Bloodsucking Freaks

The plot, as far as I can tell from the half of the movie I saw, is that this guy is running an avant-garde sex and mutilation "show" in the basement of some building in town for the upper class folk who want to get a peek at the twisted underworld. Unbeknownst to them, this is no show, but real acts of mutilation performed on a plethora of naked girls. Filmed with a really shoddy camera and backed with a horrible script, this movie even boasts a midget.

When I was a kid, and I was on my horror movie kick, the guy at my local Video Galaxy told me that it was one of the grossest movies he has ever witnessed, and proceeded to tell me about a particular scene where they suck a guys brains out through a straw. Sounds like something similar yet 1000% cheesier than a scene in Starship Troopers.

Comments from the back of the box (which is labeled on the front with the disclaimer "WARNING! This film contains scenes of freaks sucking blood.") include "Sicko, Gross-out" (LA TIMES), "GHASTLY" (LA WEEKLY), and "UTTERLY SICKENING" (VILLAGE VIEW). Oh yeah, and the American Cinematheque writes "There isn't a single frame of Bloodsucking Freaks that isn't completely repulsive and fascinating at the same time."

I knew a girl once who told me that this movie gives her orgasms. This is not a joke, she was being serious. I think someone needs to check her papers.

This film was purchased by Troma in 1982, previously titled "The Incredible Torture Show" (Which is an arguably far more accurate title, seeing as there is only one visible incident of bloodsucking in the movie) and saddled with an X rating. The Troma version was released with a slightly toned-down R rating, but up until this time the film was unavailable on home video anyway.

Written and directed by Joel Reed, the cast includes:

Louis DeJesus
Seamus O'Brian
Viju Krem
Alan Dellay
Niles McMaster
Dan Fauci
A host of disposable female bodies

Master Sardu (O'Brian) runs a DeSade-esque "Theater of the Macabre" in which very naked women are "tortured" and "murdered" to the perverse delight of theatergoers. Of course the acting is impeccable- there are no special effects. Sardu's piece de'resistance is a ballet entitled The Seduction and Death of a Critic, featuring prima ballerina Natasha DiNatelli and New York Times theater critic Creasy Silo (Dellay), both captured and bound in Sardu's basement dungeon while he (thus far unsuccessfully) attempts to brainwash them into submitting to his will. DiNatelli's football-star boyfriend, Ace Maverick (McMaster) and Sargeant Tucci, the crooked cop he enlists to help him (Fauci), find themselves on Sardu's trail, and the plot thickens, so to speak.

In the interim, the viewer watches as Sardu and Ralphus, his midget retainer (DeJesus), run their slave trade and engage in all sorts of sado-masochistic fun.

When one sees through the repulsive female sexploitation, the movie actually has something to say- there is a fine between art and, well, bullshit. One can't help but wonder exactly how self-aware this film actually is. Oh well, take that, you pretensious hipster art fags.