Retrospective: Blood Freak (1972)

[Jerry Saravia]

BLOOD FREAK (1972)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
RATING: One star

Talk about the ridiculous and the sublime! That might be "Plan 9 From
Outer Space," which stands as the most sublime and ridiculous cult
film of all time (though "Glen and Glenda" is the better movie). And
then there are the psychotronic movies of the truly absurd variety,
which are so stupefying and insanely botched visions that they merit
some degree of analysis and context. I see what might have been with
1972's "Blood Freak," but it is such a messy piece of garbage that it
is hard to get a handle on it.

A motorcyclist picks up a woman with car trouble. She is Angel
(Heather Hughes), a strictly religious, Bible-thumping woman who
invites the motorcycle stranger known as Herschell (Steven Hawkes) to
a party where drugs make an appearance in the form of cocaine and
weed. Herschell says no to drugs and advances from women at the party.
Angel's flirtatious, sexed-up sister, Anne (Dana Cullivan) is at the
party and she gets the standard preaching from Angel about the dangers
of drugs and sex. Herschell seems inclined to believe in Angel, or so
we think. Before long, he starts boinking Anne after she gets him to
smoke weed at her pool which he is either cleaning with some pole or
it is one big phallic joke! He should've calmed Angel's moods, who
wears an extremely short skirt! Who knew female Bible thumpers were so
sexy!

"Blood Freak" degenerates even further when Herschell gets a job at a
turkey farm and engages in an experiment by two scientists. In
exchange for essentially being a human guinea pig, he gets to smoke
all the weed he wishes. So what is the experiment? Eat a whole turkey.
Wow. And then Herschell gets violent convulsions and literally becomes
half-human and half-turkey. Talk about too many drugs - moderation, my
brother, moderation.

I like summing up movies like this by illustrating the content of
specific scenes. We have the titular man with a turkey head; various
shots of turkeys in close-up; women being hung upside down with blood
pouring out of their necks thanks to Mr. Turkey Man who has an
unhealthy blood lust and kills his victims - some of them are junkies
(of course, turkeys are killed the same way); a foot amputated by a
table saw; Mr. Turkey Man having sex with Anne in complete darkness
(and I do mean complete darkness - only the soundtrack tells us that
some boinking is occuring); lots of drug usage; a rape attempt; an
actual live turkey that has its head chopped off; and a Narrator (the
director himself) chain-smoking and telling us of the moral choices
that Herschell makes.

"Blood Freak" is a freak show that is so poorly made, it actually
achieves a special charm for my Truly Moronic and Unintentionally
Funny Bad Movie List. I was not bored by this movie but I will not
likely see it again. I can only handle so many anti-drug, anti-smoking
messages wrapped around a turkey's head.


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