I Drink Your Blood

REVIEW
Long unavailable on home video and rarely screened theatrically (and predominantly in cut, censored versions), the infamous 1971 hippie horror film I Drink Your Blood -- one of the first films to receive an X rating for violence – has been rescued and restored by the folks at Grindhouse Releasing, the genre fans responsible for the rereleases of Italian horror favorites The Beyond and Cannibal Holocaust, and Fangoria magazine, launching a new video line devoted to older horror titles with this inaugural release. One doesn’t want to overstate the modest appeal of I Drink Your Blood - it’s not necessarily a classic of the genre, nor is it an influential or important addition to the horror canon – but it remains a thoroughly enjoyable, grimy and grisly little low-budget shocker, and its DVD release is certainly welcome, particularly since the film is accompanied by a wealth of supplementary features that make for illuminating viewing, in no small part because they allow us to see that the people responsible for this notorious film appear to be perfectly civilized and erudite.

The thin story revolves around a young boy who injects meat pies with rabies-infected blood (!), and then gives them to a band of traveling hippies in revenge for their abusive treatment of the boy’s sister and grandfather (whom they dosed with LSD). Soon an outbreak of rabies threatens to destroy the small town, with the rapid counterculture cultists spreading the disease to a group of construction workers through sexual contact. Director David Durston (who just a year or two after this film, would helm another disease-driven thriller, Stigma, apparently his last film to date) keeps the lurid thrills and bloody imagery coming at a rapid rate, which is almost enough to make one ignore the film’s outlandishly inaccurate depiction of rabies (seemingly hours after infection, the victim begins wildly foaming at the mouth and violently attacking anyone nearby).

I Drink Your Blood is one of those deliriously disreputable 70s exploitation films that benefits considerably from its rough, gritty visual texture, and it’s intended as a compliment that one feels the need to shower after watching the film (the violence, however, seems comparatively mild by contemporary standards). Durston, remarkably energetic and gregarious at the age of 83 (!), provides insight into the production on the disc’s bonus features, and it’s nice to see the friendly rapport he has with the cast, whom he interviews on the disc (including horror fave Lynn Lowry, who – incredibly – also appeared in two other 1970s disease-themed horror films, George Romero’s The Crazies and David Cronenberg’s Shivers). Definitely recommended for jaded genre buffs.