Blood Freak

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“Hmmm, well whatever turns you on.”

“Praise the Lord.”

Gotta dig the 70s, man. Quite far out.

Gosh, my internet buddies just love “Blood Freak”. I watched it a few years ago just because it made the rounds as a reputed stinker that needed to be seen to be believed. Every decade has its turkeys. The 70s sure as hell had its share.

The casting is “Blood Freak” can be summed up in one word: wretched. I’m talking agonizing to the eyes and ears. That alone is something bad movie fans seem to enjoy. That the plot has a lot of preaching from the bible could probably stun many watching all the more. That considering what the film also contains. A biker gives a ride to a lady in hot shorts who takes him to a party where the scene has folks snorting drugs and crouched legs-crossed comfortably on the living room floor. The biker is interested in what the preacher has to say, circumventing her sister’s efforts to fondle and caress him (!), listening to how one cannot hate those he has seen and love a God he hasn’t, along with her response to a question on adultery. It is bizarre to know that this takes place, with a turkey monster going on a rampage not long after.

“How can such a big hunk of man be such a coward?”

God, the sister, always trying to hook up with Herschell (and does have a smokin’ bod) speaks in this consistently whiny, grating voice and is more than a bit “hands on” and desperate (played by Dana Cullivan) grates the nerves something fierce. Thankfully she’s carnally acceptable. Hawkes, as Herschell, the biker, is so dull and sullen, seemingly trapped in such a bad enterprise he literally appears as if he’d rather be anywhere but in “Blood Freak”, I actually feel sorry for him.

So Herschell begins to fall prey to Ann’s temptations. Smoking pot leads to sex in her bed. Ann loves to persist that once he has her, the sister, Angel (Heather Hughes) will be a fading memory. Interludes with the director (Brad Grinter, co-director with Hawkes) serving as a type of moral guide through the film, with bits of sermonizing done after taking drags from his smokes (I swear he even ends one of these with “Right on”!), just adds to the strange of this whole experience.

“Experimental meat” due to scientists using chemicals on the poultry at a farm where Herschell goes to work, dressed as close to Elvis as he possibly can be is how the guy is a victim of genetic engineering, turning him into hybrid poultry-man. Let this absurd plot just wash over you. “Good, tomorrow morning bring your appetite,” says one of the scientists to Herschell!

There is one scene where Herschell lapses into an addiction agony with Ann calling her drug supplier to keep her man at ease. Herschell, being a beefcake, can just wrap his meat-hook grapplers around the supplier’s throat and get immediate promises to maintain his cursed pot addiction. So there’s the peculiar pot and then the tainted poultry he starts to tear into, with the director interspersing shots of feathered gobblers just gobbling away!

So the cast. You can see them reciting the lines in their mind and carefully speaking them out loud, sometimes awkwardly and other times robotically. I felt they were very uncomfortable in front of the camera and couldn’t wait for the “Cut!” The two fellows who play the scientists take home the “thespians” prize. But seeing Hawkes convulse on the ground: that is Oscar worthy. And the potheads Ann appeals to for her man’s sake (continue to deal pot to him although his head is now a turkey while the rest of his body remains human) compete with those who play the scientists in the acting honors.

Then you have Herschell going around snatching up junkies, hanging the girls upside down, slicing their throats open, and cupping squirting blood to quench his thirst! This along with the messages about needing God’s help and the deranged nature of sin, what a path tread at the start of drugs can eventually lead to so much more. It is insanity. Therein lies its appeal to fans of the weird and unusual. It has that in spades. Hawkes in the oversized  turkey head, with the long beak, trying to realistically show him drinking blood is embarrassing. Oh, and the dubbing with all the hollering…just painful. This whole film is amateur hour on steroids.

To rival Fulci’s Gates of Hell, “Blood Freak” has Herschell choke a drug supplier, toss him on a table and lop off his leg with a mechanical saw! As the wound gushes and victim cries out, Herschell, in turkey mask, stumbles away. It is just another HGL gore sequence plopped into the film to shock you. It is totally inappropriate which makes it all the more appropriate for a film such as this!

Something quite amusing results from the director, nearly coughing up a lung while taking extra drags, attempts to proselytize to us about consuming chemicals and drugs into the body. If the movie ever had a more ironic narrative voice going right against what he forewarns it is this guy.

The ending might be considered a cop out. It goes the “what if” route, having Herschell awaken from a collapse, with us realizing it was all a nightmare caused by the unstable cocktail of pot and experimental meat. You even get to see a turkey hopping around after getting beheaded! Followed by Herschell’s own turkey head in a plate next to a cooked bird with its meat pried away by anticipating hands ready to feast! Herschell is shaken out of it all by the poultry farmer, later to be helped out of his addiction, to meet Ann in bikini near a beach’s boardwalk. Happily ever after, this couple can now live in peace. The end.