Blood Thirst

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Blood Thirst
Directed by	Newt Arnold
Produced by	Newt Arnold
Written by	N.I.P. Dennis
Starring	Yvonne Nielson Robert Winston Judy Dennis
Release date(s)	1971
Country	U.S.A. / Philippines
Language	English
IMDb profile

Blood Thirst, also known as Blood Seekers and The Horror from Beyond, is a 1971 Horror film directed by Newt Arnold and shot in the Philippines. It tells of an American detective investigating a series of vampiric murders linked to a Manila nightclub.

The film starred Robert Winston as detective Adam Rourke. Winston bore a strong resemblance to actor Anthony Perkins, and he brought a jokey, swaggering presence to the film. He spends much of his screen time swilling cocktails, shooting shadowy villains, and seducing his female lead, actress Judy Dennis, a haggard Audrey Hepburn doppelgänger who never appeared in another film. Winston's tough-guy character is somewhat sabotaged by a pronounced lisp, and his character's habit of engaging himself in extended quizzical monologues, which Winston does with a lopsided half-smile, makes his limning of Rourke decidedly eccentric.

The film's plot, scripted by N.I.P. Dennis in his only listed film credit, is frequently nonsensical, involving a South American belly dancer, played by Yvonne Nielson, who has uncovered an ancient Aztec secret for eternal life, involving regular blood transfusions. To this end, she has enlisted the aid of a Filipino club owner whose visage turns monsterous when he is stalking his prey; his character makeup here bears an uncanny resemblance to the makeup for Troma's Toxic Avenger.

The film features lush black and white photography in the tradition of American noir, including a near chiaroscuro obsession with light and shadow that is unexpectedly effective. Blood Thirst also relies on a canned jazz score that too-often sounds like burlesque compositions. A scene in which Judy Dennis creeps through an underground dungeon is undermined by a Little Egypt-style bump and grind number.

Blood Thirst was reportedly filmed in the 1960s but not released until the early 70s, where it mostly played the American grindhouse circuit, where it must have looked terribly dated alongside such lurid exploitation auteurs as Herschell Gordon Lewis.