| Blood Sucking Freaks | |
|---|---|
Movie poster for Blood Sucking Freaks |
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| Directed by | Joel M. Reed |
| Produced by | Alan C. Margolin |
| Written by | Joel M. Reed |
| Starring | Seamus O'Brien Luis De Jesus Viju Krem Niles McMaster Dan Fauci Alphonso DeNoble Ernie Pysher |
| Music by | Michael Sahl |
| Cinematography | Ron Dorfman |
| Editing by | Joel R. Herson Victor Kanefsky |
| Distributed by | Troma Entertainment |
| Release date(s) | 1976 |
| Running time | 91 min. |
| Language | English |
Blood Sucking Freaks is a 1976 horror-exploitation film. Shot under the title Sardu: Master of the Screaming Virgins, it was retitled The Incredible Torture Show during its original theatrical run.[1]
Film distributor Troma Entertainment retitled the film Blood Sucking Freaks (sometimes spelled Bloodsucking Freaks) upon their acquisition of it. The film is based on Herschell Gordon Lewis’ Wizard of Gore.
Contents |
The plot centers on an S&M/Grand Guignol-style theatre run by Master Sardu and his midget assistant, Ralphus. In keeping with the Grand Guignol-style, the theatre puts on grotesque shows about torture and murder. What neither the audiences nor the critics know is that the shows are not staged but real. Moreover the naked women who appear to be tortured, dismembered and even killed during the performances are not actresses but kidnapped victims who are made into slaves.
Theatre critic, Creasy Silo, incurs Sardu's wrath by mocking his pretensions of art. Sardu responds by kidnapping and torturing Silo in the hopes that he will give the show a positive review, and by kidnapping ballerina Natasha DeNatalie in order to force her to participate in shows and thereby lend the shows an increased level of artistic legitimacy. This leads to the second major plotline of the film, in which Natasha's football-player boyfriend Tom Maverick and corrupt policeman Detective John Tucci try to find Natasha and unravel the mystery of Sardu's operation.
As the film progresses, we learn that Sardu is involved in white slavery and keeps a group of naked, almost feral, women in a cage in the basement of the theatre. The film intercuts between scenes of Tom Maverick and Detective Tucci attempting to find Natasha DeNatalie and scenes of Sardu and Ralphus torturing their captives and attempting to brainwash DeNatalie and Silo so that they will participate in the theater productions. As is common in the genre, the film ends with Sardu getting his comeuppance at the hands of his former captives.
Blood Sucking Freaks would go on to achieve relative cult-classic status due to its ability to slip between being a serious horror film with sexual overtones, and a campy send-up of slasher films that were beginning to become horror film standards, evidenced by John Carpenter's Halloween.
Some of the torture methods depicted fictionally in the film include the use of thumb screws, a skull crushed by a vise, the amputation of a wrist by a bone saw, the amputation of fingers by a meat cleaver, electro-shock, suspension, the extraction of teeth, the portrayal of an electric drill through a skull with the brains sucked through a straw, the amputation of feet by a chainsaw, stretching on St. Andrew's Cross, caning and subsequent decapitation by guillotine, as well as brainwashing, whipping, and quartering.
It is considered to be one of the most controversial films of all time by Filmsite.org.[2]