I never thought it would be difficult to be a Peter Cushing fan but, dear lord, I’m only two titles into this Cushing Curiosities box set and it’s already killing me. The first, Tender Dracula, set the bar so low that it seemed impossible for any of the other works in the box to clear it. And then 1971’s Blood Suckers proved that theory wrong. This is a movie summed up concisely when one character says, ““Oh, I wish I knew what the hell was happening.”
This picture is dire from the very beginning, as a quick exposition dump feels like we’re watching an episodic TV show, and one fairly late in the season. Then this is followed by an even longer exposition dump courtesy of Cushing and a few other characters in what appears to be a soiree that is somehow spontaneously generating, with additional people just wandering in. Then almost all these people go to Greece together. I have heard the term “movable feast”, but I think it is rare for parties to continue across countries.
The reason for this journey is because everybody is concerned for the welfare of Richard Mower, a friend who has gone off radar. We’re only five minutes into the film when we see exactly what he’s been up to, as we’re subjected to a ten-minute orgy sequence full of nudity, drugs and obviously faked intercourse. Some of those couplings are homosexual, which now rather dates this film, as these are supposed to be shocking. Oh, and the participants are also Satanists and possibly vampires. I like to think this what the average MAGA person imagines goes on behind the scenes at the Democratic convention.
Now we’re fifteen minutes into the film, and it changes things up completely once more, as we’re back to Patrick Macnee, Alexander Davion, Johnny Sekka and Madeline Hinde as they look for Mower in Greece. The film becomes a weird travelogue for a while, with characters seemingly forgetting why they went there, apparently more content to wander around ruins and talk about Greek history and mythology.
There are some half-hearted attempts at intrigue, such as when an old woman sends a group of four men to pursue and kill Hinde. One of those guys grabs a large knife that was just sticking out of a wooden railing they walk past. I didn’t know Greece was such a violent place, but they apparently just have knives lying around everywhere for the convenience of murderers. And to think some places only go so far as to make bicycles available for public use.
The movie finally returns to the UK in the second half of the runtime, so we at least get Cushing back into the picture. Unfortunately, the movie becomes even more of a dull slog than it had been when our characters stumbled around Greece. The film finally, and mercifully, ends with a climax which comes out of nowhere, is rushed, and seems to end arbitrarily.
Some commentators have praised this picture for the novelty of how it treats vampirism as a sexual kink. I’m not buying that, especially since there have always been tones of eroticism to the vampire myth. Edward Woodward, making a cameo as a museum curator, isn’t buying it, either, as he rattles off a long list of “perversions” (many of which, like homosexuality, are no longer considered to be mental disorders). I swear it looks like he’s going to start cracking up at any moment, as if he can’t keep from laughing at this material, even with how briefly he is on the screen.
With the exception of Macnee, I suspect the other leads were also struggling with this material, and he is really just channeling his John Steed from The Avengers. To even call the script “material” might be an insult to the word, with what a slight and shambolic affair this is. At one point, Hinde says to Sekka,“You do talk a lot of rubbish”, and how I wish he’d shot back with, “Well, that’s what the script gave me.” Curiously, Davion seems to put in the most effort, as if this movie would make him a star. I almost felt bad for him, though he doesn’t have much presence, even when he seems to have more screentime than anybody else.
Even worse than the script is the editing, or sometimes the lack thereof. That orgy scene drags on for so long that even underage viewers who might have been getting a taste of forbidden fruit would likely tire of it after a while. And then there’s the shots of Mower dropped into it, though he is obviously not in the room where everything else transpires. That cocktail party at the beginning of the file is also odd, with one seated character suddenly appearing as if they teleported into the room. Even worse, others seem to magically move around from one edit to the next.
Perhaps the strangest aspect of Blood Suckers is when we finally learn what all the hubbub was about, and that was Mower is impotent. We have a pursuit from the UK to Greece and back again, a long orgy, blood drinking and a few murders, just because one guy can’t get it up. And that leads me to a single-word assessment of the film: “limp”.
Dir: Robert Hartford-Davis
Starring Patrick Macnee, Peter Cushing, Alexander Davion
Watched as part of Severin’s blu-ray box set Cushing Curiosities