Arguably more famous for being the bottom half of a grindhouse-celebrated double bill with Del Tenney’s far-tamer I Eat Your Skin than actually being seen, I Drink Your Blood serves a cautionary tale for hippies who consume intentionally contaminated meat-based pastries. If only one viewer’s life has been saved, this film by writer/director David E. Durston (Stigma) has done its job. Never again, America! You hear me? Never! Again!
“Let it be known,” hippie cult leader Horace Bones lets it be known in I Drink’s woods-based cold open, “that Satan was an acid head.” Horace (charismatic India native Bhaskar Roy Chowdhury) tells this to his small circle of unwashed disciples during one of their nighttime rituals of devil worship, poultry sacrifice and full nudity. When he notices they’re being watched by a local girl, he orders the gang to beat and rape her for her God-fearing curiosity. She lives in Valley Hills, population 40 (down from 4,000 … and dropping significantly further within the next 80 minutes), a quaint and dinky town that plays home to one bakery, one veterinarian and much misery.
When “that gang of savage hyenas” finds itself stranded in Valley Hills due to a broken-down groovy van (which Horace orders his free-spirited followers to push over a cliffside), they choose an abandoned home at random, move in, drop LSD and round up all the rodents they can to roast for hearty, stick-to-your-ribs meals. Take heed, society: These cats may worship pure evil, but at least they’re self-sufficient.
Meanwhile, eager for revenge for the hippie gang’s unholy treatment of his sis, whippersnapper Pete (one Riley Mills, never to act again) spikes his family bakery’s daily batch of meat pies with the tainted blood of a rabid dog. Going from gullet to gut, the bad blood turns the troublemakers into mouth-foaming zombies; the makeup for such is as if the infected guys paused their shaving duties after applying dollops of cream and forgot to finish. It even makes Horace visit a nearby snake farm, where he looses its star attraction: per the sign, a “GIANT BOA KONSTRIKTER.”*
Competently made by Durston, I Drink Your Blood is wholly deserving of its enduring cult reputation. Although the acting overall is lacking, the performances are delivered with such earnestness, you’re willing to overlook those deficiencies. In fact, unlike so many other B movies we watch to test our own tolerance, you’ll find yourself legitimately drawn into its semi-original spell. This is the rare gore film you want to hug, and it will hug you back. That’s not to say it “wusses out”; its initial X rating for violence wasn’t affixed by the MPAA without merit. —Rod Lott
*Flick Attack’s Joke-O-Matic: Pick Your Own Punch Line:
1. Konstrikter? I hardly know ’er!
2. Konstrikter? Dude, I had all their tapes when I was going through my hair-metal phase.
3. Konstrikter? Lemme guess … a dating app?