I Drink Your Blood (David Durston, 1970)

nEnjoy her large, broad hips and her thick thighs while you can, fellas, because she’s totally about to give each and everyone of you a serious case of rabies. Presenting one of her inner thighs like it were prize-winning piece of meat, Sylvie (Iris Brooks), the leggiest hippie Satanist/drug abuser with full blown rabies in the entire state, stands pantless before an unwashed gaggle of horny construction workers. You could call them a walking, talking kerfuffle symposium just waiting to happen. But I don’t really feel like doing that at this juncture (maybe later). After taking turns redecorating the gluey walls of her stout vagina with wad after wad of their unsentimental seminal fluid, the now less horny construction workers await their fate. Little do they know, but they’re about to become a highly organized gang of machete-wielding psychopaths. Just in case you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m laying the groundwork for yet another nonsensical movie review. (Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself, you can be very sensical when you want to be. However, judging by the way you have started your review for I Drink Your Blood, it would seem that this is not going to be one of those occasions.) At any rate, the second point I’d like to make (the first, as you know, had to do with pointing out the fact that Iris Brooks has great gams) has to do with the difference between hippies with rabies and construction workers with rabies. Did anyone else notice the difference? All right, I’m sensing that some people picked up on this. Hippies with rabies are literally all over the place. Attacking everyone they see, a hippie with rabies is a loner who views even their fellow rabid hippies as something that needs tearing apart asap. Whereas, the construction workers with rabies work together to achieve their goals. Sure, that goal still involves killing everything in sight, but at least there’s a semblance of teamwork to their rabies-fueled madness.

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nI guess the next question has to be, why the disparity? Is it because the construction workers were already a tight-knit unit before becoming rabid? And therefore were predisposed to work as a team? Possibly. While, on the other hand, the hippies were a fractured group when they were infected with rabies. Hence, the first to feel the brunt of their rabid-brand of violence were themselves.

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nActually, the first to feel the brunt of their hippie-based hydrophobia was a non-infected hippie named Shelley. Oh, and don’t let the feminine name fool you, Shelley is all man. In fact, he’s played by Alex Mann.

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nAs I watched a rabid Rollo (George Patterson), the group’s resident black drama queen, repeatedly stab Shelley with a dagger, it slowly dawned on me that Alex Mann is the same Alex Mann who played Tony, Kim Bentley’s pimp in Malibu High, and the same Alex Mann who played the doctor in Satan Was a Lady. I’m no math whiz, but it looks like I’ve seen and reviewed three Alex Mann movies (someone should give me a prize if I see and review a fourth Alex Mann movie).

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nDid I finish making my point? (What point?) The point about the difference between rabid hippies and rabid construction workers. (Let me see… Well, not quite. You laid a pretty good foundation, but your theory didn’t really go anywhere.)

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nSays you! I think most of you will agree that I clearly pointed out the differences between the two groups infected with rabies. The rabid construction workers represent the hive mentality (i.e. communism) and the rabid hippies represent individualism (i.e. free market capitalism).

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n(What about those who are neither hippies or construction workers?) You mean the old man, the little kid and the owner of Mildred’s Bakery? They’re fascists, pure and simple.

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nNow that that’s been taken care of, let’s shift our attention to the otherworldly beauty that is Lynn Lowry (Score, Cat People), shall we?
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nIn a minute, the Sons and Daughters of Satan, or SADOS, are about to perform a nude campfire ritual. Holy crap! Look at Sylvie’s hips! They’re so freakin’ wide. Dang! Get me a heterosexual penis, stat! I want to put a baby in there.

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nAnyway, flaunting his pubic hair like it was a purified patch of pure resplendence, Horace Bones (Bhaskar) leads his small congregation of Satanists in an ancient ritual. Declaring Satan to be an acid head, Horace says, “pass the acid,” and the group begin to chant. After they sacrifice a chicken, which bleeds onto Sue-Lin (Jadin Wong), the group’s cheongsam-sporting spiritual leader, Horace notices someone is watching them from the woods.

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nOh, don’t worry, that’s just Sylvia Banner (Arlene Farber), a local gal. If Horace heard me say that, he would slap me silly. But since he didn’t hear me, he slaps Andy (Tyde Kierney), the group’s resident Stellan Skarsgård lookalike, instead. After all, it was Andy who allowed her watch in the first place. However, since Horace has a strict no outsiders policy, this Sylvia chick must be taught a lesson.

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nJust to let you know, Sylvia, the local gal played Arlene Farber, and Sylvie, the acid head played by Iris Brooks, are both listed as “Sylvia” in the credits. To prevent there from being any confusion, I’ve changed Iris Brooks’ Sylvia to Sylvie. Actually, maybe I should change it to Mitzi or Blanche, ’cause I’m still confused.

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nEven though we don’t exactly see what happens to her, it’s obvious judging by her bruises, that the members of SADOS were a tad rough with Sylvia. Staggering home, a badly beaten Sylvia is helped by Mildred Nash (Elizabeth Marner-Brooks) and her younger brother Peter Banner (Riley Mills) who come across her while making a delivery (Mildred is the owner of, you guessed it, Mildred’s Bakery). What’s cool about this scene is the fact that Sylvia and Mildred are both wearing mini-dresses.

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nActually, I misspoke. What’s cool about this scene is that it features a rare occurrence. And that is, we see a leggy woman help another leggy woman. (I’m sorry, maybe I’m a tad naive, but don’t leggy women help each other out all the time?) No, I’m afraid they do not. Instances that boast the leggy helping the leggy are, unfortunately, not something you see that often. Chalk it up to jealously or just plain vindictiveness, but being leggy comes with a price. And one of the biggest prices is the inability to assist your leggy brethren in times of leggy need.

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nMeanwhile, the hippie Satanists are having car trouble, or, I should, they’re having hippie van trouble. Displaying his playful side for a change, Horace coaxes the others to push the hippie van over a cliff. (I don’t get it, what’s so playful about that?) What’s playful is that Shelley was sleeping inside the hippie van when they pushed it off the cliff. (You know what? You’re right, that is playful.) Oh, and don’t feel too bad for Shelley, he wasn’t hurt.

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nI am somewhat surprised that Horace didn’t ask Sylvie to help push the hippie van off the cliff, as her strong, lusty thighs would have made pushing that hippie van seem like a walk in the park. I guess writer-director David E. Durston thought it would be more humourous if the extremely pregnant Molly (Rhonda Fultz) helped push the hippie van off the cliff instead; pregnant women aren’t usually asked to perform manual labour.

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nIn one of the weirdest coincidences I’ve experienced in recent memory, just as I was starting to think that the timber of Elizabeth Marner-Brooks’ voice had a distinct Tantala Ray quality about it, the industrial noise coming from the nearby construction site, where Mildred’s boyfriend Roger (John Damon) is the foreman, is becoming audible. (I don’t get it.) Don’t you see, the industrial noise sounded exactly like the industrial noise that is heard throughout Café Flesh. Which stars… Tantala Ray!

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nSpeaking of things that sound industrial, the film’s synth-friendly music score, by Clay Pitts, is a wonderful cacophony of eerie electronic noise.

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nWithout wheels, the hippies find themselves stuck in Valley Hills, population: 40. Well, the population is now 48, as the hippies set up shop in an abandoned, rat-infested hotel. After taking care of the rats, the hippies cut the bottom of Shelley’s feet, and perform a blood ritual in the attic (they swing him from the rafters). When word gets out that the hippies were the one’s that roughed up Sylvia, her grandpa (Richard Bowler) heads over there to confront them. Even though he was wielding a double-barrel shotgun, Horace is not intimidated one bit.

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nAs he lay on the floor as a result of a punch to the gut, Sylvie (a.k.a. Mitzi and/or Blanche), crouches down, utilizing her sturdy thighs for leverage, licks grandpa’s face (“He’s pretty yummy for a dirty old man”) and gives him a tab of acid.

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nAnnoyed that the hippies beat up and gave his grandpa LSD, his grandson Pete is planning to get back at them. And, to sort of quote Peggy Gravel from Desperate Living, Congratulations, hippies. You’re about to be infected with rabies.

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nThis just dawned on me, I think the reason the hippies reacted differently to having rabies than the construction workers is because the hippies were on acid as well. In other words, the combination of the acid and the rabies made them even more insane. At any rate, when the hippies figure out that something was put in the meat pies they ate, it’s too late for them to plan their counter-attack, as they quickly turn on one another. Scattering in every direction, the hippies flee into the night, as an axe-wielding Rollo is the first to fully embrace the rabid hippie lifestyle.

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nEmploying her mouth-watering lower half to great effect, Sylvie manages to bum a ride from a group of construction workers. Telling her to get her “pretty little ass” in the back their truck, the construction workers… Wait a second. C’mon fellas, let’s get real. Her ass may be pretty, but there ain’t nothing little about it. Taking her and her junk-laden ass back to their barracks, the construction workers clearly dig Sylvie’s construction (one of them grabs a chunk of her thigh in triumph after she presents it to him with much fanfare), and declare her ready to be riveted (their words, not mine). Giving at least twenty guys rabies, Sylvie’s impromptu gangbang antics intensifies the situation to outbreak status.

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nNearby, the gorgeous Lynn Lowry, who plays a deaf-mute Satanic hippie acid head, is cutting off the hand of a housewife with an electric carving knife. Up until this point, Lynn Lowry might not have done all that much in terms of being an obnoxious hippie Satanist on acid. But I think most people will agree that just her presence alone manages to elevate the proceedings whenever she’s onscreen, as she has a quality about her that transcends talking and doing stuff.

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nShould I end there? Yeah? Okay. Let me just add that with its racially diverse cast, its dedication to leggy chicks in mini-dresses, and its abundance of frothy-mouthed psychopaths carrying severed heads, I Drink Your Blood is sleazy, violent, fast-paced fun for the entire family. Yeah, if your family is the Manson Family. Zing!

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