‘I Drink Your Blood’
Jerry Gross Productions, 1970

starring: Bhaskar, Jadine Wong, Rhonda Fultz and George Patterson
written and directed by: David E. Durston

the plot: A band of devil-worshipping hippies, led by the sadistic Horace (Bhaskar), roll into a small rural town. When a local girl stumbles across them holding a black mass, they rough her up and leave her stranded in the woods. The girl’s grandfather ventures out to the hippies’ enclave with a shotgun and vengeance on his mind, but the beatniks beat him up and give him a dose of LSD to boot. It’s up to grandson Pete (Riley Mills) to get even for his sister and grandpa, which he does by injecting the blood of a rabid dog into a batch of meat pies and feeding them to the hippies. Soon, members of the group go insane, stabbing, chopping and slashing their way through town, and it’s not long before everyone else in town is either infected or dead. As the chaos crescendos, Pete and his family are left to fend for themselves.

why it’s good: Could any movie about rabid, Devil-worshipping hippies be bad? Of course not! “Drink” is easily one of the most high-concept exploitation flicks to come out of the drive-ins of the 1970s. So what if the acting and script are merely competent? That’s better than most of “Drink”’s schlocky brethren, and besides, what else can you expect from a movie about hippies? Durston and his cast are clearly having a good time, and that kind of energy makes up for the (frequent) moments when the pace slackens and the script falls flat. The movie really excels in its over-the-top goriness, especially during the film’s climax when the remaining hippies face off against a gang of rabid construction workers. Limbs fly and heads roll, and, if you’re not too squeamish, you’ll be laughing the whole time at the outrageous excess.

why you should own it: After a long and torturous distribution history and years of languishing on home video as a bowderized shadow of its former self, “Drink” has returned to DVD courtesy of horror magazine Fangoria and Grindhouse Releasing. The film is presented in its uncut glory and is accompanied by a wealth of extras, including deleted scenes and “The I Drink Your Blood Show,” in which director Durston interviews the film’s cast on his back patio.