No budget cinematic oddities such as "Blood Freak" are truly things to be treasured. You just don't see their like anymore. Only during this time in film history could one see a movie with a plot this trippy and this offbeat. As it's been said many times before, it can boast the distinction of mixing a pro-Christianity, anti-drug message with a tried and true horror movie premise of a monster on the loose and a generous dose of very tacky gore. And throughout this things' 80 minute run time, the co-director Brad Grinter (who'd directed Veronica Lake in her final film, "Flesh Feast") pops up on screen, cigarette in hand, to wax philosophical on the nature of fate and the importance of catalysts.Beefy non-actor Steve Hawkes - who was the other director of this epic - stars as Herschell, a Vietnam veteran / biker who makes the acquaintance of "good girl" Angel (Heather Hughes), a sexy but deeply religious gal. They go to a party where he meets her "bad girl" sister Ann (Dana Cullivan), who helps to get him drugs; in record time he's an addict. Meanwhile, he gets a job at a poultry farm where, among other things, he agrees to function as test subject and eat turkey that's been treated with an experimental drug. The effect? He turns into a shambling, gobbling, mutant turkey man with an enormous papier-mache turkey head. On top of that, he now drinks blood, which he obtains from the necks of various unlucky junkies.A deadly slow pace prevents this from being completely effective, but overall "Blood Freak" is the kind of thing a cult movie lover will want to have the experience of viewing. The audience must be patient, but fortunately this kicks into gear in its second half once Turkey Man is unleashed. Peoples' reactions to Turkey Man are pretty priceless, and Anns' dialogue is delicious, especially when she wonders what the children of her and Herschell would look like. The ladies in this are foxy, the rock score is groovy, and the very clunky nature of "Blood Freak" is endearing overall. One hilarious highlight comes when Turkey Man uses a buzz saw to sever a pushers' leg, and the guy howls in pain for almost a full minute. Grinter adds to the fun when he has a small coughing fit.A true curio, and worth watching for adventurous people.Seven out of 10.

Fresh out of the psychedelic 1960s, "Blood Freak" tries to be many things, but it doesn't know how to do any of them right. It's an ignorant person's attempt at a horror movie, made by someone who doesn't understand the genre, but pretends to be a master of it. To understand Blood Freak is to understand that sometimes, coherence can be fatal.Our protagonist is a stud. Herschell is real American man, in that he's an unemployed drifter who's after the women and after the drugs. And mind you, these are some fine women, and some finer drugs. Drugs so potent, they have a strange effect on Herschell. What do they do? They send him on a bizarre drug trip, which has an even stranger side effect when coupled with the experiments he undergoes as a guinea pig to some inept turkey farmer scientists. What does this mean? Well, all he has to do is taste test the experimented turkeys, but things not-so-quickly become complicated.This movie begins with titles straight out of a Roger Corman picture. Then the movie throws religious themes at you, as well as the occasional interludes of a chain-smoker who thinks he's Vincent Price. The premise is never sure of itself, struggling throughout its runtime to understand itself, but never truly does. It's nudity is softcore to none, it's gore is confusing and contrived, and it's outcome is propaganda, preaching against everything this film fails to accurately misrepresent.The technical quality of this piece is inferior, which compliments the narrative nicely. Had the film been well made, it would just be bad. But it's those inconsistencies throughout that make it feel more like the trip it didn't intend to be, but ultimately was destined to be. The out of focus shots? The unnecessary zooming? The poor lighting? The awkward sound design? The brief and badly timed editing? These "flaws" are essential to the experience that is Blood Freak.

Blood Freak is set in Miami in Florida where biker Herschell (co-writer & co-director Steve Hawkes who is so good he has TWO on screen credits during the opening sequence!) rides into town, he notices a pretty young lady named Angel (Heather Huges) having car trouble by the side of the road so stops to give her a hand. Herschell isn't much of a mechanic & ends up giving Angel a lift to her sister Ann's (Dana Cullivan) place where she is having a pot fuelled party, Angel is your typical bible basher & frowns upon drugs but before he knows it Herschell is addicted to dope. To earn a bit of cash Herschell takes a job at a Turkey farm where they think nothing of testing chemical laden Turkey meat on human Guinea Pigs, just like Herschell in fact. Not being able to resist some extra dope money Herschell eats the experiential Turkey meat & soon turns into a half human half Turkey creature whose thirst can only be satisfied by human blood!Written, produced & directed by Steve Hawkes who stars in the thing & Brad F. Grinter who appears as the chain smoking narrator who pops up at seemingly random moments with titbit's of advice, Blood Freak is a quite astonishing film on many levels & is surely one of the incompetent & bizarre films ever commercially released. Where do I even start to describe & review this totally bonkers film? Blood Freak is maybe best summed up as an anti-drug, anti-science religious killer Turkey monster film & the best one ever made at that although at the last count it's the only anti-drug, anti-science religious killer Turkey film ever made. There's some truly hilarious dialogue here, the scene in which Ann sees Herschell as the Turkey monster for the first time & says 'Gosh Herschell, you sure are ugly' just demonstrates a lack of compassion & then Ann goes on to discuss whether their children would look like him! The whole film is quite lifeless & dull, it plods along & even at 80 minutes it drags, it takes what seems like ages for the Turkey monster to show & there's a really bad cop-out ending that just reinforces that drugs are bad, very bad. There's one memorable moment in which a drug dealing rapist has his leg cut off with an electric band saw but otherwise Blood Freak is quite lethargic but it's just so unintentionally funny with hilarious dialogue, bad acting to make you cringe, awful production values & one of the worst monster masks in film history. For me Blood Freak is a so bad it's entertaining sort of film although I suspect most others will just think it's total amateurish crap which to be fair it is (but it's lovable amateurish crap...).Blood Freak looks like it was shot by people who have no idea how to shoot a film, there's not a steadicam in sight so the camera jerks around like it's in the middle of a gale force wind at times, the cinematography is awful & some of the night scenes are so dark you cannot see whats going on & the sound is poor to with muffled dialogue & silly sound effects. The special effects are poor although the leg cutting scenes look alright since a real amputee was used for it, the Turkey monster mask looks ridiculous. There's a small bit of animal cruelty as a Turkey has it's head cut off & it's twitching headless body is seen. You can often hear the director shout action or other instruction, shots last to long & the actor's look lost too many times & the whole production is quite like no other film I can ever remember seeing.Shot in Miami in Florida the whole is incompetent & only has it's unintentionally hilarious dialogue, plot, special effects, music & camera work to keep you watching. Apparently the original financiers backed out during production (maybe they saw the dailies) & directors Hawkes & Grinter had to finance the rest of the film themselves, it wasn't money well spent. The acting is terrible, the screams are awful & really irritating & the same one is used over & over again on a loop, couldn't they get someone else to scream slightly differently?Blood Freak is an amazingly bad film, it's awful in every regard yet it's just so funny, so short & so bad that I thought it was quite entertaining although please, please don't take that as any sort of strong recommendation as this really is awful from start to finish & anyone with any true cinematic taste will not believe their eyes.

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.