“Satan was an acid head!”
-Horace Bones

A nasty bunch of Satanist hippies led by Horace Bones (Bhaskar Roy Chowdhury) show up in a small, nearly abandoned town and move into a house left empty to prepare for a soon to be built dam which will flood the area. During one of their naked, devil-worshipping rituals, they attack Sylvia (Iris Brooks), a local teenager. When her grandfather, veterinarian, Doc Banner (Richard Bowler) confronts them, the gang overpower him and dose him with LSD. If you think they’re only hostile to outsiders, think again. They also strap down one of their own, slice his feet with a machete and swing him from a hook until they’re splattered with his blood. Sweet.

“Do you like Jackson Pollock?”

That’s all Sylvia’s little brother, Pete (Riley Mills) can take. He decides to avenge the gang’s assaults on his family so he takes blood from a rabid dog he put down and injects it into meat pies meant for the cult.

Yum!

In a few hours, Horace and his followers, including the charismatic, Rollo (George Patterson) start foaming at the mouth and craving fresh blood. I’m pretty sure it’s not what Pete the doofus had in mind. The hydrophobic hippies run amok, killing and infecting everyone they meet, including the construction workers in town to build the dam, who, in turn kill everyone they see. It’s a real party.

“Did you say decaf?”

Will Doc Banner, Sylvia, and Pete escape with their lives? Will they ever get the rabid construction workers close enough to water to build the dam? Will bakery owner, Mildred Nash (Elizabeth Marner-Brooks) patent her rabies pies?

“I’ll have seconds!”

I Drink Your Blood is a gore-filled indie with good acting and an original story. In an interview with writer/director David E. Durston in the excellent book, Nightmare USA, by Stephen Thrower, the title of the film was originally Phobia, but producers changed it to I Drink Your Blood and paired it with the less promising film, I Eat Your Skin for the drive-in double-feature circuit. Durston was less than overjoyed about the title change, saying, “Ridiculous—there are no vampires in the film, not even a Bloody Mary! They might as well have called it ‘I Shit in Your Saddlebag’!” Apparently, Durston was a bright, funny character. I Drink Your Blood was the first film to get an X rating from the MPAA for violence. The controversy fueled excitement for the film and sales were brisk, even with the less than stellar I Eat Your Skin attached to it.

I Drink Your Blood entertains a lot more than the title leads you to believe. An original story combined with decent performances (except for Pete) and a dramatic score by Clay Pitts make it worth a watch.

This’ll come in handy.