Blood Freak (1972)

That was an excellent one.

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Fresh out of the psychedelic 1960s, "Blood Freak" tries to be many things, but it doesn't know how to do any of them right. It's an ignorant person's attempt at a horror movie, made by someone who doesn't understand the genre, but pretends to be a master of it. To understand Blood Freak is to understand that sometimes, coherence can be fatal.Our protagonist is a stud. Herschell is real American man, in that he's an unemployed drifter who's after the women and after the drugs. And mind you, these are some fine women, and some finer drugs. Drugs so potent, they have a strange effect on Herschell. What do they do? They send him on a bizarre drug trip, which has an even stranger side effect when coupled with the experiments he undergoes as a guinea pig to some inept turkey farmer scientists. What does this mean? Well, all he has to do is taste test the experimented turkeys, but things not-so-quickly become complicated.This movie begins with titles straight out of a Roger Corman picture. Then the movie throws religious themes at you, as well as the occasional interludes of a chain-smoker who thinks he's Vincent Price. The premise is never sure of itself, struggling throughout its runtime to understand itself, but never truly does. It's nudity is softcore to none, it's gore is confusing and contrived, and it's outcome is propaganda, preaching against everything this film fails to accurately misrepresent.The technical quality of this piece is inferior, which compliments the narrative nicely. Had the film been well made, it would just be bad. But it's those inconsistencies throughout that make it feel more like the trip it didn't intend to be, but ultimately was destined to be. The out of focus shots? The unnecessary zooming? The poor lighting? The awkward sound design? The brief and badly timed editing? These "flaws" are essential to the experience that is Blood Freak.

Religious Ann meets husky biker, Herschell and tries to instruct him on the righteous path, but her seductive and superficial sister gets him hooked on pot. Meanwhile, Herschell lands a new job at a turkey farm as a guinea pig for food scientists that are testing the side effects of their meat experiments. After eating a bad batch of bird, Herschell's head turns into a giant turkey head, and he goes on a killing spree, murdering the local druggies and drinking their blood. Herschell eventually wakes up normal again. Was he only dreaming of the events described? Nobody cares, and you won't either after seeing this failed excuse for a film. Made along with hundreds of other "grindhouse" exploitation movies during the 1970s, this has bad actors that actually forget their lines and terrible editing. This comes off like a metaphor for the dangers of chemical abuse with its philosophical narration, which was popular in movies during the 60's and early 70's anti-drug media propaganda market. With that aside, its really just unadulterated sleaze.

Yup, that's right, two people directed this... or so-called directed it. This is direction for the celluloid impaired, the likes of which only show up in the worst of Troma movies. It's about.... GOD! Yes, you heard that right, obeying God's laws, and if not you'll take drugs as an addict, get hooked up with evil scientist turkey, and then in the midst of a hallucination turn into a turkey-head and attack the drug pushers that did this deed! You dig? Actually, don't dig, at all. This has moments of spontaneous hilarity in the worst possible way, but it's undermined by any and all attempts by its creators (and future role model for Larry Bishop's Hell Ride, Steve Hawkes as writer/director/ego-maniac/turkey) in making it a Reefer Madness style message movie about drugs and, eventually, God itself. Now some of this would be alright for some laughs (lord knows how damn random it is to keep seeing the director, Grinter, pop up from time to time as a "narrator" who reads from the script as a would-be Bela Lugosi out of Glen or Glenda). And by the time the filmmakers get to the turkey headed creature-man-thing, looking like a cross between a discarded Skesis from the Dark Crystal and a Docor Who villain, one can join in the fun with the repetitive screaming sound effect and awkward edits.But really, it's just so poorly made- this kind of movie will make cinematographers' heads spin perennially over how absolutely God-awful some of the shots are as being pseudo-documentary and pseudo-horror (or, better yet, pseudo-suck)- and acted (everyone, from Hawkes to every single player, including two actors who look like they wandered off from the Allman Brothers band) and plotted (the ending, which provides a whole "It was all a dream" twist may be the most offensive thing of all), that you'll groan and feel completely sickened with yourself for watching what one hoped to be a ridiculous tongue-in-cheek turkey-killer flick.My advice, and I can't believe I'm saying this, go back and re-watch Eli Roth's Thanksgiving trailer. You get more turkey for your buck in a 20th of the time.

Did you say Mutant Killer Turkey? Well if you did, I'm there baby! This is a whacked out, B...possibly Z movie that revolves around anti-drug statements and has some religious stuff going on as well. But besides those boring themes you also have a guy with a Turkey head running around killing and drinking people's blood. Unfortunately only towards the end of the flick does the "action" really start happening. But don't fret, this movie has some of the worst (and I say that in a loving way) acting you can find. A lot of people say they find the movie hilarious. Well I suppose it is damn funny, but it's not funny the entire duration. It's consistently bad, that's for sure, but since you get the idea that everyone sucks at acting and the bland lines won't stop coming, I just wasn't smiling as much as I hoped. Again, don't get me wrong, after the first dinner scene I laughed, but only sporadically. But if you're a fan of gems like Invasion of the Blood Farmers or any other ridiculously bad horror movies, you'll most likely be really entertained by Blood Freak.So all in all, Blood Freak is probably one of the worst movies I've seen, but it's probably also in the top 5 of my favorite "So Bad It's Good" movies. Probably the funniest thing about this movie is that it was trying to take it self seriously. Imagining Herschel convulsing on the ground is a sight to see. Blood Freak is a must for lovers of Bad films.