Year: 1979
Duration: 01:31:26
Directed by: Rod Hardy
Actors: Chantal Contouri, Shirley Cameron, Max Phipps, Henry Silva, Rod Mullinar and David Hemmings
Language: English
Country: Australia
Also known as: Blutdurst, Sed, Sete di sangue, Soif de sang
Description: Classic Aussie vampire flick filmed mostly in Melbourne. Though we’ve probably only made less than half a handful of them. Stylewise it’s akin to the 70s Italian giallos.
The only feature film from one time early 70s Aussie TV cop show director Rod Hardy(who over the last 15 years has been directing US TV shows like Battlestar, JAG, X-Files) is a pretty decent attempt at creating a different take on the vampire legend. Though it does dip into Hammer-esque moments in the last third, it was a surprisngly fresh look at the genre.
I saw it at the cinema in 1979 & when it arrived on VHS in the late 80s it was in a horrible colour drained P&S, so it was a revelation when it was finally released (in apparently a long lost original anamorphic 2.35:1 version) on DVD. A few dust & scratches, but not enough to really mention. Considering we didn’t make many of these type of films
The cinematography was by Newsfront/Long Weekend d.o.p. Vincent Monton.
TV star Chantal (The Sullivans) Contouri starred with ex-pom Rod Mullinar (who was incidentally in the Italian Giallo set in Sydney flick The Pyjama Girl Case & who’s wife started Australia’s largest film & tv casting agency), while Max Phipps, who must’ve been in every 2nd Aussie flick & TV Show in the 70s & 80s (Mad Max 2, Stir & The Cars That Ate Paris, et…) also features.
Some imports include Brit David Hemmings & rent-a-yank Henry Silva, who must’ve took time out from making b-movies from all across the globe to basically only appear throughout the film in a very restrained manner. Our Brian (Mad Max) May (not the Queen guitarist) provided the soundtrack.
Review: Chantel Contouri stars as Kate Davis, who is tracked down and kidnapped by a sect who call themselves ‘The Brotherhood’. They believe her to be a long lost vampire Baroness and proceed to psychologically torture and brainwash her to understand her ‘true calling’ as their leader despite her protestations.
The film Thirst takes an intelligent and refreshing approach to the contemporary vampire genre. It rejects the traditional concept of vampirism being a physical transformation of the flesh that can be conquered by religion and turns it into a state of mind. The elitist ‘vampires’ in Thirst have no aversion to daylight, garlic or crosses. They are not even mentioned. Here is a world of rich aristocrats who keep drugged men and women (referred to as ‘cattle’) in farms for a continually fresh supply of blood that is packaged into hygienically safe cartons for distribution to the vampire masses. Not bad for an Aussie movie that on the surface seems like cheap exploitation is it?
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This movie is ponderous and yet oddly amusing.
I remembered watching this on the “Creature Feature” Saturday monster movie show and forgot most of it.
For some odd reason my memory confused Henry Silva with Patrick McGee (The British “Avengers”).
But at any rate, what I remembered strongest of all about this movie was the HILARIOUS Candid Camera type of “Blood Surprises” when the goofy girl drank or ate anything. Bite a chicken leg at the picnic, goosh, out squirts some blood. Drink some milk from the waxed carton in the fridge, full of blood. Bite an apple, splurt, more blood. You’d think she’d have wised up and stuck to eating crackers and peanut butter. For me as a kid, it was more stupidly funny than scary and that Vampire Candid Camera bit stuck in my memory for over 30 years.
The plot was simply, the main character Kate Davis, is a member of the Royal Vampire Bloodline (daylight savings vampires I guess) and she needed to be brainwashed to drink human blood and accept it all as normal. The camerawork is great, the music well-timed, and the acting worked well enough to pad out a fairly thin plot (think of this 90 minute movie with the padding cut out equals a leisurely 1 hour flick or a tightly edited 30 minute show). The problem comes from the overall lack of tension and resistance to exploit some of the inherent funny aspects of “Surprise, you’re a vampire, now smile for the camera and the audience out there…” It is not a awful movie, but audiences these days generally expect a bit tighter pacing or more interesting dialog to fill out a screenplay. It builds up some rather decent tension and anxiety, but then with the plot padding for time, the tension just sort of loses rigidity and flops around like a fish that’s been out of water too long. A fish fresh out of water is all excitement, flippy flop, flippity flop, but let it start to suffocate in air and it just kinds of lays there unless you toss it back into the lake… and that’s the crucial problem with the tension moments in the plot. Great tension build up, great delivery of impact excitement, but then the plot just kind of lingers there, looking bored, whistling nonchalantly until it has to get back on the job again.
It’s worth at least one watch and a shorter jump-about rewatch to let the plot really sink in decently.