I Drink Your Blood has the dubious distinction of being the “A” picture on the greatest double feature of all-time (I Drink Your Blood / I Eat Your Skin) and being the first film to receive the X Rating for violence alone. Frequently singled out by exploitation aficionados and detractors alike, it remains a film that is name-dropped more often than it is seen. Much of the film plays like a post-Manson HG Lewis filmÑwhich in many ways is exactly what it isÑand should rightfully be seen as the second chapter in the biennial cycle of nihilistic seventies horror beginning with Night of the Living Dead (1968) and continuing on with The Last House on the Left (1972) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974).
I Drink Your Blood concerns itself with a small town struggling against external forces. Prior to the beginning of the film, the population of Valley Falls has dwindled due to a nearby dam project. The four remaining townsfolk are then forced to deal with the SADOS (Sons and Daughters of Satan) cult. The SADOS gang is made up exclusively of alien others; an Indian, an African-American, an Italian, a mute girl, a nympho, a Chinese mystic, and an unwed mother. The running metaphor in both situations is an attack on mainstream American values and culture as represented by the forces of modernization and technology (the dam project) and by the youth counterculture and minorities (SADOS). Within the context of the film, Smalltown, USA’s response to this is to attack the group that they find most threatening (counterculture/minorities) by poisoning their food with blood from a rabid dog.
The implied threat against their way of life becomes an actual threat against their lives as both groups become foamy-mouthed maniacs. Despite the images of the rabid killers holding severed body parts and menacing the townspeople, the film remains largely ambivalent about just who exactly is the real villain. Pete, the youngest of the townspeople, is responsible for their poisonings and therefore ultimately responsible for all of the carnage. I Drink Your Blood never lets the audience forget this fact, reiterating it with an almost subversive frequency and we even see the boy realize, but not vocalize, regret for his actions. The climax sees the smalltown emerge victorious through the help of police in a scene eerily and perhaps intentionally reminiscent of riot footage from the late sixtiesÑblue-collar workers and hippies being gunned down by police with a “shoot on sight” order. The film ultimately suggests that the class struggle that it depicts is a lose-lose proposition; no one wins, one side just has fewer casualties.
by David Carter | Source: Rykodisc DVD
03 Aug 2008 10:34 PM | Submit Comment
