The question on the minds of every Grindhouseland reader is this: Is the 1976 gore film Bloodsucking Freaks the masterpiece that Lil Deacon Blues thought that it was? The answer is a resounding hell to the yes.

First, a quick story. Lil Deacon Blues finally decided to take this movie home as the um… “entertainment” for his Halloween vegan potluck which also included the debut of his new Misfits boxed set. So began a several years long love affair with the film Bloodsucking Freaks. Several years later, the first time I met Lloyd Kaufman he asked what my favorite Troma film was and I responded, without a pause, “Bloodsucking Freaks.” He somewhat curtly informed me that Troma had nothing to do with Bloodsucking Freaks and that if he had it to do all over again, he would never have distributed it in the first place.

A man and his midget deal in both white slavery and high art. By day they buy and sell women to such luminaries as an oil sheik played by the Key Grip’s fourth cousin Morty. By night they torture the women to death on stage in a grand guignol style show. In their spare time they come up with such charming turns of phrase as “her mouth will make an interesting urinal.”

This movie is great fun, from the bright red blood to the totally over the top torture violence that goes from grotesquely disturbing to sublimely baroque by the second half hour. The film overplays the gore card so hard that you’re bored with fake blood by the middle of the movie and just going “OH DAMN!” by the time the dentists starts blowing bubbles trough a hole he just drilled in a woman’s skull. SPOILER ALERT: The last shot of the film is a bunch of starving women eating dick sandwiches. Yeah, kids, it’s that kind of movie. This is the Citizen Kane of bad movies. More gripping than Plan 9 From Outer Space and far more fun for its foibles than Manos: The Hands of Fate. Still a great way to gross out your friends.

6/5

Buy Bloodsucking Freaks on DVD at Amazon!
Buy Bloodsucking Freaks on VHS at Amazon!
Buy Bloodsucking Freaks – Movie Poster – 11 x 17 at Amazon!
Buy Bloodsucking Freaks – Movie Poster – 27 x 40 at Amazon!