The Thirsty Dead

The Thirsty Dead (1974)

* (out of 4)

Women are being abducted in the streets and forced to a strange cult that needs their blood in order to stay young. One of the kidnapped women, Laura (Jennifer Billingsley), is offered a chance to join the cult but she is horrified to think someone would kill another human for their own gain. Pretty soon she decides to fight back against this cult and their evil ways.

The Philippines made some really crazy movies back during the drive-in era and this here is without question one of the strangest. Those looking for some sort of zombie movie or a blood-soaked horror picture are going to be disappointed because there's really not too much bite to this picture no matter how much the advertising wants to make you believe. In fact, this here was really one of the tamest and lamest films I've seen from them, which is too bad because the story here isn't all that bad.

The idea of a cult kidnapping women for their blood could have been exploitation heaven but sadly very little is done with it. There's no major nudity. There's no major gore. There's really nothing here too exploitative except for the idea brought up in the story but like I said there's nothing graphic done with it. That would be okay if the drama of the story was compelling but it isn't. The story is bland the movie is told in such a slow and dry way that I'm sure most viewers will be turning it off well before the final credits.

The scenery was terrific and some of the actors were fun including Billingsley. Still, when you're dealing with a film like this you certainly expect much more and as it stands there's just nothing in THE THIRSTY DEAD that will hold your interest.

Some movies, back in the heyday of Ballyhoo, used to claim they were so terrifying that a single viewing would kill you. The Thirsty Dead could have made a similar claim, although threats of being Bored To Death don't draw nearly as big a crowd.

This movie reeks like overcooked cabbage. It actually starts out kind of promisingly. Attractive young women are being abducted off the streets of Manila. The rumor is White Slavery. The truth is even worse. Seems the captives are being taken prisoner to the Cardboard Cave Kingdom of the Xanadu Rejects! Our four pretty protagonists stumble through the film as though they have each drunk a gallon of Nyquil before the camera started rolling. The Heroine, played by Meredith Baxter Birney's ugly brother in drag, is about as stupid as a bag of hammers. For some dumb reason she falls in love with the King of the Aztec-y cult, a disco-suited Peter Lorre impersonator. This irritates the High Priestess, whose horse-teeth are the scariest effect in the whole film. Meanwhile, the other 3 captive girls - Jan Brady, the obligatory native Filipino girl and a redheaded Russ Meyer reject - sit around and do nothing. There's lots of buckskin bikinis and sexy sarongs and girls dancing around a severed head in a square lava lamp, but the plot apparently wandered off while the director wasn't looking. I stopped caring fifteen minutes into this mess. It's almost too bad to laugh at.

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 imaginative horror take on "Lost Horizon" fails to engage due to poor acting, low-budget and pacing which is too slow. The only memorable performance is that of John Considine in the role of Baru, the sensitive and loving male leader of the Blood drinkers who never age. When he makes the mistake of falling in love with one of the cult's unwilling donors he must pay the ultimate price for leaving his heritage. Considine acts this part well, and it's too bad there wasn't more development of his part and better pacing. His presence creates the only interest in the film.

Shot in the Philippines, Z-grade horror The Thirsty Dead opens with voluptuous go-go dancer Claire (Judith McConnell) gyrating wildly in a cage as drunken sailors ogle admiringly. Shortly after her entertaining routine, the woman is abducted by hooded assailants, and the film goes rapidly downhill from thereon in.

Together with three other women—blonde beauty Ann (Fredricka Meyers), Filipino cutie Bonnie (Chiqui da Rosa), and Laura (Jennifer Billingsley), who ain't so attractive—Claire is transported to the remote jungle headquarters of a strange cult who drink a potion consisting of human blood and leaves that keeps them eternally young. Imprisoned in a papier-mâché cave, the girls are forced to wear sexy bikinis and are drugged for the bleeding ritual, all except for Laura, who is given the opportunity to enjoy immortality thanks to her resemblance to a painting by cult member Baru (John Considine). However, Laura isn't wild on the idea of eternity in a cave and refuses to drink the potion; together with the other three girls, she makes a bid for freedom.

As attractive as Claire, Ann and Bonnie are in their skimpy get-ups, The Thirsty Dead is still extremely hard going, a dreadfully sluggish pace, boring dialogue, a distinct lack of action, wooden performances, and lousy production values all taking their toll on the viewer. Not-so-special effects include the slicing of one of the girl's neck with a knife and the subsequent healing of the wound using a special leaf, a disembodied living head in a glass box (around which bucktoothed cult priestess Ranu, played by Tani Guthrie, does a tribal dance), and the rapid ageing of Baru as he goes beyond the cult's 'Ring of Age' in a bid to help the women escape (after a surprising change of heart).