Blood Suckers [DVD]

Robert Hartford-Davis' Incense for the Damned (currently available on DVD in the UK only under this spectacularly unimaginative alternative title) is, quite frankly, one of the worst films I've ever seen. With a cast that includes The Avengers' Patrick Macnee, horror icon Peter Cushing, The Devil Rides Out's Patrick Mower, and The Wicker Man's Edward Woodward, on paper the movie has potential; it is nominally the story of a young Oxford don who gets mixed up with a modern-day vampire cult in Greece, his subsequent rescue by a group of friends and investigators, and finally his return to England, unknowingly bringing the 'curse' back with him. But such a plot description does not do justice to the film's terrible execution; it is appallingly badly paced, for the most part weakly acted, has a plot that never gels, and suffers most from editing that renders it at best laughable and at worst utterly incomprehensible.
The film's problems can be blamed chiefly on the fact that it suffered from severe budgetary issues (the money apparently ran out during production); a final version of sorts was eventually edited together despite many scenes being unfilmed, a banal voice-over added, and then released only after the director had his name taken off the credits. The worst section of the film is the opening fifteen minutes, supposedly setting up the happenings in Greece, which looks like it was put together by a six year-old using a pair of rusty garden shears and a Pritt stick; after that it improves slightly but still makes very little sense, before the 'story' eventually returns to Oxford for a supposedly climactic closing section that just comes across as pointlessly bizarre. None of the 'name' actors do anything worthwhile here, so if you are a fan of Cushing or Macnee you won't miss much if you avoid this movie; though they are watchable when they are on screen, Cushing merely turns up at the very start of the film, then vanishes until ten minutes from the end, whilst top-billed Macnee is weirdly killed off at the halfway mark. Woodward has just one, very odd, expository scene about two-thirds the way through, whilst 'Medallion Man' Mower is an inadequate central protagonist on every level.
Incense for the Damned would be mediocre at best if it existed in a complete form (only a cretin would think it a good idea for a supposedly serious horror film to feature Macnee chasing the vampiric Imogen Hassall up a mountain on a donkey, or to cast Spike Milligan's stooge David Lodge as a Greek army officer); but in this hatchet-job version, it is unwatchably poor, and ranks as one of the very worst films of the 1960s.

"Blood Suckers", a.k.a. "Incense For The Damned", is not a great movie but it does have its good points and contains certain elements that make it worth a look. For a start, it has an interesting cast. There's the beautiful and busty Imogen Hassall as a sexy, seductive Greek vampire lady, Patick Mower (from "Emmerdale", but he was also in "The Devil Rides Out" and "Cry Of The Banshee" so he's no stranger to horror movies), Horror Legend Peter Cushing, Patrick Macnee (best-known as Steed in "The Avengers") and Edward Woodward (from "The Wicker Man"). The film also makes good use of its Greece and Oxford locations and provides an unusual twist on traditional vampire legends - in this movie vampirism is depicted as more of a kind of sexual perversion!

Sometimes the story becomes a bit muddled and I must say that this film contains one of the silliest fight scenes I have ever seen in any film.... EVER! It won't be to everyone's taste but it makes an interesting alternative to the more traditional vampire films that companies such as Hammer were churning out at this time. The director Robert Hartford-Davis also made the far superior "Corruption".

This has the potential to at least be a decent movie, but its not, its truly awful. And that is despite a good cast, including Peter Cushing (admittedly only in a minor role), Patrick Macnee, Edward Woodward & Patrick Mower.

The problem here is that this version is panned and scanned in 4:3 and only 73mins long. So I suspect this is an old edited TV version of the film. A LOT of sex and violence has been edited out, which wouldn't matter too much, but some of it is critical to the story making any sense (which it mostly does not). According to the IMDB the original version of the film was 87mins long.

Funnily enough in the extras a 5 min orgy scene is there as a deleted scene, which does explain some of the plot. But that still leaves another 5-10 mins missing. I'd advise strongly against buying this as even in its complete form it would be no classic (some of the acting is woeful), in its current form its rip-off.