What a beautiful movie!

People are voting emotionally.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Blistering performances.

People under a certain age may find it puzzling that once upon a time being gay was considered a very big bad deal, very "infra dig," the utmost discretion had to be exercised. We see that in "Bloodsuckers" where the relationship between the doomed professor and the Senegalese guy (or at least the actor was Senegalese) is just hinted at in the mildest possible terms. Could have been fun to delve into that in connection with vampirism, but then, "Could have been..." could be this movie's epitaph. This was certainly a different "take" on the vampire genre, going the psychological route, even bringing in an "expert" late in the going to explain everything (like the Simon Oakland character in "Psycho") which unfortunately bogged things down a bit. I thought it took a while for "Bloodsuckers" to "settle down" and focus on the story; before that we had a seemingly endless "orgy" sequence (or whatever was supposed to be going on) which dated itself badly with it's "groovy" soundtrack and "kaleidoscopic" special effects—it seems whenever a movie tries to be "trendy," a few decades later it seems ancient. Don't know if it was intentional or not but the action had a kind of clipped, perfunctory feel to it---if you've ever seen the old Monty Python sketch with the military character barking "Right, get on with it"---felt like that a little. (Not surprising that the director disowned it, as per IMDb.) Seemed a shame that the two best actors, Patrick Macnee from "The Avengers" and Peter Cushing from those great old Hammer horror flicks, had so little to do. Imogen Hassall as the Greek vampiress didn't impress me much; since she had hardly any lines, couldn't they just get some hot-looking local Greek chick and let her "strut her stuff"? My favorite scene was probably Richard telling off all the red-robed "toffs" near the end. On the whole I'd say it was worth a look, especially since it didn't cost me any money (a friend gave me a copy to watch).... what I personally found interesting is that a few years before this movie was made, Greece had a military coup which lasted until the mid-1970's, so that sinister Colonel character had a nice built-in "back story." But of course I'm sure the filmmakers had to promise not to put the regime in a bad light to be allowed to film there….

Perhaps I should state at the outset that my only reason for renting out the 1970 British film "Bloodsuckers" is that it stars two of my very favorite English actors, Peter Cushing and "The Avengers"'s Patrick Macnee, appearing in a theatrical picture together for the first and only time. Well, I suppose that helps to explain my double disappointment with this film, a horror outing without a single shiver, and moreover, one in which Cushing and Macnee share not a single scene together. A fairly incomprehensible, ineptly put-together goulash of a film, "Bloodsuckers" (aka "Doctors Wear Scarlet" and the title under which I saw it in its current Something Weird DVD presentation, "Freedom Seeker") turns out to be something of a labor to sit through, and a picture that will truly be of interest only for the hard-core completists of those two great actors.In the film, Richard Fountain, an impotent professor of Greek mythology at Oxford University, gets into major-league trouble when he becomes involved with a hard-partying, jet-set cult while on vacation in Greece, and comes under the mind control of a vampiress named Chriseis. (Fountain is played here by Patrick Mower, who three years earlier had portrayed another hapless Brit who falls under the spell of an evil cult in "The Devil Rides Out"; Chriseis is portrayed by Imogen Hassall, who had appeared with Macnee in the 1967 "Avengers" episode "Escape In Time.") To avert an international scandal (Fountain is also the son of the Foreign Secretary), the British government sends its agent Tony Seymore (Alexander Davion) to retrieve Fountain, and he is accompanied by the professor's fiancée Penelope (Madeline Hinde) and best friend Bob Kirby (Senegalese actor Johnny Sekka, "the British Sidney Poitier," who had appeared with Macnee in the 1968 "Avengers" episode "Have Guns--Will Haggle"). Once in Greece, they are aided in their search by the British military attache Derek Longbow (Macnee, here in his first theatrical film since 1957's "Les Girls"; he wouldn't appear in anything outside of television until 1980's "The Sea Wolves"), while back at Oxford, provost Dr. Walter Goodrich, Penelope's father (Cushing, who also appeared in the infinitely superior horror films "Scream and Scream Again" and "The Vampire Lovers" that same year...as well as the 1967 "Avengers" episode "Return of the Cybernauts"), frets and worries. But even after Fountain is ultimately saved from the clutches of the drug-addled vampiric cult and brought back to England, it would seem that his problems are far from over....As "Maltin's Movie Guide" so correctly suggests, "Bloodsuckers" sports many segments in which narrator Seymore spits information at us in machine-gun fashion to fill in the gaps of what was almost certainly cut footage in post-production. The entire film feels choppy and unfinished somehow, and while all the performers try hard to put the conceit over, Julian More's script sadly lets them down. It is an unfleshed-out mess, dribbling out bits of Greek mythology here, pseudo psychology regarding impotence and susceptibility to vampirism there, in place of a coherent story line. Director Robert Hartford-Davis, whose only other pictures I have seen are the indescribable "Gonks Go Beat" (1965) and the blaxploitation thriller "Black Gunn" (1972), does a lousy job at keeping things coherent here, and those previously mentioned cuts and splices surely don't help. To add to the befuddlement, many scenes are shot way too darkly for home viewing, especially on this SW DVD. In addition, the film seems to pile on weirdness for weirdness' sake; thus, we are treated to an extended sequence showing the cult popping acid, smoking pot, shooting dope, having sex and sucking blood, under stroboscopic lights and via a zooming camera, as well as an hallucination on Penelope's part that signifies...well, absolutely nothing. The film dishes out at least three scenes featuring some well-choreographed fisticuffs, but these are unfortunately undermined by the remarkably cheesy action music supplied by Bobby Richards. On the plus side (and I always endeavor to find SOMETHING to like in even the most egregiously drecky of films), "Bloodsuckers" sports some very nice-looking scenery, both of the Oxford countryside and the Greek islands, and one truly shocking sequence. In this scene, the Macnee character is involved in a literally cliffhanging situation that should stun all longtime fans of the immaculate and imperishable John Steed; a scene, moreover, that is intercut suspensefully with one in which Kirby fights the beautiful Chriseis to the (un)death. But other than this well-done two minutes of screen time, "Bloodsuckers"--or whatever other title you happen to catch it under--does not offer much. It is a film that will surely disappoint the casual viewer, and even fans, like myself, of its two great male leads.As for this Something Weird DVD itself, the good news is that "Bloodsuckers" shares the disc with a 1965 B&W Filipino movie entitled "Blood Thirst," a surprisingly effective, noirish horror thriller set on the streets of Manila. Unfortunately, when viewed back to back as a double feature, it becomes even more apparent to the impartial viewer that "Bloodsuckers" really DOES suck.

An Oxford don (Patrick Mower) goes to Greece to study mythology. Suddenly he disappears and nobody hears from him. A bunch of his friends and fiancée travel there to find him. They discover he is traveling all over Greece--and wherever he goes there's a murder. He's also under the spell of beautiful but deadly Chriseis (Imogen Hassell)...This DOES have some good points. The initial story is intriguing and there is some beautiful location shooting in Greece and a few exciting fights here and there. Also Peter Cushing and Patrick Macnee are in it--they're not given much to do but they're both very good. Also Mower is pretty good and Hassall is VERY good (and beautiful).But the plot gets increasingly confusing (and sillier) as it goes on. When they threw in the vampirism it was badly handled and just too ridiculous to take seriously. There were obvious production difficulties--quite a few scenes just have narration. Also Madeleine Hinde is just horrible playing Mowere's fiancée.Basically though--it's boring! I dozed off a few times...and didn't miss a thing. And, as a horror movie, it just doesn't work. It plays more like an action film or a travelogue of Greece.Not totally worthless (because of Cushing and Macnee) but not really worth seeing. I give it a 4.

Whilst in Greece researching a book on Greek mythology, a young Oxford Don (Mower), falls under the spell of Chriseis (Hassal), a beautiful but sexually perverted vampire who murders her victims for their blood.An oddity in the history of the British horror genre. Director Robert Hartford Davies disowned the picture due to never fully explained production problems, although it has been suggested that the low budget ran out and that scheduled re-shoots never happened. As a result the film was pasted together quickly and it's disgruntled director was credited under the pseudonym Michael Burrowes. The film got a trade show in 1972 but it wasn't given a London showing until 1976.The picture does show a few scars of it's troubled production like when a studio rock is quite clearly seen bouncing off an actor's head without doing him any injury, but it's interpretation of vampirism as a sexual perversion is interesting although there quite clearly wasn't enough time to develop it properly. The location shooting in Greece of Desmond Dickenson is first class and the best performances come from Patrick Macnee (who had just finished The Avengers) as Major Longbarrow, Patrick Mower as the ill-fated scholar and Peter Cushing as Dr Goodrich who put the pressure on Mower academically to such a degree that it made him tempted to join the perverted vampire for excitement.The film has been reissued on DVD under it's alternative title, "Bloodsuckers", featuring a deleted scene which attempted to add drug addiction to the mixture of sex and vampirism.