Blood Thirst (1971)

5/10

This film is about an American called to the Philippines to help the local police with some odd murders. You can tell you are off the beaten track when IMDB only has the names for three characters and the most accomplished actor is Vic Diaz (1978's "Vampire Hookers"). Vic plays Captain Miguel, the local top cop. This film was filmed in 1971 in black and white (?) in the Philippines. Forgive my spelling on some of the names, IMDB only gave me Adam and the Captain. I'll check the credits later (future self- no credits).

We start off with a female employee walking home fairly late at night from the local club, only to be attacked by a melted-face creature. She's found hanging dead from a tree. The Captain is a friend of Adam Rourke, a world famous expert on sex crimes. Rourke is summoned and the situation is explained. Several women have been killed in exactly the same way- hung upside down and drained of blood. There is a rumor of a local blood cult (doesn't every small town have one?) During this exposition we meet Silvia, the Captain's sister. Rourke's roguish and skeptical behavior upsets Silvia.

Rourke moseys on over to the Barrio Club. He watches the club's sexy dance girl Serena and speaks with the club's owner, Mr. Calderon. Rourke badly gives his cover story of being a writer who wants to do a story about the recently deceased employee. Calderon may suspect Rourke is working with police, as a man sneaks into Rourke's hotel room that night and tries to kill him. Rourke also meets with his police assigned watcher, Orera.

Dalliance time with Silvia. Or not, ha! Rourke is no Rick Blaine. Another girl from the club is killed. More dalliance/sexual assault with Silvia. Back to the club. Dancing girl acts weird, and when Rourke tries to help, he gets his butt kicked.

The rest of the movie continues with the ongoing investigation, with clues and bodies popping up occasionally. See the SPOILERS section to find out what happens.

The video is a good black and white, though sometimes a bit dark. The audio is not well done; conversations are music are very low (I had to crank the TV volume up to 90-95%) while action and screaming are about 4 times as loud. The screams make this difference ear piercing. Acting is fairly wooden. The cinematography is average. Several portions of the film drag. The only violence is badly done fight scenes, and the only gore is Mr. Melty Face.

More of a mystery thriller with supernatural overtones. Overall this a fairly well done film, though a bit dull with awful sound equalization. Interesting to watch for novelty value, but not worth a purchase.

*** SPOILERS ***

Would it surprise you that Mr. Calderon is Mr. Melty Face, and he is draining the blood of his victims to keep Serena young and beautiful. This works by combining the blood of young women, the power of the sun kept in a box, and rare herbs and roots hundreds of years old.