Blood on the Funny Who Is Also a Sick Freak
Blood-drinking turkey monster mania!
A very shaky camera follows leatherclad 'Nam vet Herschell (Steve Hawkes) down the Florida turnpike, where he helps Angel, a stranded, bible quoting "seeker of the truth" in hot pants. The two go back to her place, where a hippie drug party hosted by Angel's cute, baby-voiced "far out" sister Anne is taking place. When Herschell ignores the advances of a woman, she informs him, "You' re nothing but a dumb b***ard who doesn't know where it's at, anyway!"
Herschell ends up getting a job at the father's turkey farm, Anne gets him "hooked" on pot and scientists in lab jackets trick him into eating chemicals that transform him into a turkey headed monster that gobbles, hangs people upside down, slits their throats and drinks the blood, all while dressed in flared bell-bottom pants!
One very blood, standout murder scene has a guy getting his leg cut off with a table saw. Some real turkeys are beheaded, too, for additional gore. But the action stops cold when the on-screen, chain-smoking narrator (played by director Grinter) reads preachy, pro-Christian commentary off of cue cards on a desk!
The big, muscular Hawkes sports Elvis hair, thick sideburns and weird, blotchy skin, and is one of the worst actors I can think of. Other cast members flub or forget their lines and often look directly at the camera and laugh! No one is credited with writing it on the version I have (the original VHS copy), but with lines directed toward Hawkes like, "He's strong, he's handsome and he enjoys being attractive to the opposite sex," I strongly suspect he had his hand in there somewhere.
Do NOT miss this movie!
Score: (technically speaking) 1 out of 10 / (for laughs) 10 out of 10!
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Thank you, Brad Grinter, for letting us laugh at love again
After hearing about Blood Freak for years, after preparing myself by collecting over two hundred of the worst movies ever made, after nearly resigning myself to paying a fortune for a copy, I found Blood Freak sitting on a shelf with a cute little green price tag, biding its time, waiting to pounce.
I wasn't ready for this. Read all the other comments and realize that they're not exaggerating in the least. WORST movie ever made? No, that's still got to be Night of Horror. Blood Freak calls for a category not yet invented - the sheer glorious dancing-with-the-angels whack flakiness of Godmonster of Indian Flats or Troll 2, combined with the absolute ineptitude of Night of Horror, Weird World of LSD, or Broadway Jungle. And then add something more, an X factor, the ability to send you off the couch and onto the Karistan wheezing like a busted calliope, like the head of Hitler mugging it up in the back seat in They Saved Hitler's Brain, or the immortal. "The natives call it - Tabanga!" in from Hell It Came.
Yes, it's about mutant turkeys, good Bible preaching, a hair farm named Herschell, and balding cracker dopers, but Blood Freak goes so much further. It has the rare quality of twisting away from you and running off in a different direction, whenever you think you've got it pegged. At half a dozen points in the movie you'll have yourself totally convinced that this is a send-up, that the crazed lounge-lizards-for-Jesus narrator is smirking and winking at you. Then a throat gets slashed, a leg gets sawn off, and you realize that, no, the mutant turkeys that created this farrago are SERIOUS.
I'll give a free kitten to the first person who comes up with the present location of the papier-mache turkey head.
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CULT defined
I get so emotional whenever I attempt to write a review about "Blood Freak". The last review I wrote was not accepted by IMDB as I got too out of line and my review degenerated into uncontrolled bantering. Just know that my love for this movie cannot be contained in mere words. "Blood Freak" is a must see by all. The movie itself is indeed a FREAK of nature. You'll never see a movie quite like it unless it's contrived and purposely-made camp. This film is as out-of-control as a serious filmmaker could get and still be trying to make an honest-to-God film with a real message. Never have I seen a pro-Jesus-anti-drug-murder-turkey-mutant-vampire movie. Brad Gritner and Steven Hawkes have succeeded in going beyond laughing-stock into a realm of unparrelled cult statis that which few will ever attain. I wont spoil one minute of this movie for you by recounting any of it, just know that it's impossible to find any movie more deserved of the cult genre than this one. Take the plunge and see this movie!!! You wont regret it!
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Incredible twisted Christian-Drug-Gore-Turkey Monster film
Certainly one of the strangest and most incredible films ever produced for human consumption. Mere words can not begin to describe this twisted masterpiece. The fantastic plot involves a guy named Hershel (Steve Hawkes) who rides a chopper and looks a bit like Elvis Presley. He meets up with two sisters, one an extremely straight Bible preaching evangelist named Angel who wants to save the world, the other a drug using slut, named Ann, who has the hots for Hershel. Hershel smokes some kind of super addicting pot which causes him to sc**w Ann. He then goes to work for a man who appears to be their father who owns a poultry farm with a built in laboratory run by some dim witted scientists. Hershel then eats a whole turkey provided by the lab which is laced with experimental drugs. He passes out, wakes up as turkey monster, starts killing a strange assortment of people, and drinks their blood. He also has sex with Ann in his turkey outfit while she voices her concerns about having turkey monster children. All throughout the film, a sleazy narrator interrupts things to give the audience confusing philosophical insights about God. It all works out in the end as Hershel finds sobriety, God, love, and poultry. You could spend your whole life trying to find something as bizarre as this film and not succeed.
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Turkey n. (pl.-eys) large bird reared for its flesh; this as food
Warning: Spoilers
SPOILERS INCLUDED What were they thinking; more specifically how does a pro-christian, anti drug film double as a bloody horror movie about a vampire turkey monster? The stories you've been told about the infamous 'BloodFreak' near unbelievable as they sound do not lie. The true story behind the film a bleak tale of a horrific burns accident, a Tarzan impersonator, an aging nudist enthusiast and much bad blood is equally fascinating. BloodFreak was the brainchild of an odd couple on the fringes of the Florida entertainment scene. Brad Grinter (aka Frank Grinter aka Brett Jason Merriman) was a bit part actor in Florida area exploitation films but his main income was as a film teacher. Grinter channelled the money from pricy tuition fees into financing the budgets of his own films, the poverty row biker movie Devil Rider (1970) and more famously Flesh Feast (1970)- that climaxes with Veronica Lake melting Adolf Hitler's face off with cannibalistic maggots. The other man behind BloodFreak was Steve Hawkes, Hawkes main calling in life was to play Tarzan, a feat he accomplished but only in movies shot in far flung places to avoid copyright problems (nervous distributors would often re-christen Hawkes' Tarzan 'Zen of the Jungle' in case of any repercussions.) Hawkes saw himself as a family entertainer, fate had other ideas and on the set of Tarzan and the Brown Prince- Hawkes was to suffer a horrific on-set accident that left him with 90% burns. Grudgingly he agreed to appear in a horror quickie as a way of paying pricey bills- hence BloodFreak was born. Hawkes stars as Herschell a christian, vietnam veteran biker thundering around Florida on his chopper. Herschell picks up 'pretty girl with a problem' Angel who takes him back to her place. 'Some of my sister's friends are pretty far out' remarks bible quoting Angel on the hippie drug taking presided over by her wild child sibling. Said troubled floozy sister Ann wants a piece of 'husky man' Herschell before her sister can convert him into a bible salesman, and shock! horror! turns him onto her wild lifestyle to do so. One drag of something 'guaranteed to make you fly' later and Herschell turns into a laughing pot head. He tries to get back on track by getting a job at a turkey farm, but his employees are mad scientists who offer him marijuana and use him as a guinea pig for 'experiments'. Eating a whole contaminated turkey, Herschell ends up a shaking mess and from the neck up transforms into a monster turkey man! With an oversized paper mache turkey head, complete with giant beak, ping pong ball eyes and misdirected feathers Herschell the Blood Freak is a sight you wouldn't want to meet even when stone cold sober (`all we did was give this guy some turkey').
Herschell seeks solace with Ann, whose reaction 'gosh Herschell you sure are ugly' meets with gobbles of disapproval (Herschell can only communicate by making turkey noises). Ann tells the turkey she still loves him despite the obvious problems 'what would the children think of their father looking like that….my god what would the children look like?' Discovering he can only live off the blood of drug addicts the BloodFreak stalks Ann's dopy friends- dragging them into the bushes and drinking their blood. Disrupting an old man shooting up a teenage girl in the back of his car, the Bloodfreak kidnaps the girl, hangs her upside down and slashes her throat. Then as an afterthought strangles a passing old timer. Meanwhile a drug pusher attempts to rape Ann, but only gets as far as gawping at her knickers before the turkeyman shows up and severs the luckless creep's leg with a bandsaw. In the 'uplifting' finale, the Bloodfreak enlists the help of goody two shoes Angel and prays to god to cure him of this literal case of cold turkey. BloodFreak is utterly mind-boggling, theres nothing quite like it. Although it may sound like a parody of campy anti-drug features like Reefer Madness, everything is played as dead serious as Angel's blank faced moralising. Within the confines of a fire & brimstone sermon, Grinter and Hawkes deceptively serve up a bang-up exploitation film. A real turkey is decapitated on camera, female bottoms are bared and an amputee plays the bandsaw victim- wobbling around on a wooden leg till the Bloodfreak 'relieves' him off it. Based in Florida it's hard to imagine Grinter wasn't aware of the splatter movies of Herschell Gordon Lewis (he even acted in one of Lewis' nudie pictures). Thus Blood Freak's phoney yet nauseating gore draws obvious comparisons with Blood Feast (a title Grinter would snatch both parts of for Blood-Freak and Flesh-Feast). After BloodFreak Grinter made a couple of nudist propaganda films (Barely Proper 1975, Never the Twain 1974) before they and him disappeared off the face of the planet. Steve Hawkes was last heard of running an animal preserve in Florida. For Hawkes his sole brush with exploitation cinema remains a touchy subject, apparently the man who put up the money for BloodFreak ran out on him, leaving Hawkes to finish and distribute the picture himself. Little seen on its 1972 release (it was one of the first films rated X by the MPAA for violence) BloodFreak like that other slice of sunshine state lunacy 'Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things' only really came to people's attention during the video-era. Now from New Zealand to France jaws drop at a film constantly out of focus, actors who flub there lines, dialogue like 'how is it possible that a girl like you, young and beautiful, can be so far out' and the idea that you can put the world to rights by putting a turkeyhead on your leading man and have him run around rustic Florida. Cross paths with BloodFreak and you'll never look at a turkey in the same light again.
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Crackpot cinema at it's best!
I love this movie! It is so bad that it's great! To enjoy this movie you have to have a place in your heart for crackpot cinema (low-budget movies that are so bad that they're good). It's completely unrealistic and so poorly shot that you will laugh until you cry. This movie's just plain fun.
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Incredible, simply incredible...
Man, oh man. What can one say about this film? There's no denying that it's a *bad* film. Of that we can be sure. But try to pigeonhole it into any other category, and you'll end up with a headache the size of Lake Michigan. What can one say about a movie in which a beefy Vietnam vet (resembling a late-60's Conway Twitty) follows a nice Christian young lady home, only to fall for her sister, get hooked on some bizarre strain of pot, eat an entire "experimental" turkey cooked up by some mad poultry scientists (who themselves are hooked on the wacky weed), turn into the ugly cousin of the San Diego Chicken, and become driven to feed on the blood of addicts? Where else can you see a tender love scene between a young woman and a turkey monster? Where else can you see a man in a bad turkey mask cut the prosthetic leg off of a drug dealer? Where else can you see the most insane bad-movie dream sequence this side of "Glen Or Glenda?" Where else can you see an entire cast made up of what appears to be either Foghat or their roadies? What other film features an almost-constant barrage of turkey gobbles that sound more like pencil erasers on glass? Where else can you see the director chain-smoke on camera, preach against defiling the body with chemicals, and have a coughing fit? Stop reading this review *right now* and track this baby down! I laughed until I wept. It's a beautiful thing.
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words cannot accurately describe this...
Where does one even begin when trying to describe this insane film?
Chances are the jargon "turkey monster", "christian", "druggie", "inept scientists", etc. will come up in the process, but I think the word that best sums it up is "amazing".
If taken at face value this would appear to be an over-the-top, ridiculous anti-drug christian scare film, but it seems to me like it's more likely a wierd joke by a sadist with a bizarre sense of humor. The plot is pretty much outlined in the other "Blood Freak" review on this site, but I would recommend this highly for anyone into "I can't believe this movie was ever made" type fare. My favorite element personally is the crusty narrator who occasionally interrupts the movie from what appears to be a suburban family rec room(?) and gives cryptic warnings about the harm of putting chemicals in one's body, all the while puffing away on cigarettes (at one point the guy even breaks out into a heavy coughing fit!). Everything about this is guaranteed to blow even the most jaded video geek's mind, and if you can get your hands on it I recommend it highly. Truly a masterpiece as far as cinematic trash is concerned...
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"All we did was do..give this guy some turkey"
There are very few horror films that could make me laugh as much as "Blood Freak". The cinematography, script, and especially the ACTING in "Blood Freak" are so mind-blowingly awful that I still laugh at it even after seeing it 50 times. My favorite actors are the guy that owns the turkey farm and his two scientists. Their complete lack of emotion and their stumbling over their own lines (among other things) make me suspect that this movie only filmed ONE TAKE of each scene, regardless of mistakes.
I simply LOVE "Blood Freak" and never get tired of it. I even dig the '70s styling and funky soundtrack. There really aren't any other films like this out there.
I highly recommend "Blood Freak" to fans of unintentional hilarity. It is hard to find this film, but it's worth searching for it.
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Technically speaking, BLOOD FREAK makes sense
Warning: Spoilers
Spoilers
Okay, I have two things to say about BLOOD FREAK. First, about my disappointment with the twist ending. And second, a warning to those who don't like real on-screen violence inflicted on animals.
Okay, first: I bought the BLOOD FREAK DVD mainly because I love SOMETHING WEIRD DVDs, which are full of extras, and also because I love really bad movies. BLOOD FREAK is woeful. There's no doubt about that. But, and this is only a technicality and I'm not trying to be pedantic here, the story actually makes sense. The thing that everyone has failed to mention is the "twist" ending: that the whole idea of the guy (played by beefy Elvis-look-a-like Steve Hawkes) turning into a monster with a head of a turkey and feeding on addicts' blood is nothing but a DREAM or a HALLUCINATION. The character never really turns into a monster. After the guy takes the drug from the turkey farm, the man has this really bad trip and dreams he's turned into the turkey monster. At the end, he wakes up and realizes that everything was only a nightmare. I was sorta disappointed by this twist ending. BLOOD FREAK is still bad but it's not as bad as if the character had actually changed into that turkey monster. The hallucination twist is a cop-out of sorts, which robs the movie from being the next PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE.
With that off of my chest, BLOOD FREAK is still inept in every respect. The acting, the cinematography, the dialogue. Everything is strictly amateurish. And the chain-smoking narrator, who is often seen coughing, is probably the stupidest and most hilarious thing ever put on screen. I mean, at least Criswell didn't look sick in PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. Some moments are truly weird, like when Steve Hawkes's girlfriend sees him for the first time as the turkey monster and starts talking about how the people will perceive them as a couple or how their children will turn out is, for a split second, unbelievably brilliant in its total ineptitude. There's a fair amount of violence in BF, including a scene where a man gets one of his legs chopped off. It's obvious the actor has an amputated leg in reality and they simply hired him just so the scene when the turkey monster cuts off his foot looks very convincing.
And speaking of violence, here's my second point: I also have to warn people who don't like to see animals killed on screen. At the very end of the dream, a real turkey is killed senselessly. Personally, I would have easily avoided this scene if I had known about it in advance. It's totally gratuitous and tasteless, but then this is to be expected in low budget exploitation films, even Christian exploitation films. LOL!
In the end, BLOOD FREAK is a must see for all aficionados of bad films. But I have to admit that I was disappointed by the two aspects that I mentioned above.
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Save this one for the alien invasion
Warning: Spoilers
*SPOILER ALERT* *SPOILER ALERT*
When the aliens land on Earth and ask me what mankind has accomplished, I will show them "Blood Freak". The Earth will then be vaporized. We were hopeless. We made a movie like Blood Freak and called it entertainment. It was for our own good.
I was going to take a sledgehammer to this video but decided against it. It's so over the top "WOW!" bad that it needs to be preserved for the upcoming alien invasion. Maybe put into a time capsule to be dug up in the future. It is in a class all its own. Good Lord is it bad.
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Horrible but also unintentionally funny
Warning: Spoilers
This is a rare film that has a much higher IMDb score than it deserves simply because reviewers don't know whether to give it a 1 or a 10. That's because although the movie is terrible, it also is so unintentionally funny that it makes a great party film--where everyone can sit around and make fun of how dopey the whole thing is--much like PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE.
The film begins with an introduction by one of the directors, Brad F. Grinter. Frankly, Grinter looks like an over-the-hill porn star--with his greasy hair, unbuttoned shirt and smirk. Plus, every time he interrupts the film with his irrelevant musings, he's chain smoking. Practically everything he says during each interruption is pointless and his delivery is so bad, he's the funniest thing about the film. I especially loved near the end of the film where he's going off on the evils of drugs--yet at the same time he's practically coughing up a lung due to his continual smoking. Think about it--he doesn't even bother to put down his cigarette to do these short segments and when the tape is messed up by coughing fits, they don't even bother to re-shoot these scenes. Talk about incompetence!
The rest of the film is a confusing mess. It begins with a woman having a flat tire and a biker stopping to help. She takes him home and your brain already starts to hurt. She says she's a good Christian lady yet she lives with her sexy sister who is a drug-addicted nympho who throws wild parties. And the audience is then treated to Bible reading and confusing theological lessons from this lady to the biker--in the midst of a party where everyone else is doing inhalants and pot!
The nympho sister makes it her mission in life to get the biker to take drugs and do the naked limbo with her. He seems like a nice guy and so far has adamantly refused any drug. However, after the sisters ask him to live with them (which makes sense for the nympho but not for the Bible-thumper), he agrees to take a few hits of pot solely because the nympho dares him to. Unbeknownst to him, the pot is laced with something strange and addictive--the results of which you'll hear more about in a moment.
The next day, he goes to his new job at the poultry farm. Two "scientists" who work there have gotten him to agree to be a guinea pig and eat a batch of turkey laced with some "harmless chemicals". However, after consuming practically an entire turkey, he goes into convulsions and the combination of the drugs in the turkey and the crap he smoked the day before have an unforeseen result--he turns into a combination turkey and vampire!! Seeing this guy run about for the next 20 minutes wearing a very cheesy turkey head as he rips open women's throats in order to drink their blood is something I'll never forget and might just be one of the silliest things in film history.
So, from the plot, it's pretty easy to see how this could all be rather funny. Combining that with poor acting (mostly from the supporting actors), lousy camera work and dialog that it laughable, it's pretty obviously why I gave this turkey a 1. My advice is that if you can't laugh at bad films, don't watch. However, if you are like me and love to occasionally laugh at such ineptness, try this film!
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Blood Freak
Warning: Spoilers
A buff, but gentlemanly, biker rides into the life of two sisters, one a Born-Again Christian, the other a heavy partyer who enjoys smoking pot and having a good time. Thanks to some kind support from his Christian pal, an employer at a poultry farm gives him a job. Hershell(Steve Hawkes, who also co-wrote, co-produced and co-directed)agrees to eat experimented turkey(?!)and suffers such an illness it causes him to fall unconscious. Before taking the job, he fell under the spell of the care-free sister, smoking some pot with her which re-awakened a habit he suffered in Vietnam after an arm injury. Coupled with the experimental meat, it seems Herschell is effected drastically..he grows a turkey head! Any woman in the surrounding area other than the two girls Herschell cares for are victims for his blood thirst. Often victims are hung upside down, their necks cut with blood pouring into the beaked fiend's human hands. What will Herschell do? How can he control his craving for blood?
Simply dreadful in every conceivable fashion. I could not find one single aspect of worth throughout the entire painful experience. It's clearly visualized that those responsible for this abomination had no reason to ever make a film in the first place. Those involved should've cut their losses and forgot about ever making this inept travesty. The camera work is simply putrid as is the editing. Some narrator smoking a cigarette is reading off some pamphlet about change or behavior, which really could've wisely(..if any wisdom whatsoever was used during the entire process of this thing's production)been left on the cutting room floor and is merely intrusive(..which, if it were any good, would be a welcome interruption from this vile pile of garbage)bothering us with opinions that irritate instead of enlighten. The beaked, feathered bird head is a laughing stock. It is the icing on the cake and will certainly appeal to those who enjoy the worst kind of films possible. The acting is brought to us by a gathering of the directors' friends, I guess, and they all look about as interested as I was during this whole abysmal experience. The attacks on women are about as laughable as the sawed-off leg of one drug pusher with blood gushing forth. Loud screams are repeated in cycle over and over the scenes of violence which bring chuckles instead of terror or repulsion. If anything brings repulsion it's the camera set ups which often shoot characters out of frame and off-focus. I don't ask for much..just shoot your actors in the center of the frame for Chrissakes! And, the actors often look off as if attempting to understand when they're supposed to talk(..and perhaps seeking help with their dialogue;I'm pretty sure they could've ad-libbed and it would've been just as effective as what they had to say)and where to look. There's a legion of beloved fans for this turkey(..pun intended)and those who enjoy this junk can have it. While others find it incredibly entertaining, I found it pathetic and just plain tedious.
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Must be seen to be believed
I'm kinda torn on how to rate this movie. On one hand "Blood Freak" has some of the worst "acting" I have ever witnessed on film including a chain smoking narrator that constantly looks down at his script who at one point goes into a serious coughing spell that is not edited out at all. On the other hand this is a one-of-a-kind insane combination of drug propaganda, slasher films, monster movies and Christian evangelism that has never been repeated to this day. With both of these factors in mind I decided on a score between the two which is why I gave it a 5 out of 10.
Steve Hawkes is Steve Hawkes as Herschell. Why they choose to show his name twice is a mystery but make no mistake that Mr. Hawkes is the star of "Blood Freak" as he looks like a combination of Lou Ferrigno and Elvis. Herschell is a biker riding the Florida highways when he meets free spirited Ann who becomes instantly smitten with the soft spoken brute. She takes him to a drug party where he meets Ann's sister Angel who represents the straight and narrow path. Her words of warning to Herschell seem to resonate with him yet after one toke he becomes instantly hooked. Yeah, that happens with marijuana a lot. With his addiction growing and the need to satisfy his fix overpowering Herschell agrees to an absurd experiment where he eats turkey meat that has been tampered with by two scientists that are probably the worst of the so-called actors in this movie. Sure enough the infected meat turns Herschell into a turkey-headed beast that must feed on blood. From here he goes on a murderous rampage of neck slitting and leg hacking that takes "Blood Feast" from simple anti-drug screed into a gory hack-n-slash. To say that somewhere along the line "Blood Freak" got lost in translation is an understatement. How this was supposed to bring more Christians into the fold after watching this is beyond me. For bad movie enthusiasts out there this is THE MOVIE that you must see at least once in order to give you a true barometer as to what is considered bad in the bad way and bad in the awesomely bad way. I only remembered to review this when I stumbled upon Steve Hawkes on an episode of "Fatal Attractions" using his real name of Steve Sipek and his dangerous lifestyle of living with multiple lions and tigers. It's good to know that he continues to live beyond the norm.
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Blood Freak'n A!
Warning: Spoilers
Total "Suds & Buds" flick! How's that, you ask? It's a term I use for movies that are best appreciated with a couple brews and... some friends (what kind of "Buds" did ya think I was reefer, oh, excuse me... I meant, "referring" to?). That's not to say this movie couldn't be enjoyed without such things, it just adds to the fun. Now, let's make one thing clear right off the bat, this is not what one would call a good movie. This is CULT. If bad acting, shoddy directing, awful effects and the usual stuff that comes with this fare doesn't immediately turn you off, then tune in, turn on and drop to the floor in fits of laughter! If you're the type to take a movie like this too seriously (or serious at all) then keep walking Jack, cause you're not gonna dig it in the least.
Soooo, here we go! Things start with a burly biker named Herschell (who looks like the love child of Elvis Presley and Conway Twitty) riding down the highway and happening upon a girl (named Angel... subtle) having car problems. He gives her a lift to her sister's place and they walk in on a super swinging 70's drug party. Angel's sister, Ann, gets the instant sweats for Herschell but, he's diggin' on Angel. So what does Ann do? Decides to turn him on to weed (yeah, the hard stuff). The problem is, Hersch doesn't get down like that. So Ann plays the old "You're a coward" card and the only thing Herschell hates more than drugs is being thought a coward, so it's puff, puff, pass! Dude, don't ya think it's kinda cowardly to let someone bamboozle you into doing something you don't want to do? Well, he lays Ann afterward, so it's all good.
Angel hooks him up with a job at a turkey farm were it appears he doesn't have much to do but throw turkeys from one cage to another. But, mystery lurks within the confines of this farm. Chief among them is some weird experiments being performed by the 2 most awesomest scientists EVER, Lenny and Gene! I mean, Gene looks genuinely scared to be on camera. Lenny's not much better but, Gene kills me! He stutters and looks shook as hell whenever the camera is on him. They offer him a bunch of pot if he'll take part in their experiments (oh yeah, it might help to point out that after one joint, Herschell became a total junkie for the Devil's Weed). I've seen this movie a whole bunch of times and I'm still not sure what the hell these experiments are or what they're supposed to do to enhance the already pleasurable experience of eating turkey (unless you're a vegetarian). So, he agrees and starts pounding down tainted turkey like it's the last meal he'll ever eat (no doubt aided by a super case of the munchies).
Would you like to guess what happens next? That's right, he turns into a Tukey-monster with an insane lust for the blood of addicts! Or rather, a guy in a f'd up papier-mache turkey head with an insane lust for red paint that comes shootin' outta poorly placed squibs. Turkey-Hersch goes about his bloody business picking off other junkies (and one old man who didn't appear to be any threat to him). Finally, a couple of Ann's friends (who look like roadies for Grand Funk Railroad) catch up to him and give him a hair cut with a big blade, real close to the shoulders like, which is inter-cut with a scene of a real turkey getting it's head cut off (charming). Why? Got me. I'm guessin' it was an affordable piece of shock value footage.
At this point, Herschell wakes up in the woods and realizes it was all a hallucination (natch). He's found by the old dude that runs the turkey farm (who is named Tom... clever) and he calls Angel. She gets Herschell to beg forgiveness from God, just to drive the point home. Through his newfound understandings of His teachings, Hersch forgives Ann and a happy endings enjoyed by all.... well, except for that headless turkey.
Sounds great, huh? Well, I didn't even mention the best part yet... the narrator! This joker pops up once in awhile to do a little bible thumpin' and preach the evils of drugs, all the while, puffing on a cigarette. At one point (and I'm not sure this wasn't some sorta put-on) he suffers a coughing fit... I mean,on camera.... and nobody yells "CUT!"..... and it wasn't even edited out after filming! AWE-freakin-SOME! Not to mention all the other goodies like the camera man's shadow popping up in shots, editing that seems to be done by a 7 year old on acid and some dialogue so inaudible that if you turned your t.v. up to full blast, you still couldn't make it out. Well, as the narrator would say, "Right on"! I know plenty of people wouldn't understand how anyone could enjoy a movie like this and wouldn't hear of the old "so bad, it's good" excuse but, it's harmless to enjoy it for what it is... which is, the best Anti-Drug/Pro-Religion/Turkey-Monster movie ever made! The Good: The freakin' narrator, man! He's too much! He's obviously reading his lines (and probably doing his "lines") off the desk in front of him, which he tries to cover by making it look like he's just looking down and collecting his thoughts or something. If your in the mood, you'll probably laugh your ass off during this flick.
The Not So Good: If your not in the mood for it, this movie will probably seem like the worst thing ever caught on film. Acting is so below the bottom of the barrel, it's really not easy to describe.However, if you were expecting anything else, shame on you.
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The Missing Link, The Holy Grail, the Urban Legend of Badfilm!
Warning: Spoilers
This obscure regional horror film needs no new champions, as witness the plethora of laudatory reviews here and elsewhere, so I'll just toss in my two cents, because I love the film so dearly. Blood Freak is perhaps the perfect example of magnificently surreal grade-Z/Indie/regional filmmaking of the 1970s, and that is not an assessment to be taken lightly, as the 1970s was the golden age of such gloriously reckless outlaw cinema. Among many of this singular film's delights is uniformly "real" acting by non-professionals, replete with mumbles, flubs, and dropouts. These hardy if underachieving thespians valiantly try to bring to life the surprisingly literate script, and largely succeed, in an endearing "dinner theater" sort of way. The main character - also the co-producer, co-director, co-scenarist, etc., is a hilarious Narcissist who seems to be channeling Elvis Presley via Arnold Schwarzenegger, with marvelous results. The wacky scenario gives ample opportunity for some wonderful, gratuitous gore, over the top and cartoony in the best tradition of Grand Guignol. The editing is excellent, with some downright brilliant montage work. Many scenes which begin in a strict narrative fashion veer off into wild, surreal, inchoate, even hallucinatory revelry, certainly one of the film's main messages as metaphor for the runaway drug experience, yet accomplished surprisingly well here. This editorial brilliance extends to the absolutely magnificent soundtrack, including incessant loops of gobbling turkeys, and most intriguingly for me, at least two scenes where a murdered person's screams are looped endlessly, creating a metaphorical hellscape of biblical torment; these endless screams add a truly hellish aspect to the film. There is of course a most cool turkey monster head which could have come out of the late 1950s, and is used sparingly and to good effect. One of my favorites conceits in Blood Freak is the use of the old exploitation-film cheat of having a droll on-screen narrator blather on for long stretches in order to pad out a short running time - and patch up some glaring plot holes and continuity errors. (Personally, I thought the concept of the narrator rather conspicuously chain-smoking, and subsequently choking to death, was contrived and obvious, but it did deliver the admirable, if heavy-handed message that even lowly nicotine is an addictive and deadly drug too). To top it all off, if you actually pay attention, Blood Freak delivers a surprisingly radical and coherent vegetarian message, illustrating that the killing and eating of animals is an evil act of a degraded culture, and that - duh - we are all animals, all potential victims of the carnivore's knife, and so need to vastly expand our consciousness to abhor the gratuitous slaughter of animals for sport or cuisine. This endearing animal rights message is aptly punctuated toward the film's end in a stunning shot which show various characters grabbing pieces off a freshly roasted turkey, as our Turkey Man looks on in horror, painfully aware that he could easily be that plate on unlucky meat, being carelessly disemboweled by those he thought his friends. Yet even with all this going for it, for me the true brilliance of Blood Freak is it's shameless and casual depiction of recreational drug culture during this time period. Here are college kids, tourists, even apparently dumpy housewives casually smoking pot, snorting crack, and shooting up heroine, as if it were the most harmless thing in the world. The fact that the protagonist becomes a drug addict after smoking a couple of joints (presumably laced with something stronger) signals this as ultimately a conservative anti-drug tract, but as with many such films - even the Christian drug-scare films - on-screen drug use is depicted more candidly and realistically that in many a more "liberal" production. Another such film which comes to mind is the amazing Sign of Aquarius (mangled and reissued for the sexploitation crowd as Ghetto Freaks), one of the most sublime and melancholy depictions of hippie/drug culture ever made, IMHO. Films like Sign of Aquarius and Blood Freak gleefully put art house crap like Andy Warhol/Paul Morrissey's pretentious Trash to shame. Blood Freak is indeed a crappy Grade-Z piece of junk, but it carries the august tradition of folks like Ed Wood and Barry Mahon to awesome new heights. Blood Freak may actually be a perfect example of that rare missing link between home movie and commercial cinema, a film made in somebody's back yard with neighbors and pals, yet still functioning as a marketable commercial product - to some of us, these "almost professional" films are pure heaven. After watching Blood Freak again last night, I just sat in silence and pondered the good fortune which enabled such an extraordinary document of throwaway culture to be made, and even more shocking, to be preserved through the ages to be enjoyed, even today, in a barren world completely bereft of decent new culture.
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A hilariously horrendous camp splatter anti-drug, pro-Christian horror monster hoot
Warning: Spoilers
Brawny Vietnam veteran biker Herschell (a remarkably terrible performance by the beefy Steve Hawkes, who also co-wrote and co-directed this amazing atrocity) befriends conservative, responsible, morally upright good Christian girl Angel. Alas, Herschell gets led astray by Angel's naughty, flighty, immature party hearty sister Ann. Pretty soon Herschell finds himself hooked on bad grass. He also starts working at a turkey farm. Two scientists at the farm give Herschell a turkey stuffed with experimental drugs to eat. This causes Herschell to transform into a lethal and murderous turkey-headed monster that gobbles. Herschell starts picking off sleazy dope dealers and strung-out addicts; he slits their throats open and drinks their blood. Man, does this gloriously ghastly celluloid abomination strike out something rotten in every conceivable way: The plodding (mis)direction, Ron N. Sill's grainy, shoddy cinematography, the cruddy sound, the laughably lousy dialogue, Gil Ward's droning, redundant score, the astonishingly awful acting from a lame no-name cast, the draggy pacing, the crude make-up f/x, and the hopelessly dated roaring groovy rock score are all wonderfully wretched. The scene with Herschell cutting a guy's leg off with a table saw rates as a definite unintentionally uproarious highlight. Another memorable moment happens when Herschell engages in a fight with a hideously homely fat person. Co-director and co-screenwriter Brad F. Grinter also appears on-screen as the preachy narrator who wears an ugly blue silk shirt; at one totally gut-busting point the chain-smoking Ginter erupts into a sudden uncontrollable coughing fit! Absolutely astounding.
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Crying Fowl
What happens when a biker begins taking drugs with some hippie friends, and then begins working at a turkey plant where he then is paid on the side by two turkey scientists to eat chemically treated turkey meat? Why he becomes a hideous turkey-man that likes to drain his victims of their blood and feed on it. To say this film is unique would be an understatement. It is very cheaply made...Steve Hawkes, the director, a writer, and the star, evidently went to the Herschell Gordon Lewis school of film-making...and apparently failed. The acting is very poor, the script is sheer lunacy, and the special effects are non-existent. What is more is that we have a narrator throughout the picture sitting in a smoking jacket and reading from cards telling us about the moral and ethical issues the main character must face, all the time puffing on a cigarette. There is some fairly graphic bloodletting for its day as one man has his leg sawn off and a few girls are hung and their necks subsequently slit. Despite its numerous shortcomings, there is some quaint quality to the film, but be forewarned...this is a TURKEY!
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Not so bad it's good.
I watched this last night, on purpose. With a title like this, there's no chance it was going to be, you know, good, and I'm pleased to announce that indeed it was not. A biker falls in with a drug crowd at a turkey farm and eats some "treated" turkey meat, thus transforming into a turkey himself, as one does. It's a terrible premise, but at least it's a premise. The actor playing the biker, Steve Hawkes, also served as cowriter and codirector, and his comrade in writing and directing, Brad F. Grinter, appears uncredited as the world's worst on-screen narrator. (Because you need a neutral party to clarify why this biker suddenly has the head, but not the body, of a turkey.) What makes him so bad? Not deigning to memorize any of his lines; Grinter instead looks down at note cards every couple of seconds. If he were playing a man giving a speech, I might be okay with that, but he was a man telling the audience what's what, face to face (sort of). Anyway, it looks and is ridiculous, but it pales in comparison to the turkey head that poor Hawkes has to wear. It's ugly, sure, but it's so obviously a papier-mache knockoff, probably bought at a particularly nonselective dollar store. Or whatever would pass for one in 1972. The shoddy costume manages to distract the viewer from the purely amateurish acting and bottom-of-the-barrel script.
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Life Changing
Warning: Spoilers
I'm giving this movie an 8 out of ten because I find it very entertaining. However, anyone thinking about watching it should know it is a terrible movie, very low-budget and amateurish. I happen to be a fan of movies that are so bad they're good, and this was the one that got me into them.
I happened to see this movie for the first time on Thanksgiving night, 2001. I was living in the Detroit area, and a local horror host called The Ghoul happened to be showing it that night. I was flipping channels while over at a friend's house, and we were doing something else, not really paying attention. However, the longer the movie went on, the more difficult it became to look away. I was transfixed by the absurdity. I had watched campy movies before, but something was different about this one. Something about the atmosphere it created, the unusual characters, and the ridiculous dialog and situations.
I eventually ended up buying on the Something Weird DVD, loaded with TONS of great extras. Now, I am interested in finding more movies like it. Because of Blood Freak, I have discovered many other movies that may seem unwatchable, but are actually a lot more fun than the slick, predictable formula that makes it to the theater. I think that my love for movies was broadened as a result.
I realize this is more of a personal memoir than a movie review, but that is mainly what I use this site for. It helps me keep track of the movies I've seen and what I thought about them at the time.
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They Don't Make Turkey-Headed Killer Films Like They Used To...
Warning: Spoilers
BLOOD FREAK is a classic example of cheezy, inept, but fun cult-cinema. Nothing about the film is particularly "good" except for the total ridiculousness of the whole thing - but regardless, it has a fun "charm" to it that fans of drive-in exploit-style films will no doubt enjoy.
Herschell (a nod to the "Godfather Of Gore", Herschell Gordon Lewis perhaps?) is a kind-hearted drifter who comes across Angel, a sexy bible-banger, broken down on he side of the road, and helps her get her car started. Angel invites Hersch back to her place, where Angel's sister Anne is throwing a drug party. Neither Angel nor Herschell partake, but Anne ends up taking a liking to the manly vagabond. Looking for work, Angel hooks him up with a friend of hers for some farm-work - and all is looking well for Hersch, until...Anne tricks Herschell into smoking some drug-laced pot, making him an instant addict, and some scientists at the farm trick Herschell into eating some drug-laced turkey, turning Herschell into a gobbling, blood-thirsty, turkey-headed freak! Talk about a bad day...
I dig these 70s-era goofy splatter films, and BLOOD FREAK is a suitable entry. The turkey-head concept is totally off the wall and is hilariously enjoyable, and there's a few decent splattery moments as well, including a real turkey-beheading at the end. I will say that the pacing is a bit slow, especially in the beginning - and the fact that there were two hot female leads in this that never showed any skin is downright criminal. For these reasons I can't give this one a "great" rating. But I will say that BLOOD FREAK is essential viewing for early splatter-fans, or those that enjoy turkey-horror...7.5/10
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Turkey Droppings On Celluloid
Well, I suppose that one CAN contract worse things from birds than the avian flu. For example, look at what happens to poor Herschell, a musclebound Vietnam vet, in the 1972 film "Blood Freak." When we first meet him, Herschell is hooked on painkillers and soon--shades of "Reefer Madness" (1936)--becomes PHYSICALLY addicted to some kind of superpot (patent BS, to be sure). After volunteering to eat some chemically laced turkey at his new poultry farm gig, he himself grows a giant turkey head and starts to maniacally slay young drug dabblers about town. Like his namesake, Herschell Gordon Lewis, he indulges in some pretty gory killings, including slicing the leg off of one drug pusher with a power saw. Anyway, to call this film a giant turkey would be too obvious...and far too generous. In truth, "Blood Freak" has to be one of the Top 10 Worst Films I have ever seen. It is horribly lit (whole segments transpire in near total darkness), acted, edited and directed, and with problematic sound, to boot. The "good" characters are annoying and the "bad" ones are obnoxious; actually, the only character I felt anything for was the real-life turkey who gets his head chopped off in one scene. What little pacing and suspense there are is periodically broken by the director, Brad Grinter, lecturing to us from behind a desk, a la Criswell, about the evils of dope and the implacability of fate or some such drivel; a message that might carry more weight if his film didn't practically demand pot smoking on the part of the viewer just to get through it! Anyway, in the pantheon of bad bird movies, this one makes "The Giant Claw" (1957) seem like high art.
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this film left me permanently damaged
Warning: Spoilers
I've seen this one 7 times now, and I don't know if I'll ever recover. I'm still in a state of shock over it now. Really raw for a Christian movie, really preachy for a horror movie, and for heaven's sake, our hero TURNS INTO A GIANT TURKEY!!! An awful lot of the dialogue is muffled to the point of unintelligibility, which only makes it better. Figuring out just what the heck is going on is a big part of the enjoyment on this movie. The two lab assistants should earn some sort of award as the best characters ever to appear on film - I'll leave it a that. Every single scene is flawed in one way or another. Even the one good corpse, which for a few second looks like an honest to goodness dead body, is ruined when you see the cameraman or somebody's shadow move across the floor. My life was an empty shell before viewing this film. It has become a part of me, something I will carry to my grave. Never before, and likely never again will I see such failure blazoned boldly across my television screen. A GIANT, BLOOD-SUCKING TURKEY!!!!!!
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Gobble Gobble Motherfvcker
Did you say Mutant Killer Turkey? Well if you did, I'm there baby! This is a whacked out, B...possibly Z movie that revolves around anti-drug statements and has some religious stuff going on as well. But besides those boring themes you also have a guy with a Turkey head running around killing and drinking people's blood. Unfortunately only towards the end of the flick does the "action" really start happening. But don't fret, this movie has some of the worst (and I say that in a loving way) acting you can find. A lot of people say they find the movie hilarious. Well I suppose it is damn funny, but it's not funny the entire duration. It's consistently bad, that's for sure, but since you get the idea that everyone sucks at acting and the bland lines won't stop coming, I just wasn't smiling as much as I hoped. Again, don't get me wrong, after the first dinner scene I laughed, but only sporadically. But if you're a fan of gems like Invasion of the Blood Farmers or any other ridiculously bad horror movies, you'll most likely be really entertained by Blood Freak.
So all in all, Blood Freak is probably one of the worst movies I've seen, but it's probably also in the top 5 of my favorite "So Bad It's Good" movies. Probably the funniest thing about this movie is that it was trying to take it self seriously. Imagining Herschel convulsing on the ground is a sight to see. Blood Freak is a must for lovers of Bad films.
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Source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0132888/reviews/
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