BLOOD FREAK

Jesus fucking christ, what am I supposed to say here? Where do I start? Watch the fucking trailer while I attempt to think of something okay?

I know right? Now do you see what I was up against? This movie is a real train wreck that should never be watched alone. Plot: Super butch biker dude Herschell (played to grievous imperfection by short lived actor Steve Hawkes) is a lone traveller. There is a tenuous plot point of him being a Vietnam veteran and you only know this because the narrator (who I will get to shortly) and Herschell himself sort of kindainpassingbecauseitdoesn'treallymatter bring it up. He's his own man, cruising the Florida turnpike on his chopper until he helps out a wayward and gorgeous and christian motorist in need of assistance.

This leads him to a drug party where the sexy christian reads from the bible and harshes everyone's high and Herschell gets hit on by her loose moralled sister and a lady who looks like a low budget/no budget version of Karen Black. Not having any of it, he goes back to the christian's house where he meets with her dad, who offers him a job at their turkey farm doing odd jobs. Being a ludicrously butch and muscular type of a guy he dutifully accepts the appointment with gusto.

Of course he winds up being late because the sis keeps hitting on him and shames him into smoking pot and I think having sex. Oh no, what a moral dilema... Oh- I forgot to talk about the narrator! He appears every so often to keep us hip on what's going on with what is an already saran wrap thin story. He looks like a hipper Walt Disney who sits around and smokes in his imitation wood/vinyl laminate office all day reading cue cards off his desk that amount to would-be pithy speeches lamenting the human condition. I'm glad the director knew we needed this above all else, and then not bother to do more than two takes of any of his speeches and likely insisting that he stop mid sentence to light a cigarette and cough a bunch between words for the remainder of the scene.

Arriving and doing some incredibly minor this and that's, he is hoodwinked into an experiment that involves eating some turkey that is infused with some un named chemical that needs to pass FDA inspection. He eats like half the fucking turkey like a champ, and passes out in a seizure behind some bushes a short while later. Here is where the "nightmare" begins- I say that in quotes to delineate between the nightmare portrayed ON film and IN the film. He becomes more and more hooked on pot. Because we al know pot is super addictive and causes you to get the shakes and become violent when you need it and don't have it. As his drug lust intensifies Herschell metamorphosizes into a manturkey beast (that's just a really giant and awful looking mask put on Hawke's body) with a lust for drugs and human blood, specifically blood that has drugs in it already.

Murders commence that feature the same two scream tracks and a drug dealer gets his foot cut off with a circular saw. Check it out:

Herschell's blood/drug lust goes too far, and the potheads are getting pissed having to cover up for him and feed him copious amounts of hard drugs. They find and kill him. Then cook and eat him. Then we flash back to Herschell lying on the ground waking up in a chemical haze- IT WAS ALL A SHITTY LOW BUDGET DREAM. So dad tells the two farm assistants to stay hush hush about the heretofore dangerous and horrifying hallucinogen test they just did. Sexy christian's sister sees the error of her ways, and she walk off down the pier with Herschell as our misbegotten pro christian/uber moral/anti drug/anti sex horror movie rings to a sigh of relief enducing close.

What a shit factory. The first time I saw this I watched it by myself because everyone I lived with was boring. This time I made it through without severe boredom pains because two of my housemates and I watched it and didn't pay that much attention which is the only way one can really be entertained by this. I honestly recommend simply avoiding it all together which cannot be all that difficult for the majority of you.

Movie review aside, I would like to take this opportunity to speak about the short career of Steve Hawkes. He was born in eastern Europe and came to America as a teenager to pursue an acting career, he hit it off in a series of Spanish language Tarzan films which later proved to be his undoing. During the filming of one, the fire on set got out of control and he suffered burns over 90% of his body but was rescued by the lion on set that was trained to cut his bonds for the scene after the crew apparently fled. He had to make  Blood Freak and several other films (which are likely just as grievous and forgettable to view) in order to pay the bills for all the medical treatments necessary. A brief interview with Hawkes can be read here. Due to this experience, he went on to start a private big cat sanctuary, who's website (complete with an ultimately embarrassing spacing error on the home page that he likely never bothered to check) can be viewed here. Its interesting to note that despite being millions of dollars in the hole, he still refuses to open it to public viewing. Here's to you Steve Hawkes, best of luck.