Incense for the Damned (1971)

Unless you like incoherent exploitation films that focus more on dialogue, you will be bored senseless with this movie. It has very minor interesting bits, but other than that you'll be paying attention to literally anything else for an hour and 20 minutes.

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.

Incense for the Damned (1970) or Blood Suckers (USA), is one of those odd English horror films you find at some rare store. Judging from the extremely bad reviews, I wasn't expecting much but was pleasantly surprised.After a dreadful acid orgy with unpleasant "Zoom ins", I began to think that this film was not going to be typical. It's truly not very good but I found it unique in some ways and it rises above average barely. There were some really wonderful topless women complete with beautiful aureoles, including the main seductress, Imogen Hassall as Chriseis, who is pretty hot. The acting is passable, but the editing and fight scenes are hilarious since they are the old type, 4 on 1 guys who never get pounded or killed off. Patrick Macnee as Derek Longbow adds some class along with Peter Cushing, Edward Woodward.Basically the lack of information regarding the vague seductress makes the film interesting and ambiguous. We are never sure as to what is going on. There's plenty of anti-establishment sentiments that make it seem like the elite academia (led by Peter Cushing as Dr. Walter Goodrich) are actually the "Blood Suckers".

Incense for the Damned is a huge mess. The director, Robert Hartford-Davis changed the name he would be credited as for this movie, and anyone that sees the film will see why he did that.The movie tries to be a horror movie and a social satire, but it succeeds at being neither; it just can't get away from the fact that it's a trashy load of rubbish. The plot is meandering, and is loosely strung together by a narration, which seems more like a way for the movie to save money from it's poor budget than anything else. It follows the story of Richard, an upper class Oxford University student that has got lost somewhere in Greece. A group of his friends then set out to find him, only to discover that he has come under the spell of a female vampire, and then, believing they have killed her, the group take Richard back to Oxford, unaware that he is now a vampire also.This movie bills Peter Cushing as one of it's main stars, but in actual fact he appears in the movie for a combined time of about five minutes. Furthermore, Edward Woodward appears in the film, just before he would go on to make the best British horror movie of all time; The Wicker Man. However, his appearance is little more than a cameo. Patrick Mower, who was in The Devil Rides Out, also appears in the film, and he is an actor that will be best known by British people for his role in the rubbish, yet popular soap opera; Emmerdale. The movie also features performances from Patrick Macnee, who would later appear in The Howling and Alexander Davion, who appeared some years earlier in the British horror; Plague of the Zombies. The cast is very much B-movie, but all are somewhat experienced in the horror genre. The fact that the cast is B-grade is evident through the acting if nothing else; which, with the exception of Cushing and Woodward (both of which also aren't great) leaves a lot to be desired.Overall, Incense for the Damned is a waste of time that manages to be neither memorable nor interesting. I even recommend that Peter Cushing fans skip this one.