Bloodsucking Freaks (1976)

There are those films that are made for little more than to try to make money off the fact that most people would only see them on a dare.  Quality is of no concern, only the wretched contents enclosed within.  Ironically, those contents are usually quite less than what is promised, although occasionally one gets a bit more. 

Some of these movies, like Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom have a reason, or purport to have a reason, for the depravity shown on screen.  Others, like A Serbian Film, use some sort of symbolism as a pretext when the truth is the makers just wanted to see what they could get away with.  Bloodsucking Freaks, originally known as The Incredible Torture Show, is kind of the latter, except without the pretense.

Sardu (Seamus O'Brien) runs the Theatre of the Macabre in Soho, New York.  With the help of his lecherous dwarf Ralphus (Louis de Jesus) he kidnaps young women and physically, as well as psychologically, tortures them until they do his bidding.  Some, however, he just butchers on stage, to an audience that believes it is all make-believe.  Those that he can't control he keeps locked naked in a cage until he can ship them off (in cardboard boxes) to the Middle East as slaves. 

He manages to fly under the radar until theater critic Creasy Silo (Alan Dellay) comes to see a show and browbeats Sardu.  Also in attendance are football star Tom Maverick (Niles McMaster) and his girlfriend, ballerina Natasha Di Natalie (Viju Krem).  Sardu decides to kidnap Silo and Di Natalie, keeping the former prisoner as he tortures the latter into submission.  Meanwhile, Maverick and the corrupt Sgt. Tucci (Dan Fauci) of the NYPD try to find out what happened to Natasha.  

Bloodsucking Freaks owes more than a little to Blood Feast for inspiration.  However, there are no Egyptian goddesses that the women are sacrificed to, only Sardu's ego and desire to be taken seriously.  As for Joel M. Reed, the writer and director of this film, he had no such desire.  In fact, he didn't even want to make the film, but agreed to once backing showed up, and it failed miserably.  It later became a cult hit when Troma acquired it in 1984, re-releasing it into grindhouse theaters and drive-ins, often to protests from feminist organizations. 

Although it's obvious that pretty much everyone making this is having a ball, it pretty much depicts scene after scene of violence perpetrated on young, naked women.  While the most notorious scene involves a perverted doctor (Ernie Pysher) doing impromptu dental work before literally sucking out the brains of one of Sardu's captives, routinely women are dismembered, put on the rack, killed and used for food, whipped, raped (post-mortem in one scene) and all other kinds of activity.  It is the kind of movie one wonders why they are watching it or who the actual audience it was for, as even the fans of the film realize that it exists only to see how far it can go.

Strange thing is, though, it's hard to get angry at it, and whatever effect it was supposed to have is dulled by obvious wooden body parts and stage blood.  One of the heads doesn't even look like the woman it was supposedly attached to, and a couple scenes of severed fingers wiggling is the old gag-store trick of poking one's digit through a hole in the box.  The nudity, though copious, is in no way sexy, and Reed didn't even try to film it as such.  Although it was based on, and filmed in, a real S&M theater, little of what happens represents that community, and the movie often becomes laughable in its attempts to offend, right down to the last scene where the feral cannibal women in the dungeon finally take their revenge. 

The big surprise in the movie is that Reed, for the main parts except Ralphus, hired stage actors that could actually act.  What makes the film watchable is the hammy, but solid, performance by Seamus O'Brien, and the hilariously inept but memorable one by Louis de Jesus.  The latter came from pornographic films, while the former was a respected British singer and actor.  Many of the people working in the film are a strange combination of members of legitimate theater and others known for the adult industry, as well as a bunch of coeds that needed a few extra dollars. 

While I can't say that this is one of those cult films everyone should watch, at least it's not trying to fool anyone going in.  However, if one is expecting anything revolutionary or shocking, it's not here.  I know a lot of viewers get queasy over the brain sucking scene, but even there the prop that is used is quite obvious, and the tooth removal is the real part that gets one going as it's a bit more convincing.  Despite that it does earn its reputation for offensiveness, but more in concept than delivery. 

Bloodsucking Freaks (1976)

Time: 84 minutes

Starring: Seamus O'Brien, Louis de Jesus, Viju Krem, Niles McMaster, Alan Dellay, Dan Fauci

Director: Joel M. Reed