The 1972 exploitation flick Blood Freak probably won’t be getting a Criterion edition anytime soon.
Blood Freak is hysterical in ALL the best possible ways
Blood Freak is a movie that absolutely defies description. The 1972 cult classic is so many contradictory things at once that its existence almost seems impossible. It’s a bloody, nudity-filled exploitation splatter movie, but it’s also meant to be a pro-Christian, anti-marijuana screed … and if that wasn’t enough, it also involves a psycho murderer with a TURKEY for a head.
It’s hard to pick a starting point with this movie. On one hand, the people who made it obviously had some moralizing they wanted to get across to the audience, but they do so in such a clunky, counterproductive way. It’s a motorcycle movie, it’s a Vietnam veteran movie, it’s evangelical propaganda, it’s anti-drug hysteria AND it’s an unabashed slasher movie all at the same time. It’s so ham-fisted and over the top that you can’t help but laugh at the preposterous, wrong-headedness of it all. If there was a Hall of Fame for unintentionally hilarious B-movies, this thing would undoubtedly be a first-ballot lock.
A documentary about the making of this movie would probably be even more entertaining than the movie itself. The film is pretty much the handiwork of two guys — Brad F. Grinter and Steve Hawkes — who served as co-directers, co-producers and co-writers of the film. Hawkes even STARS in Blood Freak, portraying our male lead who winds up with a bad case of were-turkeyism. A quick gander at their respective IMDb pages lets you know EXACTLY what their forte was — super cheap genre movies with titles like Flesh Feast and Devil Rider. Come to think of it, Blood Freak is pretty much a combination of those last two movies … to the point I wouldn’t be surprised if it recycled some of the same dialogue.
The how and why of Blood Freak remains a mystery to this day. It’s obviously meant to espouse some sort of iffy pro-Christian message and a proto-“Just Say No” ethos, but that doesn’t mean the tandem responsible for the film played it safe. Keep in mind, this is STILL a movie filled to the brim with exposed buttocks and gore-soaked murders — the more you think about the movie and what it tries to do, the more it feels like a madman’s incoherent fever dream.
Which means … irony of ironies … it’s basically the BEST kind of movie to watch while you’re baked out of your skull on the yowie-wowie.
And yes, the devil’s lettuce plays a central role in the film. In fact, it’s pretty much the catalyst for the entire story. But we’re getting WAY ahead of ourselves. Let’s take it from the very top, why don’t we?
Well, if you’re wondering how long you’ll have to wait before legitimately laughing out loud, the answer is “about one minute into the movie.” Before the film begins proper we’re greeted by a nameless narrator, who is OBVIOUSLY reading his lines off an unseen sheet of paper … and quite poorly, at that. The fact that he looks like a redneck version of Vincent Price and chain smokes throughout the prologue makes it even better.
From there we’re introduced to the main character of the film, Herschel. He’s cruising down the Florida turnpike on his bike and helps some random woman fix a flat tire. She rewards him by taking him to her sister’s place where, naturally, a full-on drug orgy just so happens to be underway. Some gals start pawing on Herschel almost immediately and he (initially) rebuffs their advances. While everybody else is snorting coke and chugging down screwdrivers, the pious sister LITERALLY starts reading scripture to nobody in particular. And just to make sure the audience isn’t lost here, they LITERALLY name her “Angel.”
The narrator (played by Grinter, by the way) cuts back into the movie to read some more lines (poorly) and we all get to marvel at that ritzy wood paneling background some more. From there, the drug-loving sister tries to seduce Herschel again and this time she succeeds at getting him to toke on a doobie. This naturally leads to a “love” scene, with WAY more toplessness than you’d expect out of any Christian propaganda production.
So around the half-hour mark of the movie our leading man gets a job at a turkey ranch … where experimental research is conducted and the scientists on site have no druthers at all about trading dope for human guinea pig testing.
Take a wild guess what happens next. You’ll NEVER figure it out.
I’m not even going to THINK about spoiling the rest of the movie for those of you who haven’t seen it yet. Let’s just say it involves a rich panoply of throat slitting, heroin shooting, pervert strangling and judgmental self righteousness — and not a single person in the cast realizing the obvious solution, Cajun frying that weirdo at their earliest convenience. Just when you think this movie can’t get any trashier, rest assured … it somehow finds a way.
It’s a bonkers movie from the outset, but the final act takes it into the furthest reaches of the gonzo-verse. We’ve got absurd fantasy violence (and, sadly, REAL LIFE violence against actual turkeys) and a twist ending straight out of a Tales From The Crypt episode. It’s very memorable stuff, to the point you kinda have to wonder if the filmmakers weren’t high themselves while making it.
All that to say, it’s an immensely enjoyable guilty pleasure flick that’s pretty much tailor-made for viewing while under the influence of certain plant life (which may or may not be legal for consumption in your specific jurisdiction.)
And even better? Like The Nightmare Before Christmas, it’s appropriate material for TWO holidays. If you miss it this 4/20, you can easily loop it around into your Thanksgiving itinerary …