Thirst

Once again the fine folk at Hard Gore flex their muscles with yet another deserving release for one of the undervalued Australian genre movies from the good old 70's - a time when horror movies didn't involve CGI and teens in peril, when plot was all and a chilling atmosphere ruled the roost. But with this latest addition, in the form of Rod Hardy's pseudo vampire epic 'Thirst', has my blood red rose tinted glasses taken control?

'Thirst' opens in with great gothic aplomb where we see a young lass awake screaming in a coffin, who is she and what terror has brought her to this moment? Well we soon find out that this is in fact one of those great teaser openings that we used to see a lot in cool old TV shows like The New Avengers et al and after the opening titles we jump back in time to meet said lass Kat Davis (played by Chantal Contouri) as she is spied upon (by no one less than the comatose lead from other Aussie fave 'Patrick') as she canoodles with her lover.

Soon after, when left at home alone, Kate is abducted and flown to a mysterious location where her world is soon turned upside down. No she hasn't been transported to 'the village' (sans another old TV fave 'The Prisoner') but to a 'farm' for a blood drinking brood called 'the brotherhood'. This isn't just any old farm but one where drugged docile teenagers wander around listlessly only to be occasionally taken away for some blood donations to be drank by the so called aristocracy brotherhood.

This is no half baked cult of blood drinkers either as we discover that they are in fact a well organised global organisation with members in many key high positions of power, but what would such a group want with our poor heroine?

'Thirst' is a cracking retro horror viewing experience. As I mentioned at the beginning, this is a film from an era where storyline was everything (these days script seems to matter less and less sadly) and wins my praise more so for it. The storyline is of an epic scale and the scenario of a global vampire society working quietly in the underground is well handled (even more so than Hammer's later less popular attempt during Dracula's death throes at the studio). What also helps is the sum total of the solid direction by director Rod Hardy, Brian May's (yes him again) fine score some great cameos by some genre faves (including the ever excellent David Hemmings and the always chilling Henry Silva, sure Silva's a one trick pony with a great movie face but who cares!)

Like the aforementioned 'Patrick' (which makes for a nice double bill with this one) Hard Gore's presentation is good if not perhaps for some over demanding DVD 'collectors' underwhelming. The anamorphic widescreen image is solid throughout with any image flaws purely down to the source print material (the image early on is dark but that's because the shots are dark, simple as that). The audio is fine also but is slightly low in sharpness during some moments. Otherwise this is an all round decent viewing experience. Extras wise, like 'Patrick' there's the collection of Hard Gore trailers (mostly of other cool retro horror greats) and a nice anamorphic widescreen trailer for 'Thirst' itself. No documentaries, no deleted scene of someone crossing the road, no commentary by some over eager fan boy who had nothing to do with the making of the movie…as you can tell for me anyway the movie is everything when watching a DVD and Hard Gore deliver a solid enough (more so with the nice anamorphic treatment) presentation that will be good enough for any true genre fan.

Old school fans of the genre scene will enjoy revisiting this one and newcomers may also enjoy the opportunity to see what we oldsters where renting out from video stores in the early days of the video boom. It's good to see Hard Gore revisiting old movies such as this and with 'Patrick', 'Turkey Shoot' etc we also get to relish what was a greatly understated Australian genre scene. Nice one, check it out.

Review by Alan Simpson