she longingly eyes an electric carver, which she then uses to cut off the hand of a woman that takes her and another of the hippies in after the latter is injured. Whoops!
I Drink Your Blood isn't really a diamond in the B-movie rough, TBH- the acting is mostly amateur hour, the FX are pretty unconvincing, and the plot is silliness defined. And yet, there is something about it that is low-key charming in a low-budget NOTLD knock-off sort of way. It also influenced one of the people Durston himself was inspired by, with Romero later making The Crazies, which shares some similarities with this film's plot, as does the aforementioned Shivers (plus Cronenberg's Rabid), both of which also feature Lowry, so better things came from the film in the long run, so we can at least be thankful for that.
For all its faults, though, I really like the film, and its aged better than one might think. I like how diverse the cast is, and I think the additional "Director's Cut" endings definitely help matters, as does the uncut footage, even if the effects are a bit subpar. It may be goofy in places, but it's also a lot of fun in spite of its many faults. If you like this sort of thing, which is to say low-budget gore-fests, you can't really go wrong with this one. Even when the film goes wrong, it's oh-so-right, lol. I say definitely check it out, for sure. 😈
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