I'm kinda torn on how to rate this movie. On one hand "Blood Freak" has some of the worst "acting" I have ever witnessed on film including a chain smoking narrator that constantly looks down at his script who at one point goes into a serious coughing spell that is not edited out at all. On the other hand this is a one-of-a-kind insane combination of drug propaganda, slasher films, monster movies and Christian evangelism that has never been repeated to this day. With both of these factors in mind I decided on a score between the two which is why I gave it a 5 out of 10.
Steve Hawkes is Steve Hawkes as Herschell. Why they choose to show his name twice is a mystery but make no mistake that Mr. Hawkes is the star of "Blood Freak" as he looks like a combination of Lou Ferrigno and Elvis. Herschell is a biker riding the Florida highways when he meets free spirited Ann who becomes instantly smitten with the soft spoken brute. She takes him to a drug party where he meets Ann's sister Angel who represents the straight and narrow path. Her words of warning to Herschell seem to resonate with him yet after one toke he becomes instantly hooked. Yeah, that happens with marijuana a lot. With his addiction growing and the need to satisfy his fix overpowering Herschell agrees to an absurd experiment where he eats turkey meat that has been tampered with by two scientists that are probably the worst of the so-called actors in this movie. Sure enough the infected meat turns Herschell into a turkey-headed beast that must feed on blood. From here he goes on a murderous rampage of neck slitting and leg hacking that takes "Blood Feast" from simple anti-drug screed into a gory hack-n-slash. To say that somewhere along the line "Blood Freak" got lost in translation is an understatement. How this was supposed to bring more Christians into the fold after watching this is beyond me. For bad movie enthusiasts out there this is THE MOVIE that you must see at least once in order to give you a true barometer as to what is considered bad in the bad way and bad in the awesomely bad way. I only remembered to review this when I stumbled upon Steve Hawkes on an episode of "Fatal Attractions" using his real name of Steve Sipek and his dangerous lifestyle of living with multiple lions and tigers. It's good to know that he continues to live beyond the norm.
