Rides that fine line of taste as far as moving pictures go, but before I talk about this movie I gotta say I really wish Chris Jerico wasn’t on the last drive in... I hate wrestling and I hate fozzy... but I dig Bloodsucking Freaks because weirdo Wizard of Gore 70’s disturbio semi boring John Watersy exploitation bleeding skull movies are my jam, they put me in some sort of trance and I love it. Decided on 3.5 stars... this is more Sleazy/gory/inept/sadistic than say, HGL, which is always welcomed, but it lacks some of the charm that the OG godfather of Gore poured into his many many excellent films. Not for everyone, but mos def for me—stuff like this makes me feel uncomfortable & that’s exactly why I love devious exploitation garbage over say...marvel infinity endgame jazz.Also, Andy Milligan vibes!
"What a marvelous, wonderful, attentive audience you are. And, may I add, a brave one too! Now, those of you who are weak-willed or coward would have fled by now. Or regurgitated over the seats in front of you. But why, really? This is just a theatrical presentation. A show..."(Previous review here.)Here I go, once again jumping off the deep end into Joel M. Reed's tasteless trash classic of the most disgusting, disreputable and satirical proportions! I must be one of the few people who ever felt it was imperative to watch all of his feature films, as I did in 2020 - special shout-out to Night of the Zombies, another experience that truly must be seen to be believed - and probably remain thoroughly annoying (if not also disturbed) in my insistence on defending Blood Sucking Freaks as Grand Guignol entertainment of the nastiest order. (No, I'm not going to recommend it outright; I'm sure you know your own limits.)I like to imagine that anyone - though more likely it's almost no one - would be similarly tickled by the over-the-top comedy of camp legend Seamus O'Brien (tragic factoid: he was stabbed to death during a home invasion in 1977) as master of ceremonies Sardu, out to get his revenge on disparaging NYC theater critics by killing one onstage; also by all-time worst actress Viju Krem (described by Reed in an interview as having a unique "Latvian-Canadian-Brooklyn" accent and victim to another bizarrely premature demise when she was accidentally shot by her 87-year-old husband during a hunting trip in 1983, per Shudder's Twitter) in the part of popular ballerina Natasha Di Natalie, a performance so subpar that Krem occasionally seems to forget her dialogue mid-sentence; and most memorably by Luis De Jesus as Ralphus, the little person who assists Sardu in his incredible torture show (that was the film's original title). De Jesus had been best known for some notorious hardcore appearances; indeed, who can you trust to enliven a motion picture if not the star of The Anal Dwarf and Let My Puppets Come?And again, what an utterly grotesque delight (???) to see one of my old favorite high school teachers, Ernie Pysher, in the doctor role from decades past that he would undoubtedly prefer for students not to know exists. How could I possibly take seriously the fact that his sick, twisted character yanks all of a woman's teeth out (no points for guessing why), sings an aria before conducting a hasty lobotomy and then slurps her brain up with a straw? You say ugh, gross, but I see a young actor paying the bills with an extremely ridiculous job as only the 70s could provide, partaking in obviously fake-looking violence done on a shoestring budget. This is a gentleman who, as the middle-aged administrator of my school's arts department, used to have pleasantly normal conversations with me about opera. How could I not be enthralled by such comparative cinematic derangement!In conclusion: every film should end with a lady cannibal cult rejoicing in an all-nude impromptu dinner party. Something tells me that that sandwich meat has not yet been approved by the FDA."Well, who am I to say what's art and what isn't?"
Hoop-Tober, Film 14 of 31:"But you are going to review my show?""Absolutely not. You heard me in there. If I were to review your so-called show, even badly, I fear some of my readers might come just out of curiosity, and I do not want to be responsible for keeping your theatre open one more day."There are a couple more meta-quotes in this film, some even more fascinating than this one that I won't bother to quote because I don't feel like going back and picking out lines from this piece of trash. Joel M. Reed is just fucking with us... he knows he has created a terrible film; he even has his main character, Sardu, say about the theatre (AKA the film) that by merely adding a minimal plot and a score, he will be hailed by some as a creative genius. And sure enough, as poor as this movie is, it's considered by some as a fine example of exploitation. Well, I'm not falling for it.
