The Blood Drinkers

source: The Blood Drinkers

To begin with, let me set this straight: none of the Filipino-made horror films I've seen from the '60s and '70s have been very good. They were local produce through and through, designed to emulate classic pictures coming across from the west on a fraction of the budget. Crudely acted and slowly paced, films such as THE MAD DOCTOR OF BLOOD ISLAND are often laughable by today's standards, employing cheesy scares and an almost total disregard for the likes of pace, plot and characterisation. Yet somehow, in some way, these films have a 'feel' all of their own, something that distinguishes them from western fare or indeed other Asian horror films of the era. Maybe it's the sweaty jungle backdrops or the crude way in which attempts are made to jolt the viewer through marauding beast-men and jarring music on the soundtrack. Once seen, never forgotten is a good way to describe their cumulative effect. THE BLOOD DRINKERS is no different. I rate films according to how much entertainment they offer me, and this one doesn't offer a great deal. The acting is okay at best, and the pace is almost non-existent, with great long stretches of nothing much happening. The vampire plot is a predictable spin on Dracula, with an anything-goes mentality that incorporates a beautiful vampire henchwoman, a crazed hunchback and a sadistic little dwarf. Apart from the old-meets-new climax, in which the vampires are attacked by a horde of torch-wielding villagers and the gun-toting local police at the same time, there's hardly any action here, other than a protracted fight sequence with the kind of exaggerated posturing you'd find in an early STAR TREK episode. Even though this is a bad film, there's stuff going for it, mainly in the film's look. Thanks to a low budget, only a handful of sequences are in colour. Director Gerardo De Leon decided to use this to his advantage by tinting the black and white shots with various red or blue filters, each corresponding with the on-screen action. Red signifies the approach of evil, while blue charts the progress of the good characters. It's a clever touch, and one I found greatly enhanced the film no end. Elsewhere, the influences vary from THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN-style paraphernalia in the vampire's lair to the use of spotlights shining on the eyes just like in Lugosi's Dracula, Ronald Remy, who reminded me of Billy Zane, is an nonthreatening vampire, who reminded me a lot of Peter Lorre in MAD LOVE; perhaps that was the intention. For fans of so-bad-it's-good cinema, there's a scene of a man beating up a dwarf which is fairly amusing, as well as some truly pathetic rubber bats which make the ones in THE SCARS OF Dracula look like the latest animatronic models. Otherwise, THE BLOOD DRINKERS is a film just too dated and too unappealing to be enjoyed by the modern viewer.

A semi-color Filipino vampire film with lots and lots of amazing vampire action. The lead vampire, played by a bald Ronald Remy, is just fine, particularly because he is ALSO a mad scientist, who must steal the heart of his dying lover's sister to restore her. Plus he is served by a hunchback, a dwarf, another cute girl, and the old mom of the two girls he is involved with. I call it "semi-color" because many scenes are black-and-white. Some are full-color, and others are tinted blue or pink. It makes no sense either. A completely innocuous scene of some men serenading the heroine is in full-color, while the hunchback attacking and killing two people, which you'd think would be worthy of at least a tint, is normal black and white. Its like a kid who just found out about filters. The mad scientist, plus the many deformed vampires, all lead to great fun. Sure the movie makes no sense at all but who cares? The giant fake bat (de rigeur in any vampire film) appears to be a fruit bat, rather than a blood-sucking variety, and at least two of the vampires wear sporty shades while flitting around at night. That's a new one. Lots of low-budget fun. If you haven't encountered 60s Filipino horror - this is as good a place as any to start. It's fun to compare it with, say, Mexican vampire movies. Actually I would argue that The Blood Drinkers holds up against even American vampire movies from the 1960s. Nothing we did until Count Yorga holds a candle to this one. (The British Hammer Dracula films, of course, leave the poor Filipino blood drinkers panting in the dust.) Whether you appreciate this movie for its loony qualities, or for its interesting plot and scenery, it's worth a look. It is NOT cheesy in the classic sense, by the way. The actors play their parts as straight as I've seen, and the monsters are certainly not camping it up. Yeah it's weird that there is a dwarf vampire and such, but if there WERE such a thing, it may as well behave like the one in this movie.

An evil genius vampire whose minions include a hunchback, a midget, a hot chick with sunglasses, and a rubber bat tries to save the life of his vampire lover by transplanting her with the heart of her long, lost sister. The sister, inconveniently, is still alive. Plays at times like an Ed Wood movie, at others like a classic, albeit low-budget, horror film. Made in the Philippines, which lends jungle atmosphere, interesting architecture, and enough catholic iconography to satisfy the Pope. Badly dubbed in English, including the fact that three completely different characters are, evidently, supposed to be mute and make the exact same, "Uhn, uhn, uhn," noises in the exact same voice, which is blissfully confusing. Features one singing cowboy scene, Captain Kirk-style martial arts, and a musical score that sounds like it could be library tracks but nonetheless is very effective. The film is sometimes black and white, sometimes color, and sometimes tinted a garish magenta, which actually works to heighten the atmosphere at least part of the time. Anyone who has read this far and is still interested will not be disappointed.

Polished performances, outstanding effects, pathos, delicious and powerful antagonist, nod to spirituality, eerie atmosphere, scary moments, moody, and superb. A feast for cerebral viewers. Inclusion of diversely enabled cast members is an ingenious touch.

Bring your sense of humor and enjoy the hell out of this Filipino vampire flick. To be honest, this isn't a bad movie. And it's so colorful!

"Dr. Marco" (Ronald Remy) is a vampire who wants to revive a woman he loves named "Katrina" (Amalia Fuentes) back from the dead. In order to do that he needs to perform a heart transplant and the only acceptable donor is her twin sister "Charito" (also played by Amalia Fuentes). In the meantime, Dr. Marco must keep Katrina alive and so he has people killed so that their blood can be given to her. Naturally, these deaths cause concern among the local populace which makes it quite a bit more difficult for Dr. Marco to complete his operation. Anyway, what I found remarkable about this film was the unique technique of using red-tinted film to signify the presence of vampires. Rather interesting indeed. Likewise, the heavy use of smoke to imitate fog wasn't too bad either. On the other hand, being originally produced in Tagalog and dubbed into English caused the dialogue to seem a bit flat. Additionally, the heavy influence of Roman Catholicism was probably a bit too strong in my opinion. But this was a movie made in the Philippines so perhaps this was customary during this specific time period. In any case, this wasn't a bad movie but the overall production values seemed to be somewhat lacking. That said I rate the movie as slightly below average.

Sorry to demystify the cinematography but it was a question of COST. Color film stock was prohibitively expensive then and the producers couldn't afford to shoot all the scenes in color. This practice was prevalent in the Philippine film industry in the late 60's/early 70's. I remember a billboard advertising a comedy as "filmed in partly color"(sic). If the visual inconsistencies tended to enhance the narrative and add to the creepy character of the movie, well and good. So, there it is--another mystery gone. Incidentally, it is not widely known that Gerry De Leon was an MD but never practiced this profession. His family was in the movie business and he promptly went into it after graduating from med school.

Gerry de Leon is considered the godfather of Filipino horror and was also the most awarded film director in the history of the Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences' FAMAS Awards. Pretty good for a guy who was arrested after World War II, charged with treason for making anti-American propaganda films for the occupying Japanese forces and Japanese director Abe Yutaka. He was pardoned when it came out that at the same time he was secretly helping the Filipino resistance. Throughout the 1960's, he was paid in American money to make some horror films along with Eddie Romero. Terror Is a Man, Curse of the Vampires (AKA Whisper to the Wind), Brides of Blood and Mad Doctor of Blood Island. He was also the director of the Roger Corman produced Women In Cages, which is a movie that Quentin Tarantino brings up quite often. Otherwise known as Blood is the Color of Night, this movie is all about Dr. Marco, who looks like a Filipino Telly Savalas. He's a vampire who has lost his love and decides to bring her back with the heart of her twin sister (they're both played by Amelia Fuentes). He has an entire group of maniacs to help him, like a somersaulting dwarf, a hunchback and a sexy lady named Tania. And oh yeah - a whole bunch of people he has brought back from the grave. This is probably the most Catholic horror movie I've ever seen, as it stops dead to explain how the Church is the only way that this horror can be stopped. Originally entitled Kulay Dugo Ang Gabi, this movie played the U.S. twice, first as The Blood Drinkers on a double bill with The Black Cat before it came back again as The Vampire People along with Beast of Blood. The reason why I think everyone should watch this is that it starts out sometimes in color - which at the time was really expensive - and then goes to neon-tinted black and white. Throw in some fog and scenes where it goes from blue to red to color and you have the kind of movie that I get so excited about that I bounce all over our movie room. Also, the whole thing is dubbed, so it really feels like it didn't come from another country, but an entirely different plane of existence so far beyond our own.

Artful cinema where creativity triumphs handsomely over obviously limited means, presented as a morality play of Good vs Evil, with the mortal Children of God in constant peril from vampire Minions of Satan. Billed as Phillipines' first color vampire picture, it's not a typical color picture, but color film sequences interpolated between single color tinted black and white for economy's sake, yet manages to define a singular style of its own, the tints of the changing hues a visual complement to the rise and fall of the changing moods as the plot unfolds. This over exquisite images, beautifully composed, starkly lit, cleverly angled and expertly edited. Ronald Remy as Dr. Marco creates a distinctive hyper-real villain in the tradition of Karloff and Lugosi, before they became self-caricatures. As the object of his desire, Amalia Fuentes is the epitome of both spiritual innocence and physical sensuality at once. Mary Walter also stands out with the proper hauteur for the character of Dona Marissa. Good acting wins out over poor dubbing overall. Gore effects are restrained, and that much more effective for it. For fun there are the usual monster and dwarf among Marco's retinue, a classic red Oldsmobile convertible to ride around in, and, in stark contrast to the Doctor's scary menace, unintended comic relief from his glaringly phony attack bat. .The climax builds almost 15 minutes, to a frenzy that includes a religious procession of the faithful, an army of cops firing off flares, and a gang of villagers armed with the requisite torches to drive the Evil off the face of the earth and back to its netherworld. Sublime.