Writer: David Durston
Director: David Durston
From the moment Horace Bones and his band of hippie Satanists (yes, you read that right) roll into the small town of Valley Hills it's obvious there's going to be trouble. Well, there wouldn't be much of a movie if they decided to grab something to eat then move on. First, they attack and rape local girl Sylvia, which causes her veterinarian grandfather Doc Banner to pick up his shotgun and head for the abandoned house where the gang has taken up residence.
One thoroughly botched attempt at revenge later, the Doc has 1) has been relieved of his shotgun and 2) has been made to take LSD, leaving his grandson Pete to help the tripping pensioner home. Andy then decides to take on the revenge mantle on behalf of both his sister and grandfather but instead of using the shotgun on the hippies he uses it to kill a rabid dog and then injects the rabid dog's blood into a batch of meat pies which are then sold to the hippies. I'm not making this up.
Anyway, the hippies eat the pies, get sick and then go completely batshit, either killing or infecting anyone that gets in their way. Will granite-jawed, ignorant, sexist dam worker Roger save the day? Does anyone care?
Clunkily scripted, dodgily acted and wildly inappropriate at almost every turn, this is one of the most entertaining exploitation films I've seen in a while. When this was originally submitted for a rating in the US it was given the dreaded "X" and was the first film to receive this due to the level of violence (up to that point, the "X" was awarded exclusively to pornographic material). Watching this nowadays it may be difficult to see exactly what the fuss was about because the gore is totally unconvincing but back in the day this would probably have upset quite a lot of people.
Durston may not be the most skilled of writers or directors but he certainly makes a play of going straight for the jugular once the basic set-up has been established. What prevents it from being a landmark in queasy, grimy terror is the ramshackle nature of the enterprise, whether it's the hilariously awful dialogue, acting styles ranging from outright hysterical to total non-emoting (Roger, I'm looking at you) or plot points which will simply leave you scratching your head in disbelief. Trying to escape a rabid, psychotic maniac? Just stand in a couple of inches of water and flick some of the liquid at them.
And yet, in the midst of all the ludicrous story developments and laughably fake severed body parts there are some genuinely horrible sequences involving dead animals which sap a fair bit of fun from the proceedings. This is a bit of a shame because the rest of I Drink Your Blood is an absolute riot, chock full of unintentionally laugh out loud moments and culminating in a massacre which, bizarrely, happens off-screen. In any other movie I would have felt short changed at such an anticlimax but even this odd (possibly budget-related) decision seems to fit particularly well with the film's generally haphazard action and plotting.
Certainly the best movie ever made about a gang of rabid hippies terrorising a small American town, this has to be seen to be disbelieved. Memorable for almost all the wrong reasons (save for Lynn Lowry, who's effective in a supporting role as a mute member of the gang), this is so bad that it's very good indeed and definitely worth seeing if you can view the same cleaned-up, uncut print which was screened at Abertoir 2016.
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