1976
Director- Joel M. Reed
Cast- Seamus O'Brien, Viju Krem, Niles McMaster, Dan
Fauci, Alan Dellay, Ernie Pysher, Luis De Jesus, Alphonso DeNoble, Illa Howe, Carol
Mara, Ellen Faison, Helen Thompson, Linda Small, Lynette Sheldon
Master
Sardu (O’Brien) runs a sex slavery / snuff ring. He has women kidnapped and
tortured by his demented servant Ralphus ( De Jesus). Some he sells to
important rich people. Most he uses in his “art” show. He tortures the women
with Skinnerian behavior modification until they become mindless servants who
will do whatever he says, including letting him torture them to death. He then
publically executes them in front of a live audience who are told that it’s just
special effects. The crowd oohs and ahs and claps, not realizing (or admitting
to themselves) that they’ve just witnessed murder.
Sardu
gets ambitious and kidnaps an eminent ballerina (Krem) to use as the showcase
in a special show that he has planned, along with a critic who has panned his “art.”
Her boyfriend, a celebrity football player, hires a crooked cop to find her. Along
the way we are exposed to torture, cannibalism, necrophilia, mutilation, and
dismemberment.
This
movie brings up the old question, is it art or is it porn? This question comes
up with a lot of films from the 1970’s especially with the works of JessFranco, but also with films like The Devil in Miss Jones. However, in these
cases, the presence of graphic sex is what creates the debate of art or porn.
Bloodsucking Freaks features copious amounts of nudity, as all of the girls are
featured in various stages of undress. The problem though, at least as far as
trying to classify this movie, is not the sex, but the combination of sexual
imagery with violence, especially sexual violence towards women.
Any good
horror film should elicit an emotional reaction. This is why the combination of
sex and death usually works so well in horror; it creates a combination of
feelings that normally aren’t experienced together in daily life. The question
with Bloodsucking Freaks is whether this is art designed to produce such a
reaction, or just something appealing to our basest, sickest desires. This is
one of the oldest examples of the so-called “torture porn” genre (Two Thousand
Maniacs! came out a few years earlier), and it’s obvious to see how it influenced
later films like Hostel, Human Centipede or Serbian Film. However, Bloodsucking
Freaks is so outlandish, and at times silly, it doesn’t have the same sinister
feel as those films, which makes it a little easier to take.
The
concept of the film is actually pretty clever. Sardu’s audience enjoys watching
sexual torture, but they keep their consciences clear by telling themselves
that it’s all just a show. In that respect, we the viewers are much the same as
his audience. The film’s reputation was helped (or hurt, I’m not sure) by the
fact that it’s lead actor Seamus O'Brien was murdered by burglar a few years
later. If the film had been handled by someone like David Cronenberg you’d have
a well-respected horror story; a deep psychological examination coupled with
body horror. What we got though, is a
pretty graphic example of exploitation and a movie that is still controversial
today, but as one of the characters proclaims, “Who am I to say what’s art and
what isn’t?”
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