Movie Review: "I Drink Your Blood" (1970)

Image Source

Movie: "I Drink Your Blood"
Director: David E. Durston
Year: 1970
Rating: X
Running Time: 1 hour, 23 minutes

A group of satanic hippies get stranded in a small town after their car breaks down. They raise a ruckus, attacking a local girl and her grandfather. The girl's little brother gets revenge by taking the blood of a rabid dog he killed and injecting it in some meat pies to feed the satanists. The hippies go crazy and unleash their rabid wrath, attacking and infecting the town. 

Right off the bat as the opening DVD menu is rolling, you know you're going to be in for a cheesy and violent ride. This is the perfect example of 1970's grindhouse exploitation cinema. "I Drink Your Blood" exploits the fears of Satanism and ties it to the hippy movement. This film originally received an X rating due to its violent content, and yes, it is violent, but it isn't the most graphic thing we've seen on screen, even from this era. The movie does depict numerous dead animals, as well as the killing of other animals throughout the course of the movie; a live chicken has its head cut off in one scene, and dead goat is dragged across a street in another. Now, director David E. Durston claims the chicken was the only animal killed during the making of this film, but if that goat was fake, it was certainly a well made fake goat. We appreciate the effort on the part of the filmmakers, but this isn't a great movie. While the concept of the film is an overall interesting albeit silly one, it lacks a lot of any real content, as many exploitation films often do. Before the satanist hippies even eat the rabies-infested meat pies, they are already tormenting people, and it just increases ten-fold once they do eat the pies. As far as extracting revenge goes, the little boy is basically dooming the population of an entire town to slow, painful, violent death just because his grandfather and sister got beat up. Wouldn't you say that's a little extreme?? Maybe next time, just call the cops! The dialogue and acting are relatively awful, but maybe that be what it aimed to be. Overall, it's gory, but not gory enough, and we don't really understand the X rating beyond the satanic themes and killing of an animal on screen. There are many other better grindhouse movies out there, skip this one.

My Rating: 4/10
BigJ's Rating: 4.5/10
IMDB's Rating: 5.9/10
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: ---%
Do we recommend this movie: Meh.
~~~~~~~~~~
One year ago, we were watching: "Final Destination"