The Thirsty Dead

A cult of the undead abducts beautiful young women in order to drink their blood.

As luridly wonderful as this may sound, THE THIRSTY DEAD is actually just a terrible movie with a great title. It's as though the filmmakers were intent on creating a movie that's as loopy and as brain-crushingly boring as possible.

You'll stare agog waiting for something, anything interesting to occur. Nope, just silly people wandering around in 1960's Star Trek outfits for the better part of 88 minutes.

This is true pain...

I rented this under suspicion. First of all, it was PG. A PG horror movie doesn't promise much. But I gave it a chance.

It was...okay....

The movie is about four women--Laura, Claire, Ann, and Bonnie--who are captured and taken to a cave in the jungle. They see they that there is a large cult-like group there, but they don't know why they are there. Soon Laura realizes that they have been brought here for a terrible reason. She, inparticular, is portrayed as a great queen, and the other three, with many other captives, are kept there for their blood, which keeps the would-be dead cult alive and young. The four must escape.

It isn't a terrible movie, but it isn't really scary. It's somewhat interesting, and if you're looking for a very mild horror movie, then I suggest this. There is barely any blood, no profanity, and no nudity. The acting isn't terrible. (What a surprise! Most movies like this have the worst of actors.) And there is a lot of action towards the end. If you are into softcore horror movies, check this out. If you want something more, pass it.

Beautiful young women are captured by a cult of vampires for their youthful blood in a hellish version of Shangri La from "Lost Horizon.". This crew's hair, make-up and lingerie look straight out of "Valley of the Dolls" here in the Filipino jungle, and the production values look straight out of a cheap episode of "Star Trek".. It's rich to see a blown-out bleach blonde bubble head conduct a philosophical discussion of morality with a voodoo priest

Tacky.

This movie's main flaw seems to be that it takes itself too seriously. Its skirting around camp, taken in consideration with some moments that seem quite earnestly acted and scripted (however poorly it worked out), becomes an unintentional side-effect. This negates 90% of the reason to watch this movie. It is cheaply made on top of this which detracts even further in that rather than go for a more natural look, they tried for some sort of sci-fi exotica kind of thing and ended up with a office dress party.

The plot works fair enough, though it probably would have worked more had they dropped the horror pretenses and moved straight into action/adventure style territory. There is no new ground here.

The acting is not always wooden, and has some okay moments, but is largely inconsistent. Signs of grief or panic are often achieved by a far off look or a hand biting scene.

All in all, the biggest flaw here (besides a low budget, which they could have worked around, I have seen too many good low budget movies) is that they are tapping into a 1950's era schlock flick flavor, and somehow trying to keep it fresh and end up with a poor mix altogether.

This was included in the "Living Dead" 9-film collection I rented; however, there are no zombies here – and the title itself isn't a reference to anything in particular! The Widescreen print of this one was the best-looking from the four titles I watched – but the same can't be said of the film, which is perhaps the least of them (certainly the campiest, particularly where costumes are concerned)!

Starting off with a White Slavery-type plot, it soon falls into formulaic "She" territory – involving a lost civilization who has achieved immortality (presided over by a disembodied living head preserved in a block of ice!). This gives it an old-fashioned air (the film is remarkably chaste) and makes the whole incongruous alongside the permissiveness prevalent in exploitation/horror fare of the time (though, at least, three of its female protagonists look good in skimpy jungle attire).

One of the women happens to look just like the painting of a blonde who had appeared to these enlightened people in a vision – so, instead of draining her slowly of blood, they want her to join their fold and be initiated into their lifestyle (which doesn't sit well with one of the girl's companions, a go-go dancer, who would love to exchange places with her…especially since the heroine will have no part of this deal!). A high priest falls for her and, eventually, helps the survivors escape (and liberates the imprisoned old hags, remnants of their 'experiments' over the centuries) – except that, once he gets near to the modern world, starts reverting to his real decrepit age!

The film offers no surprises whatsoever but, what really gets it down, is a serious pacing problem – being not so much slow-moving as ineptly-handled, the direction showing a distinct lack of judgment with respect to cutting where it could benefit story and suspense the most! For the record, I followed this with a bunch of trailers included on another disc in the set: I was particularly enticed by the ones for THE ASTRO-ZOMBIES (1968) – for how bad it appears to be, not to mention the momentous pairing of John Carradine and Tura Satana! – and THE CHILD (1977) – yet another EXORCIST clone.