Pretty much everything about 1976’s ‘Bloodsucking Freaks’ should repulse me. In an era when exploitation cinema was really coming into its own as a boundary pusher for cinema in terms of taste and decency. ‘Freaks’ is an entry that even the most ardant exploitation booze hound would say was a bit near the knuckle.

And yet, its the execution within ‘Freaks’ that flips this thing on it’s head for me, from an unwatchable piece of torture porn garbage to something I could actually see myself watching again in future (this’ll mark the 3rd time i’ve put this on voluntarily).

At its core the plot is a bit deranged, but simple. A mad theater performer called ‘Sardu’ is staging experimental stage art in a SOHO warehouse/theater to members of the public featuring the mutilation and graphic torturing of women with a helping hand from his dwarf assistant ‘Ralphus’. The audience love the ‘realness’ of the piece. But the reality is, these women are ACTUALLY being tortured live on stage. But the theatrical setting makes the audience think it’s staged.

The reality is Sardu and Ralphus are kidnapping large numbers of women from across the city and are using torture and conditioning in an attempt to ‘break’ them, turning them into willing and compliant slaves who’ll gladly get their legs chopped off if it pleases their ‘master’, Sardu himself has a furious temper, but is also a submissive and regularly recieves beatings from some of the girls he’s conditioned to be dominant to him on command.

When a theater critic visits the show, he refuses to review the piece for the local paper on the grounds that, even if he wrote a bad review it might tempt the public to come down anyway and see the show to see HOW bad it actully was. Sardu isnt happy with this and concocts a scheme for ultimate revenge which includes kidnapping the critic, a celebrated ballarina and extensive scenes of EVEN MORE graphic mutilation and torture. All leading to a showstopping ‘performance’ that’ll more than leave your jaw on the floor.

And I suppose I should add a bit of context here, a genre of film making that I absolutely detest is the ‘Women getting stalking, mutilated and killed for 90 minutes’ subgenre. Think your ‘Night train murders’ or ‘The New York Rippers’ of the world. I take no pleasure or enjoyment in seeing a film makers excuse to explore their mysoginistic fetishes on camera. With only very few notable exceptions.

‘Bloodsucking Freaks’ is one of them, and for a good reason (at least in my mind) and it’s the same reason that got ‘The Evil Dead’ taken off the ‘Video Nasties’ list all the way back in 1984. And thats that this film is too over the top, campy and rediculous to EVER be considered malicious.

There isnt an OUNCE of this film that could even be taken remotely seriously as a work. Its almost a parody of ‘mondo’ and exploitation cinema of the day. Its absolutely a nasty piece of work; gory, violent and aggressive in it’s construction. But malicious? absolutley not. If anything it’s basically a subtle lampooning of exploitation cinema by my reckoning.

The scripts a little on the slow side, clocking in at just shy of 90 minutes I could easily see this thing lose 15 minutes and be a lot better for it. It has a solid act structuring, keeps a pretty solid pace and has it’s tongue planted FIRMLY in it’s cheek across the entirity of it’s runtime. Everyone involved in this seems to understand the tone and humour thats embedded in this thing and it’s nice to see a cast be so receptive to dark humour of this kind of quality.

Thats not to say its without its faults, the torture scenes are hammy, over the top and overly dramatic, which I appreciated. But I do think it focusses on the torture aspect a bit too much and i’d have preferred more oddnes with Sardu and Ralphus honestly. It gets a little bit repetative after a time and that coupled with a little bit of a slow down in the pacing between the 2nd and 3rd acts does kind of disrupt what was otherwise a pretty electric work that really does stand out for this point in time.

Directions a little sloppy too, but that does kind of work in the films favour. We have low quality heavy grain film stock used for this one (presumably to keep costs down) Which for any other genre of film making would have made the film look cheap, seedy and lower rent. But for horror; it really gives it a ‘rough and ready’ stylistic feel that was the vogue of most grindhouse pictures of the day. and thats pretty much the base that this film works off of really.

Theres a lot of very vivid colour choices used throughout which play against the seedy stock quality quite nicely. Blood is basically poster paint/Hammer red, everything has a flat lighting profile, with most shots leading off into a seeming void of nothingness (again likely a budget decision…but effective) more ‘comfortable’ locations like Sardus living quarters are filled with rich Greens, reds, blues and oranges. And I personally found the stylistic contrast of having all these vivid and royal colours clashing with the blackness and bleakness of the fringes of the sets to be really quite powerful. Especially when contrasted with exterior shots which are almost entirely muted greys and browns.

It really makes you feel like, when your inside the theater with Sardu, your entering another world, removed from the hustle and bustle of society. You’re in Sardu’s domain.

Direction of the cast iiiiis…interesting, our core players are decently managed, they use the set space well and it’s clear a lot of work was put in to nail the exact tone this thing was going for…the extras? Well they’re all ‘broken’ women ranting and raving like lunatics and acting like dogs…I mean; if thats what they’re supposed to be going for, they nailed the brief…but it would have maybe have been a bit nicer to just see a bit more variety in terms of what someone who’s been fundamentally ‘broken’ acts like, because the impression given here is that when someones brain is bent, they start barking and turn into cannibals…and thats about it.

Cine wise, its again a little rough and ready, but the aforementioned colour and styalisation really help pull this thing up, the flat lighting is both a help and a hinderance, giving further illusion to the roughness of the production (a charitable interpretation) while also feeling just a bit uninspiring. that being said compositions are largely handheld wides or mids, compositions a bit sketchy, but theres definitely some shots to love, but it is lacking when it comes to its sequence construction through a mix of akward cuts and lack of b-roll…Which was a bit of a shame.

Performance wise? Seamus O’Brien as Sardu is astounding, giving a wonderfully electric, unpredictable and campy performance that managed to genuinely enthrall me across the runtime, I had no idea what was coming up next with him and even on rewatches, he gives me vibes that I STILL shouldnt get too comfortable in terms of what to expect. Hes fantastic.

Credit also has to go to Luis De Jesus as Sardu’s assistant Ralphus, a VERY malicious and equally campy foil to O’Briens performance with maybe just a hint more relish in the joy he gets torturing. Theres not a dull moment when he’s on screen and his work with Viju Krem who plays the dancer Natasha who’s abducted by Ralphus and slowly broken (herself a fantastic performance that has a nice complexity to it where it could have just been very one note) was a delight.

‘Bloodsucking freaks’ is one of those films that I dont think really could be done justice nowadays, modern film makers are too clued up on styalisation choices and the horror genre now is geared WAY too heavily towards unpleasentness for the sake of unpleasentness. This film came about at the perfect time for a film like this to come about, it isnt afraid to embrace campness while mixing in VERY controversial themes, but it also isnt snobby about what it’s trying to achieve. We have here a film that acknowledges the dark, perverted and gory world the exploitation subgenre was creating and laughs openly at it.

It isnt trying to be ‘Salo’ it’s not trying to make ‘art’ it’s trying to get the job done and put across the absurdness of the genre that birthed it. And even though I cant say I outright LOVE this for that…I can at least appreciate it.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/bloodsucking-freaks/