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from Jim's Real Detroit Column BLOODSUCKING FREAKS |
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— Sardu, the sado-masochistic master of The Theater of the Macabre. It had to come to this. Any series of articles on “out of the mainstream” or cult flicks has no choice but to eventually talk about Joel M. Reed’s 1978 exploitation masterpiece, Bloodsucking Freaks, AKA The House of the Screaming Virgins or The Incredible Torture Show. And incredible it is. Feminist groups have protested it, home video companies have cut the hell out of it, and even schlockmeister Lloyd Kaufman, whose Troma Team Video did finally release the “Gore-o-rama director’s cut” on both VHS and DVD, has said that it is the most mean-spirited film in the entire Troma library. There are none of the trademark surrealism and humor found in other Troma titles. There is also nothing of redeeming social value in this film, and with its amazingly over-saturated levels of gore, torture, nudity, and the like, Bloodsucking Freaks may very well be the most sadistic movie ever made (not to mention a fave of dead-comic Andy Kaufman). |
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What little plot there is takes place in the “Theatre of the Macabre,” where the goateed Master Sardu (Seamus O’Brian), accompanied by faithful midget assistant Ralphus (Luis De Jesus), put on Grand Guignol--style performances with one very important difference: no fakery here, all the blood, dismemberment, and such is for real. Of course, the audience thinks it’s fake. When Sardu decides to put on the S&M ballet Seduction and Death of a Critic, he kidnaps world-famous ballerina Natasha D’Natalie (Viju Krem). After witnessing another dancer have both her legs hacked off, Natasha agrees to dance the lead. Days later, the legless hoofer is still crawling around, gratuitously bleeding from her stumps. Now on to the important stuff---Bloodsucking Freaks’s filth, carnage, and degradation: one luckless lady has her teeth ripped out one by one with pliers, thus eliminating the chance of a Last House on the Left--like revenge during fellatio; another finds herself locked into a guillotine, holding the release rope in her mouth while she is bare-butt caned until she loses her head and screams (and vice versa); one poor schmuckette has the unfortunate pleasure of having a hole drilled in her head to facilitate the sucking of her brains through a straw; and nudie-cuties are used in multiple ways...their bodies as furniture, their butts as dart boards, and their digits as poker chips. Also of note is the scene with little Ralphus getting some from a decapitated noggin, nearly ten years before the famous Re-Animator head joke. I could go on and on, but you get the picture. Needless to say, the fun never stops, all the way to the “weenie roast” at the end of the torture show. |
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| The cinematography itself is dark and dingy, making all the above even more disturbing to watch (this despite the fact that all the gore is barely a notch above the Herschell Gordon Lewis believability level). Just as you should expect when you check out a video with any of the aforementioned titles, Bloodsucking Freaks is disgusting and offensive. Once you’ve seen it, you may not come back to it for a while. But, if you’re sick enough, you’ll be glad to have seen one of the most politically incorrect and gratuitous films ever made. Of course, you probably can’t wait for the next big train wreck either. | ||||||||||||||||
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