BLOODSUCKERS On Blu-ray From Severin

 

Included in Severin's CUSHING CURIOSITIES Blu-ray box set is BLOODSUCKERS, one of the weirdest English Gothic entries ever made. 

BLOODSUCKERS is also known as INCENSE FOR THE DAMNED, and it also has an alternate title of FREEDOM SEEKER. There's a number of different versions of this movie on the internet, and Severin claims that the one on this disc is the longest available. The fact that this production has different titles and versions does not bode well--and BLOODSUCKERS, or whatever you call it, is a mess. 

The movie is based on a novel by Simon Raven called DOCTORS WEAR SCARLET (and that was considered as a title for the movie as well). A rising young Oxford scholar named Richard Fountain (Patrick Mower) has disappeared while doing research in Greece, and due to his upper-class connections, an official effort is made to find him. Richard appears to have been taken over by a mysterious cult that might be practicing a modern form of vampirism--and after his friends bring him back to Oxford, Richard himself starts showing strange and disturbing habits. 

BLOODSUCKERS had several behind-the-scenes problems during its making, and director Robert Hartford-Davis was fired before the end of production. The result is that while the movie has some fine visuals (the cinematographer was Desmond Dickinson) it makes very little sense. Did Richard willingly join this cult, or is he being controlled? Does the sultry Chriseis (Imogen Hassall), who has Richard under her thrall, really have supernatural powers, or is it all due to drugs? Why is Richard so angry at his future father-in-law, Oxford provost Dr. Walter Goodrich (Peter Cushing)? 

This may be the longest version of BLOODSUCKERS, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the best one. The version of the film on this disc has a orgy sequence that lasts nearly ten minutes. It goes on, and on, and on.....and instead of being titillating and provocative, it's just tawdry and ridiculous. Apparently it was shot in an attempt to fill the running time out, and to attract the youth market, but the film would have been much better if it had been cut out altogether. 

There's also a sequence where a Van Helsing-like academic played by Edward Woodward explains how vampirism is something of a sexual fetish. This sequence feels as if it's from a different movie, and also appears to be another attempt to pad out the running time. 

One big problem with BLOODSUCKERS is that the viewer just isn't engaged enough in Richard Fountain and his situation. For most of the film Richard is in a dazed state, so the viewer doesn't get to know him, and his big speech at the end where he calls out all his Oxford colleagues as dangerous hypocrites seems to come out of left field. It's hard to sympathize with Richard's "rebellion" against his upper-class life--this is a guy who is being groomed for an important position at an esteemed institution, and he's expected to marry a beautiful young woman, played by Madeleine Hinde. (Patrick Mower played another upper-class young man being ensnared in an evil cult in the much, much better Hammer classic THE DEVIL RIDES OUT.) 

BLOODSUCKERS does have a cast worthy of attention to English Gothic fans, with Cushing, Mower, Woodward, Alex Davion, Patrick Macnee, and Imogen Hassall. Valerie Van Ost (who also appeared in the Peter Cushing films CORRUPTION and THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA) can be seen in the background of most of the Oxford scenes (in all honestly she would have been much better as Richard's girlfriend). 

Peter Cushing doesn't have a lot of screen time (a common occurrence in the CUSHING CURIOSITIES box set). Even with only a few scenes, Cushing is still able to put over the idea that his Dr. Goodrich is a self-satisfied person that wants things done his way, but one gets the feeling that there was more to his character that somehow didn't get into the film. You would think that after Cushing had worked with Hartford-Davis on the notorious CORRUPTION, he'd have known better about BLOODSUCKERS. 

BLOODSUCKERS does look impressive on this Severin all-region Blu-ray--it's much more colorful and sharper than any of the versions of the film on YouTube. Severin gives this film a number of extras, including a new audio commentary with Jonathan Rigby and Kevin Lyons. The two men compare the movie to the novel upon which it was based, and they go into the life and career of Robert Hartford-Davis and the state of English genre cinema at the time the film was made. 

Also included are short new interviews with Robert Hartford-Davis' daughter, who chats about her father's life and claims that Peter Cushing adored him; actress Francoise Pascal, who only appeared in the orgy segment, and who states that this sequence was more realistic than viewers realize; and sound recordist Tony Dawe, who worked on the production. 

There's also a featurette where genre expert John Hamilton gives an excellent and thorough examination of Robert Hartford-Davis' early career and the making of BLOODSUCKERS. A 1961 short film called STRANGER IN THE CITY, written & directed by Hartford-Davis, is also on this disc. The short, in black & white and without dialogue, is about a day in the life of various folks in London, and it has a couple of elements of interest to English Gothic fans: one of the main characters in it is played by Hammer regular Sydney Bromley, and at one point a young woman checks out a front-of-theater display for the Baker-Berman film JACK THE RIPPER. A trailer and a title sequence with the FREEDOM SEEKER moniker are also included. 

BLOODSUCKERS is another rare Peter Cushing title that Severin has gone out its way to showcase. The makers of it deserve credit for trying to do something contemporary and different with the vampire genre, but unfortunately those filmmakers didn't seem to know what they really wanted. The movie does have nice Oxford and Cyprus locations, and a notable cast, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, even for a horror film.