Thanks for the memories!

not as good as all the hype

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

After a narrator enjoys a cigarette and opines about "change", BLOOD FREAK begins. Motorcycle-enthusiast, Herschell (Steve Hawkes) stops to help a female motorist, named Angel, while two orangutans apparently play guitar solos. Taken back to Angel's pad, Herschell finds himself at a party for "The Worst Actors In The Universe Guild". Lines are delivered as though semi-sentient furniture is learning English as a second language. Preaching and drug-taking occur, while Herschell mumbles a lot, nearly collapsing under the tremendous weight of his pompadour. Angel's sister, Ann (Dana Cullivan), attempts to get Herschell to take a puff of a funny cigarette, unlike the narrator's unfunny smokes. Said smoking man returns to blaze up another cancer stick, while philosophizing eloquently. Then, before he knows it, Herschell is offered a job in the turkey business. Uh oh! Ann won't stop tempting Herschell, and soon enough, he's smoking those funny cigarettes in Ann's boudoir! Herschell's now "hooked on the hard stuff"! More guitars twang as Herschell heads for the ranch, unaware of the horror awaiting him and his gargantuan hair! The gobbling of doom is like feathered thunder! Angel's father, the turkey rancher, is also a practitioner of mad science. His assistants, including Junior Samples, offer some of their culinary wares to Herschell, who accepts immediately. Dear lord above! Herschell eats an experimental turkey, causing him to vibrate like he's swallowed a jackhammer! Once he stops convulsing, Herschell is the monster most fowl. In no time, the lumbering fiend strikes, while Ann keeps company w/ grooving hippies. Herschell kills a victim, and watery, red paint flows, as a woman witnesses it all, screaming the same, wretched scream in a loop! Dope takers are targeted, so that Herschell might have his revenge. More looped screaming! Will the blood-lust never end? Street people join the cast, moving as though they're in a motion picture of some sort. Adult situations happen throughout, for no real reason. If Al Adamson smoked funny cigarettes and owned a turkey ranch, this is the movie he would make! May this be the cautionary tale we tell, on that fateful Thursday in November... EXTRA POINTS FOR: The table-saw-amputated-leg sequence!...

BLOOD FREAK is an astonishingly bad American indie horror flick with a story that defies description. Basically, drugs are bad, to which end a mad scientist creates a half-man, half-turkey monster (basically a guy with a rubber turkey head) whom he sends out to attack and kill drug dealers. End of story. Yet to watch this film is to wallow in the depths of cinematic ineptness. Every shot has the camera in the wrong place, every line is delivered in the most stilted way imaginable. The cheap gore scenes are quite explicit, but accompanied by annoying looped screaming on the soundtrack, an absolutely ridiculous decision. The running time comes up short too, so we get some old guy coughing and smoking to the camera at regular intervals. This really is the pits.

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.

I'm giving this movie an 8 out of ten because I find it very entertaining. However, anyone thinking about watching it should know it is a terrible movie, very low-budget and amateurish. I happen to be a fan of movies that are so bad they're good, and this was the one that got me into them.I happened to see this movie for the first time on Thanksgiving night, 2001. I was living in the Detroit area, and a local horror host called The Ghoul happened to be showing it that night. I was flipping channels while over at a friend's house, and we were doing something else, not really paying attention. However, the longer the movie went on, the more difficult it became to look away. I was transfixed by the absurdity. I had watched campy movies before, but something was different about this one. Something about the atmosphere it created, the unusual characters, and the ridiculous dialog and situations.I eventually ended up buying on the Something Weird DVD, loaded with TONS of great extras. Now, I am interested in finding more movies like it. Because of Blood Freak, I have discovered many other movies that may seem unwatchable, but are actually a lot more fun than the slick, predictable formula that makes it to the theater. I think that my love for movies was broadened as a result.I realize this is more of a personal memoir than a movie review, but that is mainly what I use this site for. It helps me keep track of the movies I've seen and what I thought about them at the time.