New York-based filmmaker Joel M. Reed started in the adult industry directing films like Career Bed and Sex by Advertisement. Going into the 70s, he directed Wit’s End, which was finished in 1971 but not released until 1975. He made his transition into horror with 1975’s Blood Bath, which featured early appearances from Doris Roberts and P.J. Soles. Around this time, he was working on a film about a rock star haunted by a groupie’s ghost. Unfortunately, he couldn’t get that off the ground, so he instead made a horror comedy that incorporated S&M and ballet. Initially titled Sardu, Master of the Screaming Virgins, the film was released in 1976 as The Incredible Torture Show. Years later, Troma acquired the film and re-released it, but got in trouble after releasing it uncut with an R-rating. Having become the subject of controversy, the film gained a cult reputation as Bloodsucking Freaks.
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Synopsis
Sardu (Seamus O’Brien) runs an off-Broadway show called “Theatre of the Macabre” with his diminutive assistant Ralphus (Luis De Jesus). Their show mainly consists of them brutally torturing and killing various naked women they get through the white slave trade. During a show, theatre critic Creasy Silo (Alan Dellay) denounces the show and refuses to even give a negative review. As revenge, Sardu has Ralphus and one of his girls kidnap Creasy to torture him for a positive review. To try and elevate the show, Sardu also sets his sights on famed ballerina Natasha Di Natalie (Viju Krem). When she refuses to participate, Sardu forces her to watch as they dismember and kill various women in gruesome ways. Meanwhile, her football-player boyfriend Tom Maverick (Niles McMaster) enlists Detective John Tucci (Dan Fauci) to help find her. What horrors await our heroes as they venture into Sardu’s Theatre of the Macabre?
Review
Bloodsucking Freaks has been discussed to death since its release, so there’s not much that hasn’t already been said. It’s vile, it’s graphic, it’s sleazy, it’s misogynistic, it’s ridiculous, it’s campy, it’s juvenile, and other adjectives. Since much more graphic films have been made in later years, this one is fairly tame by comparison. The gore in this film is about on par with a Herschel Gordon Lewis movie, including the bright red blood. That being said, some sequences are still pretty gruesome even by today’s standards, though most of them are implied. One involves a deranged doctor pulling a woman’s teeth out and drilling a hole in her head to drink from. If nothing else, this film has some creative ways by which they dispatch their victims, which keeps things somewhat original. It’s definitely not for the squeamish, but there’s far worse out there.
This is a somewhat impossible film to review since the filmmakers clearly weren’t going for some sort of artistic vision. They clearly wanted to make a film that featured naked women being tortured and maimed in gratuitous ways. That said, I will say that the film has an almost hypnotic quality to it, like you can’t look away. Also, the film benefits from being filmed in 1970s New York, where every street corner had grime and grit. Acting-wise, it runs the gambit from being pretty bad to somewhat decent, though Seamus O’Brien is easily the best actor. It’s a shame he was killed shortly after making this film because he could’ve been a great character actor. In fact, many of the people involved have died over the years, which adds to its overall mystique. Overall, Bloodsucking Freaks isn’t for everyone, but it’s an interesting footnote in exploitation cinema.
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