BLOODSUCKING FREAKS

(A.k.a. BLOOD SUCKING FREAKS; THE INCREDIBLE TORTURE SHOW; THE HERITAGE OF CALIGULA)

A van drives through New York at night. Its driver occasionally turns to smirk at the gurning lackey beside him. When they finally reach their destination, they struggle with carrying a crate from the back of the van and into a dingy backstreet building.

Inside, well-groomed Sardu (Seamus O'Brien) and his midget sidekick Ralphus (Luis De Jesus) excitedly open up the crate and hoist its contents out with a chain crane: a naked woman.

We're in New York's seedy Soho district. In particular, a back alley fleapit known as Sardu's Theatre of the Macabre. Sardu holds court centre-stage for a small audience who've gathered to watch his latest show, which involves dragging nude females onto the stage and mutilating them before their very eyes.

Celebrity footballer and hairspray endorser Tom (Niles McMaster) is in the audience with his ballet dancing partner Natasha (Viju Krem). He's sceptical about what he's witnessing, putting its realism down to nothing more than some fine acting on the actresses' parts. Also there is "eminent critic" Creasy Silo (Alan Dellay). He's decidedly unimpressed by Sardu's efforts, claiming to have seen much better examples of macabre showmanship at the infamous Theatre du Grand Guignol.

Sardu is incensed. What he's providing is true art - unsimulated at that - which he hopes will one day win him a position on Broadway, and then Hollywood. But first he needs a star performer, and a glowing review for the show he has in mind.

And so it is that he orchestrates the kidnaps of Natasha and Creasy.

Shackled in Sardu's basement, Creasy is starved and beaten while being forced to observe how the maniacal showman trains his captives into performing for him. Natasha is also subjected to watching as women are stretched on racks or whipped and beheaded. All this, in the hope of conditioning her into being Sardu's willing slave and lead actress.

In the meantime, Tom enlists the help of corrupt cop Tucci (Dan Fauci) in a bid to recover his missing girlfriend.

That's the plot, for what it is. Throw in a basement full of caged cannibalistic women, a mob heavy (Alphonso De Noble) who buys white slaves from Sardu on occasion, and a whole host of deliciously depraved extra-curricular activities enjoyed by Sardu and Ralphus (a woman's buttocks are transformed into a dartboard; a board game is enlivened by the use of victims' severed fingers as playing pieces; Ralphus receives fellatio from a freshly decapitated noggin; Sardu indulges in an act of homosexual necrophilia etc), and you have one of the craziest films of the 1970s.

I'm not ashamed to say it: I love BLOODSUCKING FREAKS.

Luridly colourful, gloriously camp, outlandishly grisly - writer/director Joel M Reed's 1976 grindhouse classic may possess all the bargain basement crudeness of a Herschell Gordon Lewis gore film but emerges as far more entertaining due to its unflagging pace and staggering sense of perverse enjoyment experienced by O'Brien and De Jesus.

One of the finest villainous pairings in the annals of horror cinema, these two trade off each other with genuine, infectious glee. De Jesus is rarely without a smile during the entire film, even dancing frantically at times. O'Brien rubs his hands, widens his eyes and grins from ear to ear while purring dementedly saucy dialogue like "Her mouth will make an interesting urinal". Their energy is boundless and true; it serves to deliver the gleefully cheesy script with a perfectly appropriate aroma of the theatrical.

Crude torture set-pieces pop up with alarming regularity. The most famous of these is perhaps the scene in which a doctor (Ernie Pysher) is called in to tend to Natasha's needs, and gets rewarded by being given the chance to suck the brains from another victim's cranium - but not before he's torn out each of her teeth with pliers.

Michael Sahl's score is playful and mischievous, as if almost mocking the violence unfolding on screen. Is it all misogynistic? I doubt it - there's an air of naivety to proceedings that prevents FREAKS from ever being so offensive. Instead you're left with the impression that the shoot must've been an absolute hoot for all involved.

Minimalistic set design, amazing 70s fashions and a real sense of cocaine-fuelled abandon further add to the insanity: check out the scene where a topless Natasha ballet dances in front of a shackled Creasy, for instance, turning sporadically to kick him in the face. Mental. Brilliant.

In the disc's commentary track (more on which later), Eli Roth suggests that the film has serious comments to make on white slave trading and the Universal pursuit of money. These factors are easy to latch on to if you're so inclined. There's no doubt in my mind that Reed intends the film as savage satire. But it's just as simple to enjoy the film on face value, if all you need to take from it is a crazily violent black comedy trip.

88 Films give BLOODSUCKING FREAKS its debut on UK DVD, and present it for the first time anywhere in the world on blu-ray. And, yes, the BBFC have passed it fully uncensored.

We were provided with the blu-ray disc for review purposes.

Presented as an MPEG4-AVC file, the film gets the full 1080p HD treatment. It looks like it's been transferred from the same print that was used on Troma's previous DVD releases.

No major restoration has taken place. So expect scratches and debris from the offset. Things do settle down somewhat after the first four minutes although blemishes present themselves frequently throughout. The print also has a degree of inherent softness but closer inspection of the picture reveals an agreeable filmic texture and nice detail in close-ups (face, hair etc). Blacks do waver in darker scenes but I didn't witness any instances of blocking or compression.

Perhaps the main point worth commenting upon is the right-hand side of the screen which occasionally appears faded and worn. This imperfection will be familiar to anyone who owns the film on DVD, and I suspect it's a result of damage to the original negative - the BFI's release of THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE suffered similarly.

FREAKS still looks noticeably better here than on the old DVDs. Significantly, it's also presented in 16x9 widescreen (the original 1.85:1 aspect ratio) for the first time. Colours are bold, flesh tones are accurate and fine grain has a nice consistency to it throughout. Edge enhancement is never evident.

English LPCM 2.0 audio is a clean and clear proposition.

The disc opens to a stirring animated main menu page. From there, pop-up menus include a scene selection menu which offers access to the film via 10 chapters.

Bonus features begin with the aforementioned audio commentary track from HOSTEL director Roth. Recorded several years ago, before he'd embarked on his own filmmaking career, this offers an odd mix of interesting trivia and tongue-in-cheek non-truths. So as well as learning that a lot of the female performers working in porno (as well as De Jesus, who went on to infamously buttfuck Vanessa Del Rio in THAT loop) and that the film was shot over 6 laughter-filled nights between the hours of midnight and 6am, Roth also tries to persuade us that FREAKS was a huge influence on the likes of STARSHIP TROOPERS and even NIXON.

Most amusingly of all though, is Roth's unintentional confusion as to Dellay's identity. He keeps referring to him as De Noble, even going so far as to say he was soon to star in ALICE SWEET ALICE and would weigh 300lbs by the time he died. Oops.

We also get a 2-minute trailer which uses clips edited from the same print as the main feature. It's different to the longer trailer included on Troma's US DVD of several years back. This one is better.

A 4-minute featurette wherein Roth, complete with amusingly floppy hairdo, meets a couple of the film's participants follows. Cannibal woman Arlana Blue has little to say; Pysher has fond memories of his two days on the shoot. Co-editor Victor Kanefsky also gets some brief screen time. As with the commentary track, this was available on Troma's US DVD (and the German release, I believe) but it's still nice to have it included here.

We also get trailers for some other Troma titles: CANNIBAL! THE MUSICAL, CLASS OF NUKE 'EM HIGH, SURF NAZIS MUST DIE, TROMEO AND JULIET, SGT KABUKIMAN, THE TOXIC AVENGER, THE TOXIC AVENGER PART 2, THE TOXIC AVENGER PART 3: THE LAST TEMPTATION OF TOXIE and DEF BY TEMPTATION.

Less exciting are a port of the usual Troma crap: Aroma du Troma; Tour of Troma; 2 public service announcements; Lloyd Kaufman's 48-second introduction to the film; a preview of his autobiography; the obligatory Radiation March - the usual fluff.

Although not provided for review, it's worth noting that the film comes in a nice slipcase packaging with a choice of three different covers inside its keepcase, as well as a collectors' booklet.

BLOODSUCKING FREAKS looks appropriately worn and grainy on 88 Films' blu-ray. Some may bemoan the lack of a full restoration while others may chastise them for failing to include any new extras outside of what's already been made available on previous DVD releases. But, one moment please ... BLOODSUCKING FREAKS ... uncut! In HD! In the UK!

Also available on DVD.

Review by Stuart Willis