Review of Blood Sucking Freaks (1976) by Matthew C — 24 Feb 2008

This is the filthy germ which finally infected Hollywood to produce torture porn like Hostel and Saw. Bloodsucking Freaks begins well, with an intriguing series of taunts between the lead character Sardu, a sadistic showman, and his audience in which they are accused of wanting to see torture and dismemberment - the movie audience is immediately implicated.

But what could have been a fascinating piece of grand guignol playing with ideas of audience desire and sadism is let down by technical incompetence and, worse, far too much piss poor humour ("I'll bet an arm and a leg" etc.

). Still, its worth seeing to realize just how disreputable the roots of contemporary mainstream horror films are.