Blood Suckers (1970) * (out of 4) When a friend of theirs goes missing, a group travels to Greece to look for him. They are being led by Derek (Patrick Macnee) but soon they realize that they're up against something much bigger than him. It appears the friend got involved with a beautiful woman who may be part of a vampire cult.BLOOD SUCKERS is known under several different titles including INCENSE OF THE DAMNED and FREEDOM SEEKERS. No matter what you call this film the only thing that remains true is the fact that it's a major disappointment and it should have been much better. With that said, the film set unreleased a couple years before it was eventually given an American drive-in release with BLOOD THIRST but there's no question that the shelf is where it belongs.I will at least give the film credit for trying to be something more than a low-rent horror picture as there's a lot of discussions about various subjects. The idea that vampires are connected to some sort of sexual disorder is an interesting idea but there's just not much done with it. The film is poorly put together and it just has a very cheap look and feel to it. The film is ugly to look at and there's just nothing here that makes for a good picture.What's worse is that there's a pretty good cast wasted here including Macnee who is giving it his all but there's just not much here. Peter Cushing appears at the start and the end of the film and is good too but it have very little impact on the final film. BLOOD SUCKERS is pretty much dead on arrival and what little horror there is doesn't make up for all the bad stuff.

Blood Suckers is a bit of an oddity really. On the surface it looks like yet another typical British horror movie from the early 70's. A little bit of the occult, some nudity and starring Peter Cushing. But, in all honesty, it's not that typical at all. Despite having a pretty impressive cast – Patrick Macnee (The Avengers), Patrick Mower (The Devil Rides Out), Edward Woodward (The Wicker Man) and Cushing – it doesn't really utilise them very well at all. Cushing is in it at the beginning and end but doesn't really register; Patrick Macnee is killed half way through, Woodward has an uninteresting cameo role, while Mower seems to sleep-walk through his role. Technically the film itself is, at best, a little haphazard. It appears to have been edited together using a hack-saw, while the storyline could charitably be described as a little confused and unfocused. In fact it begins with the kind of voice-over that is normally used to cover for the fact that a lot of material was not filmed; seemingly the film ran into some difficulties so this may explain this.Having said all this it is a little unusual and that does garner it some points. The story of the are-they-or-aren't-they vampires is a little different, if admittedly not all that successfully told. The varied locations do offer something a little different to the norm too, although it does feel more like an action-adventure than an actual horror film a lot of the time. So, it's a mess but a mess not without some interest. Also, on the DVD release I saw, the deleted scene was an extended psychedelic orgy which was completely removed for some unfathomable reason; it would have easily have been the best sequence in the film proper if it had been included.

Yes, "Incense for the Damned" is a rather shoddy piece of work; you can tell that right from the off with the ludicrous choice of yellow lettering against a grey background for the title sequence.However, there are hints of what might have been; as David Pirie in the "Time Out" Film Guide and other commentators here have argued, a Roman Polanski or Mario Bava could have done great things with the basic material and with more adept use of a budget. Robert Hartford-Davis (who went on to disown this film) does not marshal whatever meagre resources were available to him with any panache. In fact, technically it is a mix of the ludicrous and laughable: the aforementioned titles, endless half-hearted scenes of fisticuffs and one of the most inane voice-overs in the history of cinema, dispensing exposition with all the perfunctory baldness of Iain Duncan Smith on auto-pilot. "Sunset Boulevard" and William Holden this is most definitely not! It is a shame that so much is bungled and botched; there was scope for an enjoyable occult romp, and potential even for an edgier exploration of vampirism and sexuality. The all-too-brief scene with 'guest star' Edward Woodward hints at a much more interesting film, with his straight-faced thoughts on the links between vampires and masochism: 'Sado-masochism, my dear man, is no joke [...] Some get their excitement from statues, what we call the Pygmalion syndrome. Other men can only make love in a coffin..." There is nothing as interesting in the way the narrative is developed, with Imogen Hassall's voluptuous Chriseis entirely uncharacterised, and the enigma of Patrick Mower's protagonist Richard Fountain untapped.The premise has promise: young Oxford undergraduate cannot cope with the expectations and restrictions of university life and turns to the dark arts, in a bid to get revenge against Cushing's provost (who is again an under-developed character with little screen time) and the system. This theme only comes into focus with Fountain's outburst at the University 'formal', and then the effect is bewildering rather than illuminating, as one might expect it to be in Simon Raven's original novel. Mower is given poetic, pithy lines about the dons - "smooth deceivers in scarlet gowns" - but the source of his anger is barely addressed. Little is done with the classical allusions that are occasionally shoe-horned in. We are told that Patrick Macnee's character 'was fond of Greece', but this never comes across in the actual script: another case of Hartford-Davis's "Tell Not Show" approach.The dialogue provided in Julian More's script is a mixture of the sharp and ridiculous, suggesting an imperfect adaptation of the novel, capturing some but far from much of its style. There are hints of a satirical approach not taken up - Cushing's "Bloody socialist ministers" jibe at the then-Labour government. The dialogue is far from the worst problem with the film, however, as many scenes retain an amusement value due to an absurd melodrama inherent in the dialogue; for example: 'You've got your witches' covens in Mayfair, voodoo in Soho! How do you explain that? Logic!? Science!?' No excuse, however, for hoary old chestnuts of hokum like these: "Suppose it was murder..." "I think I'll just go for a walk..." Too often, the film mutates into a tourist video for its Greek settings, and it wastes time on the most tedious 'orgy' you will ever see in 60s/70s British cinema and the many inexcusably risible fight and pursuit scenes. With such a cast and potentially potent elements - sexual deviance, Oxbridge, vampires, anti-establishment - it is ultimately very disappointing. Hartford-Davis was right to disown it, as surely he recognised how much better it should have been. "Show not tell" should have been the watchword. Having said all of that, this film remains watchable; its saving grace being that it is only 79 minutes long, and it does gradually get less boring after the desultory titles and voice-over, with one starting to appreciate that wasted promise.

I'll be a little less harsh than my fellow reviewers here, who all seem to agree that this `Incense for the Damned' is a giant waste of time, effort and film. I can't deny this is a failure in all viewpoints but I'm deeply convinced that the story's potential, along with the talent of the cast, could have resulted in a much better film. Although the screenplay remains faithful to Simon Raven's novel, the film completely lacks feeling and coherence. Small aspects, like the annoying use of voice-over, ruin the horror atmosphere and the occult-aspects are dreadfully overstressed. There's a drug trance/ sexual ecstasy sequence near the beginning of the film and it takes WAY too long! Even Imogen `the Queen of Cleavage' Hassall doesn't manage to keep you fascinated during this tedious scene.But I still stand by my idea that the messy `Bloodsuckers' (the more appealing a.k.a of the film) contains several neat moments of clarity! Like a brief appearance by Edward Woodward, giving us a little insight on the unusual and slightly perverted sexual fantasies of humans… Or Desmond Dickinson's brilliant camerawork on location in Greece. I might even say that the entire substance of the story is excellent horror matter! Richard, a young and respected Oxford student has disappeared in Greece and a group of friends, including his girl, go on a search for him. Richard seems to be under the influence of a beautiful, sexy vampire who even forces him to perform sado-masochism. Believing they annihilated the ravishing bloodsucker, the return to Britain. Yet, Richard's behavior when back at Oxford remains bizarre and alarming… The plot is promising enough, no? If `Incense for the Damned' would have been directed by Roman Polanski, I might have enjoyed a classic status by now. Erotic morbidity is definitely more his field! Or, who knows, in the hands of Italian mastermind Mario Bava this could have been one of the greatest horror masterpieces ever. Instead Robert Hartford-Davis directed it and the only appreciation he gets is when people hear he took his name off of this project afterwards. Better luck next time.