Blood Thirst

Passable early Filipino vampire effort, presented as a noir. Leading Lady's (Yvonne Nielson) dance sequences and secret ceremonies are highlights. The monster has quite an original look. Detective work is verbose, foreign actors' accents, making it more difficult to listen to.. As leading man, Robert Winston's James Bond wannabe's entitled male chauvinist attitude may disturb today's audience: When he is slapped for unwanted advances, he slaps back! He makes great efforts to be culturally sensitive, though, to dispel notions of Ugly Americanism. Manila locations provide good local "color:, though filmed in B&W..

New York detective Adam Rourke (Robert Winston) is invited by a friend to help solve a string of murders that has young women killed and drained of their blood in Manila, capital of The Philippines. Filmed in black and white in 1965 this sat on the shelf before being released in 1971, playing the Grindhouse circuits. It must have looked dated even way back then. The barmy plot revolves around an hilarious but memorable man-monster who attacks lone women for their blood as part of a form of vampirism that is half occult and half scientific. The film is very talky, Winston's wisecracking cop quickly becomes tiresome, and there is more love story than horror, it's not until the final 20 minutes or so that this really lives up to its title. On the plus side the movie does have a film noir look about it, the jazzy musical score is pretty cool and we are treated to some very seductive female dancing. I had never heard of this title before despite being a horror fan for over 40 years, thank you to Talking Pictures TV (UK) for screening it. Bad movie yes but also worth a look if you like your horror a little less mainstream, AKA Blood Seekers.

It's strange this film sat on a shelf for six years, because in 1965 (when it was completed) it would have been a perfectly viable mid-60s "bottom half of the bill" or drive-in feature. It's also beautifully lit/shot in a noirish style (I can't even remember there being any daylight scenes) for such a silly B horror. It's also odd that the lead actor apparently gave up acting after this, since he's very handsome and personable (and has a great Sean Connery-like build), even if the script leans too hard on giving him wisecracks that undercut the already pretty minimal suspense here.

Shot and set in the Philippines, the film nonetheless makes little effort to have much local character, instead going for sort of a generic U. S. programmer feel, with a brisk pace but little feel for suspense or atmosphere. So, it's a very good-looking low-budget movie that nonetheless doesn't seem willing to take its horror subject (vampire-like murders) seriously enough to actually be creepy. I'm not even sure why there's a rubbery "monster" (as separate from the vampire) that looks like it's out of "The Incredible Melting Man."

Interestingly, the director later was 1st A. D. on a terrific lineup of mainstream Hollywood films (including "Godfather Part II," "Towering Inferno," "Blade Runner" and "The Abyss"), but directed nothing again himself until Van Damme's much-liked first starring film "Bloodsport" nearly twenty five years later. I guess he just didn't have the hunger to make his own movies. He clearly had the technical expertise necessary, though this enjoyable genre throwaway suggests he didn't care enough to seek out good material to direct, or to elevate mediocre material beyond the above-average visual sheen.

Blood Thirst (1971)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Women are being found outside a nightclub with their blood drained. The police captain (Vic Diaz) has no clues and no idea of what the cause could be so he calls his detective friend (Adam Rourke) from New York to help him investigate.

BLOOD THIRST has a 1971 date on it but this B&W film was actually shot in 1965 but couldn't find anyone to release. After seeing the film it's easy to see why no one wanted to touch it because there's really not too much here to recommend. If you do happen to see the film then it's best to remember when it was made and not when it was released because the film certainly doesn't have much sexuality or violence.

The biggest problem with this film is the fact that they decided to try and milk the "mystery" surrounding the murders. There are countless scenes with the two friends sitting around trying to guess as to what's going on. All of these scenes are deadly boring and they made the 74-minute running time seem at least twice as long. What's worse is that we've got a weird looking creature that is doing the killing yet they keep him off the screen for the majority of the running time.

I mean, if you're going to have a great looking monster then why not show him off more? Surely seeing the monster attack more victims is more entertaining than watching a couple guys talk, right?

This was made in 1965 but released in 1971 on the US grindhouse circuit - that is why the film "feels" like a 1960s film (some people don't seem to realize this).

Grindhouse? Well it's women missing and some found dead... so an American sex-crime specialist has been called in on the case by a detective friend in Manila. It's not overly bloody nor a gore-fest, it's just believed to be sex-crimes and the film was made in the Philippines.

It's better than it looks - yes it's a monster that looks like chewed bubblegum that appears at the latter part of the film (you can see that by the poster/video cover) but if you can look past that then you'll find an okay detective crime-horror film. But how does the the blood cult fit into all this? Are they Vampires? Witches? 4/10