Bloodsucking Freaks (1976) Starring Seamus O'Brien, Luis De Jesus & Viju Krem Written & Directed by Joel M. Reed

Please, give me a break. Torture porn is nothing new, and the current crop is only a lame echo of the glories of our grind house past. I don't even like the term - since what we are talking about are movies that play in suburban multiplexes, next to the latest Shrek or Transformer product. Actual torture porn does not exist, except in Japan maybe, and even that has the naughty bits digitally blurred. Have you ever watched modern bondage porn? It's boring as hell, usually featuring the usual silicone and steroid enhanced pornbots, sterile and devoid of any real sense of danger.

Real, nasty torture movies once did have a home and it wasn't at the multiplex. It was at the dirty, dangerous grind houses of urban America and their counterparts overseas. The genre was known as "Roughies" which sprang to life in the early days of grind house in the 1960s. These were the absolute lowest budgeted movies ever made. Generally all you needed was a dirty basement, a filthy mattress, some tools, about ten feet of chain or rope, and about a half dozen heroin addicted prostitutes. You didn't even need actors, since the director or producer could just stand in for the insane psycho who kidnapped women so he could torture them in his basement. Oh, and that's the whole plot, by the way.

Blood Sucking Freaks (released as "The Incredible Torture Show") is the penultimate Roughie. Released straight to grind houses in 1976, Bloodsucking Freaks passes the sickness test and is headed for the finals of Sickest Fucking Film Ever.

Blood Sucking Freaks tells the tale of Master Sardu, who runs an off, off, off Broadway show featuring the torturing and dismemberment of naked women. He is assisted by the dwarf, Ralphus, and two mostly naked female assistants, who seem like they are about to nod off into opium land half the time. The first hour of the movie features pretty much non-stop torture and dismemberment of naked women, with reasonably decent special effects. Unfortunately, in the last half hour, writer/director Joel M. Reed decided to focus on plot and staged a ballet number, as a result the movie sort of fades away.

The parade of pain is greatly enlivened by the performances of Seamus O'Brien as Sardu and Luis De Jesus as Ralphus. O'Brien brings an over the top, fey flamboyance to his role as the perverted ringleader and De Jesus seems to be genuinely enjoying himself as he administers a variety of horrors to the nude girls. According to director Reed, he and De Jesus double teamed the female lead Viju Krem at the cast party when the movie wrapped shooting. Tattoo of Fantasy Island fame was originally offered the role of Ralphus, he asked for too much money and De Jesus stepped in. Tattoo went on to mainstream fame and De Jesus went on to make porno movies. I wonder if De Jesus looked at Bloodsucking Freaks as the best thing that ever happened to him.

Of course, Bloodsucking Freaks is a hateful movie that brutalizes women. That's what Roughies were, that's all that they were. What critics of this kind of movie should be asking, however, is not why such movies were made, but why were there so many of them produced? Roughies flourished for at least fifteen years or so, finding a regular slot on grind house movie bills, along with sex "documentary" movies, soft-core comedies, and swinger flicks. People like Michael and Roberta Findlay, Bob Cresse, or Joseph P. Mawra kept churning them out, and thousands of sickos bought tickets and plunked themselves down in smelly seats time and time again. Roughies were reliable product, not very different than the endless sequels modern Hollywood churns out today - including the very successful modern torture porn franchises.

In spite of its weak ending, Bloodsucking Freaks has that overall grimy sheen that all good grind house movies share. The first time I watched this movie, years ago, I turned it off in the middle in disgust. Years later, now that I am considerably more jaded, I found it more tolerable. But even so, I personally found the scene where a girl has a hole drilled in her skull by a demented doctor and her brains sucked out with a straw pretty hard to watch. Even O'Brien, in character, flinches at that sight and orders Ralphus to have the doctor killed.

And when you are looking for a Sick Fucking Film, it's the Flinch Factor that matters most.