Blood Freak (1972) User Reviews

Must be seen to be believed

[Zeegrade · 5/10 · 16 April 2010]

I'm kinda torn on how to rate this movie. On one hand "Blood Freak" has some of the worst "acting" I have ever witnessed on film including a chain smoking narrator that constantly looks down at his script who at one point goes into a serious coughing spell that is not edited out at all. On the other hand this is a one-of-a-kind insane combination of drug propaganda, slasher films, monster movies and Christian evangelism that has never been repeated to this day. With both of these factors in mind I decided on a score between the two which is why I gave it a 5 out of 10.

Steve Hawkes is Steve Hawkes as Herschell. Why they choose to show his name twice is a mystery but make no mistake that Mr. Hawkes is the star of "Blood Freak" as he looks like a combination of Lou Ferrigno and Elvis. Herschell is a biker riding the Florida highways when he meets free spirited Ann who becomes instantly smitten with the soft spoken brute. She takes him to a drug party where he meets Ann's sister Angel who represents the straight and narrow path. Her words of warning to Herschell seem to resonate with him yet after one toke he becomes instantly hooked. Yeah, that happens with marijuana a lot. With his addiction growing and the need to satisfy his fix overpowering Herschell agrees to an absurd experiment where he eats turkey meat that has been tampered with by two scientists that are probably the worst of the so-called actors in this movie. Sure enough the infected meat turns Herschell into a turkey-headed beast that must feed on blood. From here he goes on a murderous rampage of neck slitting and leg hacking that takes "Blood Feast" from simple anti-drug screed into a gory hack-n-slash. To say that somewhere along the line "Blood Freak" got lost in translation is an understatement. How this was supposed to bring more Christians into the fold after watching this is beyond me. For bad movie enthusiasts out there this is THE MOVIE that you must see at least once in order to give you a true barometer as to what is considered bad in the bad way and bad in the awesomely bad way. I only remembered to review this when I stumbled upon Steve Hawkes on an episode of "Fatal Attractions" using his real name of Steve Sipek and his dangerous lifestyle of living with multiple lions and tigers. It's good to know that he continues to live beyond the norm.

Crying Fowl

[BaronBl00d · 3/10 · 19 June 2000]

What happens when a biker begins taking drugs with some hippie friends, and then begins working at a turkey plant where he then is paid on the side by two turkey scientists to eat chemically treated turkey meat? Why he becomes a hideous turkey-man that likes to drain his victims of their blood and feed on it. To say this film is unique would be an understatement. It is very cheaply made...Steve Hawkes, the director, a writer, and the star, evidently went to the Herschell Gordon Lewis school of film-making...and apparently failed. The acting is very poor, the script is sheer lunacy, and the special effects are non-existent. What is more is that we have a narrator throughout the picture sitting in a smoking jacket and reading from cards telling us about the moral and ethical issues the main character must face, all the time puffing on a cigarette. There is some fairly graphic bloodletting for its day as one man has his leg sawn off and a few girls are hung and their necks subsequently slit. Despite its numerous shortcomings, there is some quaint quality to the film, but be forewarned...this is a TURKEY!

Gobble Gobble.

[[e-mail] · 3/10 · 26 October 2005]

I picked up this little turd as part of a 4 pack from Something Weird Video. The other films really helped ease my reservations about this one. I had seen it before. This is one of those flicks I like to put on when my friends come over so I can hear the classic "What the hell are you watching?" from them. The movie drags for the first half (even more so than the usual padded schlock), but when things get going it gets really wacky. The plot is so asinine that I really don't want to get very far into it.

Hershel eats some drug laced turkey meat and turns into a turkey-man who craves the blood of drug addicts; all narrated by a "cool" smoking guy. The movie was supposed to be a pro-Jesus, anti-drug movie, but you need to be a little trashed to enjoy the damn thing. The acting is atrocious, and the camera effects and mis-en-scene are equally horrifying. All in all, if they were trying to be serious, they really missed the mark.

Thank you, Brad Grinter, for letting us laugh at love again

[eminges · 10 January 2002]

After hearing about Blood Freak for years, after preparing myself by collecting over two hundred of the worst movies ever made, after nearly resigning myself to paying a fortune for a copy, I found Blood Freak sitting on a shelf with a cute little green price tag, biding its time, waiting to pounce.

I wasn't ready for this. Read all the other comments and realize that they're not exaggerating in the least. WORST movie ever made? No, that's still got to be Night of Horror. Blood Freak calls for a category not yet invented - the sheer glorious dancing-with-the-angels whack flakiness of Godmonster of Indian Flats or Troll 2, combined with the absolute ineptitude of Night of Horror, Weird World of LSD, or Broadway Jungle. And then add something more, an X factor, the ability to send you off the couch and onto the Karistan wheezing like a busted calliope, like the head of Hitler mugging it up in the back seat in They Saved Hitler's Brain, or the immortal. "The natives call it - Tabanga!" in from Hell It Came.

Yes, it's about mutant turkeys, good Bible preaching, a hair farm named Herschell, and balding cracker dopers, but Blood Freak goes so much further. It has the rare quality of twisting away from you and running off in a different direction, whenever you think you've got it pegged. At half a dozen points in the movie you'll have yourself totally convinced that this is a send-up, that the crazed lounge-lizards-for-Jesus narrator is smirking and winking at you. Then a throat gets slashed, a leg gets sawn off, and you realize that, no, the mutant turkeys that created this farrago are SERIOUS.

I'll give a free kitten to the first person who comes up with the present location of the papier-mache turkey head.

Blood-drinking turkey monster mania!

[capkronos · 1/10 · 8 May 2003]

A very shaky camera follows leatherclad 'Nam vet Herschell (Steve Hawkes) down the Florida turnpike, where he helps Angel, a stranded, bible quoting "seeker of the truth" in hot pants. The two go back to her place, where a hippie drug party hosted by Angel's cute, baby-voiced "far out" sister Anne is taking place. When Herschell ignores the advances of a woman, she informs him, "You' re nothing but a dumb b***ard who doesn't know where it's at, anyway!"

Herschell ends up getting a job at the father's turkey farm, Anne gets him "hooked" on pot and scientists in lab jackets trick him into eating chemicals that transform him into a turkey headed monster that gobbles, hangs people upside down, slits their throats and drinks the blood, all while dressed in flared bell-bottom pants!

One very blood, standout murder scene has a guy getting his leg cut off with a table saw. Some real turkeys are beheaded, too, for additional gore. But the action stops cold when the on-screen, chain-smoking narrator (played by director Grinter) reads preachy, pro-Christian commentary off of cue cards on a desk!

The big, muscular Hawkes sports Elvis hair, thick sideburns and weird, blotchy skin, and is one of the worst actors I can think of. Other cast members flub or forget their lines and often look directly at the camera and laugh! No one is credited with writing it on the version I have (the original VHS copy), but with lines directed toward Hawkes like, "He's strong, he's handsome and he enjoys being attractive to the opposite sex," I strongly suspect he had his hand in there somewhere.

Do NOT miss this movie!

Score: (technically speaking) 1 out of 10 / (for laughs) 10 out of 10!

"All we did was do..give this guy some turkey"

[Cobra-10 · 1/10 · 25 July 2002]

There are very few horror films that could make me laugh as much as "Blood Freak". The cinematography, script, and especially the ACTING in "Blood Freak" are so mind-blowingly awful that I still laugh at it even after seeing it 50 times. My favorite actors are the guy that owns the turkey farm and his two scientists. Their complete lack of emotion and their stumbling over their own lines (among other things) make me suspect that this movie only filmed ONE TAKE of each scene, regardless of mistakes.

I simply LOVE "Blood Freak" and never get tired of it. I even dig the '70s styling and funky soundtrack. There really aren't any other films like this out there.

I highly recommend "Blood Freak" to fans of unintentional hilarity. It is hard to find this film, but it's worth searching for it.

Technically speaking, BLOOD FREAK makes sense

[Maciste_Brother · 1/10 · 19 February 2003]

Spoilers

Okay, I have two things to say about BLOOD FREAK. First, about my disappointment with the twist ending. And second, a warning to those who don't like real on-screen violence inflicted on animals.

Okay, first: I bought the BLOOD FREAK DVD mainly because I love SOMETHING WEIRD DVDs, which are full of extras, and also because I love really bad movies. BLOOD FREAK is woeful. There's no doubt about that. But, and this is only a technicality and I'm not trying to be pedantic here, the story actually makes sense. The thing that everyone has failed to mention is the "twist" ending: that the whole idea of the guy (played by beefy Elvis-look-a-like Steve Hawkes) turning into a monster with a head of a turkey and feeding on addicts' blood is nothing but a DREAM or a HALLUCINATION. The character never really turns into a monster. After the guy takes the drug from the turkey farm, the man has this really bad trip and dreams he's turned into the turkey monster. At the end, he wakes up and realizes that everything was only a nightmare. I was sorta disappointed by this twist ending. BLOOD FREAK is still bad but it's not as bad as if the character had actually changed into that turkey monster. The hallucination twist is a cop-out of sorts, which robs the movie from being the next PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE.

With that off of my chest, BLOOD FREAK is still inept in every respect. The acting, the cinematography, the dialogue. Everything is strictly amateurish. And the chain-smoking narrator, who is often seen coughing, is probably the stupidest and most hilarious thing ever put on screen. I mean, at least Criswell didn't look sick in PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. Some moments are truly weird, like when Steve Hawkes's girlfriend sees him for the first time as the turkey monster and starts talking about how the people will perceive them as a couple or how their children will turn out is, for a split second, unbelievably brilliant in its total ineptitude. There's a fair amount of violence in BF, including a scene where a man gets one of his legs chopped off. It's obvious the actor has an amputated leg in reality and they simply hired him just so the scene when the turkey monster cuts off his foot looks very convincing.

And speaking of violence, here's my second point: I also have to warn people who don't like to see animals killed on screen. At the very end of the dream, a real turkey is killed senselessly. Personally, I would have easily avoided this scene if I had known about it in advance. It's totally gratuitous and tasteless, but then this is to be expected in low budget exploitation films, even Christian exploitation films. LOL!

In the end, BLOOD FREAK is a must see for all aficionados of bad films. But I have to admit that I was disappointed by the two aspects that I mentioned above.

Horrible but also unintentionally funny

[planktonrules · 1/10 · 29 December 2008]

This is a rare film that has a much higher IMDb score than it deserves simply because reviewers don't know whether to give it a 1 or a 10. That's because although the movie is terrible, it also is so unintentionally funny that it makes a great party film--where everyone can sit around and make fun of how dopey the whole thing is--much like PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE.

The film begins with an introduction by one of the directors, Brad F. Grinter. Frankly, Grinter looks like an over-the-hill porn star--with his greasy hair, unbuttoned shirt and smirk. Plus, every time he interrupts the film with his irrelevant musings, he's chain smoking. Practically everything he says during each interruption is pointless and his delivery is so bad, he's the funniest thing about the film. I especially loved near the end of the film where he's going off on the evils of drugs--yet at the same time he's practically coughing up a lung due to his continual smoking. Think about it--he doesn't even bother to put down his cigarette to do these short segments and when the tape is messed up by coughing fits, they don't even bother to re-shoot these scenes. Talk about incompetence!

The rest of the film is a confusing mess. It begins with a woman having a flat tire and a biker stopping to help. She takes him home and your brain already starts to hurt. She says she's a good Christian lady yet she lives with her sexy sister who is a drug-addicted nympho who throws wild parties. And the audience is then treated to Bible reading and confusing theological lessons from this lady to the biker--in the midst of a party where everyone else is doing inhalants and pot!

The nympho sister makes it her mission in life to get the biker to take drugs and do the naked limbo with her. He seems like a nice guy and so far has adamantly refused any drug. However, after the sisters ask him to live with them (which makes sense for the nympho but not for the Bible-thumper), he agrees to take a few hits of pot solely because the nympho dares him to. Unbeknownst to him, the pot is laced with something strange and addictive--the results of which you'll hear more about in a moment.

The next day, he goes to his new job at the poultry farm. Two "scientists" who work there have gotten him to agree to be a guinea pig and eat a batch of turkey laced with some "harmless chemicals". However, after consuming practically an entire turkey, he goes into convulsions and the combination of the drugs in the turkey and the crap he smoked the day before have an unforeseen result--he turns into a combination turkey and vampire!! Seeing this guy run about for the next 20 minutes wearing a very cheesy turkey head as he rips open women's throats in order to drink their blood is something I'll never forget and might just be one of the silliest things in film history.

So, from the plot, it's pretty easy to see how this could all be rather funny. Combining that with poor acting (mostly from the supporting actors), lousy camera work and dialog that it laughable, it's pretty obviously why I gave this turkey a 1. My advice is that if you can't laugh at bad films, don't watch. However, if you are like me and love to occasionally laugh at such ineptness, try this film!

Oh my God, this is bad!

[misko3000 · 1/10 · 17 May 2004]

I consider myself to be an authority on Bad Horror/SciFi Movies. Nothing in this world gives me more pleasure than watching something so terrible it makes you laugh when it wasn't supposed to. I have on more than one occasion thought about writing a book about my love of crappy horror and sci-fi movies. And this has to be the single most horrible thing ever put to celluloid. Not only do the cimematics look like someone shot it with an old pre-video tape home movie camera...

...the monster is a guy in a rubber turkey mask, and is quite obviously a guy in a rubber turkey mask. Nothing else, guy in coveralls and a rubber turkey mask like you get at the supermarket just before halloween. No spirit gum to keep the mask in place, no black makeup around the eyes so you don't see any skin, no attempt in any way to make this look any less than a crappy, cheesy low budget piece of garbage. I loved it! I laughed so hard I almost had an accident. Heck, I'm laughing right now just thinking about this complete waste of video store real estate! Now there is low budget, crappy horror movies and then there is this film. If you want a great laugh and to wonder where an hour and a half of your life went, see this movie.

Blood Freak

[Scarecrow-88 · 1/10 · 2 January 2009]

A buff, but gentlemanly, biker rides into the life of two sisters, one a Born-Again Christian, the other a heavy partyer who enjoys smoking pot and having a good time. Thanks to some kind support from his Christian pal, an employer at a poultry farm gives him a job. Hershell(Steve Hawkes, who also co-wrote, co-produced and co-directed)agrees to eat experimented turkey(?!)and suffers such an illness it causes him to fall unconscious. Before taking the job, he fell under the spell of the care-free sister, smoking some pot with her which re-awakened a habit he suffered in Vietnam after an arm injury. Coupled with the experimental meat, it seems Herschell is effected drastically..he grows a turkey head! Any woman in the surrounding area other than the two girls Herschell cares for are victims for his blood thirst. Often victims are hung upside down, their necks cut with blood pouring into the beaked fiend's human hands. What will Herschell do? How can he control his craving for blood?

Simply dreadful in every conceivable fashion. I could not find one single aspect of worth throughout the entire painful experience. It's clearly visualized that those responsible for this abomination had no reason to ever make a film in the first place. Those involved should've cut their losses and forgot about ever making this inept travesty. The camera work is simply putrid as is the editing. Some narrator smoking a cigarette is reading off some pamphlet about change or behavior, which really could've wisely(..if any wisdom whatsoever was used during the entire process of this thing's production)been left on the cutting room floor and is merely intrusive(..which, if it were any good, would be a welcome interruption from this vile pile of garbage)bothering us with opinions that irritate instead of enlighten. The beaked, feathered bird head is a laughing stock. It is the icing on the cake and will certainly appeal to those who enjoy the worst kind of films possible. The acting is brought to us by a gathering of the directors' friends, I guess, and they all look about as interested as I was during this whole abysmal experience. The attacks on women are about as laughable as the sawed-off leg of one drug pusher with blood gushing forth. Loud screams are repeated in cycle over and over the scenes of violence which bring chuckles instead of terror or repulsion. If anything brings repulsion it's the camera set ups which often shoot characters out of frame and off-focus. I don't ask for much..just shoot your actors in the center of the frame for Chrissakes! And, the actors often look off as if attempting to understand when they're supposed to talk(..and perhaps seeking help with their dialogue;I'm pretty sure they could've ad-libbed and it would've been just as effective as what they had to say)and where to look. There's a legion of beloved fans for this turkey(..pun intended)and those who enjoy this junk can have it. While others find it incredibly entertaining, I found it pathetic and just plain tedious.

Turkey Droppings On Celluloid

[ferbs54 · 1/10 · 15 November 2007]

Well, I suppose that one CAN contract worse things from birds than the avian flu. For example, look at what happens to poor Herschell, a musclebound Vietnam vet, in the 1972 film "Blood Freak." When we first meet him, Herschell is hooked on painkillers and soon--shades of "Reefer Madness" (1936)--becomes PHYSICALLY addicted to some kind of superpot (patent BS, to be sure). After volunteering to eat some chemically laced turkey at his new poultry farm gig, he himself grows a giant turkey head and starts to maniacally slay young drug dabblers about town. Like his namesake, Herschell Gordon Lewis, he indulges in some pretty gory killings, including slicing the leg off of one drug pusher with a power saw. Anyway, to call this film a giant turkey would be too obvious...and far too generous. In truth, "Blood Freak" has to be one of the Top 10 Worst Films I have ever seen. It is horribly lit (whole segments transpire in near total darkness), acted, edited and directed, and with problematic sound, to boot. The "good" characters are annoying and the "bad" ones are obnoxious; actually, the only character I felt anything for was the real-life turkey who gets his head chopped off in one scene. What little pacing and suspense there are is periodically broken by the director, Brad Grinter, lecturing to us from behind a desk, a la Criswell, about the evils of dope and the implacability of fate or some such drivel; a message that might carry more weight if his film didn't practically demand pot smoking on the part of the viewer just to get through it! Anyway, in the pantheon of bad bird movies, this one makes "The Giant Claw" (1957) seem like high art.

Incredible, simply incredible...

[Aleck-3 · 10/10 · 30 August 2000]

Man, oh man. What can one say about this film? There's no denying that it's a *bad* film. Of that we can be sure. But try to pigeonhole it into any other category, and you'll end up with a headache the size of Lake Michigan. What can one say about a movie in which a beefy Vietnam vet (resembling a late-60's Conway Twitty) follows a nice Christian young lady home, only to fall for her sister, get hooked on some bizarre strain of pot, eat an entire "experimental" turkey cooked up by some mad poultry scientists (who themselves are hooked on the wacky weed), turn into the ugly cousin of the San Diego Chicken, and become driven to feed on the blood of addicts? Where else can you see a tender love scene between a young woman and a turkey monster? Where else can you see a man in a bad turkey mask cut the prosthetic leg off of a drug dealer? Where else can you see the most insane bad-movie dream sequence this side of "Glen Or Glenda?" Where else can you see an entire cast made up of what appears to be either Foghat or their roadies? What other film features an almost-constant barrage of turkey gobbles that sound more like pencil erasers on glass? Where else can you see the director chain-smoke on camera, preach against defiling the body with chemicals, and have a coughing fit? Stop reading this review *right now* and track this baby down! I laughed until I wept. It's a beautiful thing.

I can't properly articulate how bad this film is

[mdholman · 1/10 · 23 July 2002]

While watching this film, I found myself utterly stunned. Picture it--a chain-smoking narrator who portrays a god-like role in the film, a killer turkey man, LOTS of late-sixties/early-seventies clothing, and a renegade biker named Herschel. Then, out of nowhere, the film tried to slap me with a baffling and misplaced moral at the end. Rent it, buy it, whatever it takes, but watch it. If you like bad movies, you will love this one.

CULT defined

[lost1-1 · 24 October 2003]

I get so emotional whenever I attempt to write a review about "Blood Freak". The last review I wrote was not accepted by IMDB as I got too out of line and my review degenerated into uncontrolled bantering. Just know that my love for this movie cannot be contained in mere words. "Blood Freak" is a must see by all. The movie itself is indeed a FREAK of nature. You'll never see a movie quite like it unless it's contrived and purposely-made camp. This film is as out-of-control as a serious filmmaker could get and still be trying to make an honest-to-God film with a real message. Never have I seen a pro-Jesus-anti-drug-murder-turkey-mutant-vampire movie. Brad Gritner and Steven Hawkes have succeeded in going beyond laughing-stock into a realm of unparrelled cult statis that which few will ever attain. I wont spoil one minute of this movie for you by recounting any of it, just know that it's impossible to find any movie more deserved of the cult genre than this one. Take the plunge and see this movie!!! You wont regret it!

Life Changing

[jfgibson73 · 4/10 · 2 March 2010]

I'm giving this movie an 8 out of ten because I find it very entertaining. However, anyone thinking about watching it should know it is a terrible movie, very low-budget and amateurish. I happen to be a fan of movies that are so bad they're good, and this was the one that got me into them.

I happened to see this movie for the first time on Thanksgiving night, 2001. I was living in the Detroit area, and a local horror host called The Ghoul happened to be showing it that night. I was flipping channels while over at a friend's house, and we were doing something else, not really paying attention. However, the longer the movie went on, the more difficult it became to look away. I was transfixed by the absurdity. I had watched campy movies before, but something was different about this one. Something about the atmosphere it created, the unusual characters, and the ridiculous dialog and situations.

I eventually ended up buying on the Something Weird DVD, loaded with TONS of great extras. Now, I am interested in finding more movies like it. Because of Blood Freak, I have discovered many other movies that may seem unwatchable, but are actually a lot more fun than the slick, predictable formula that makes it to the theater. I think that my love for movies was broadened as a result.

I realize this is more of a personal memoir than a movie review, but that is mainly what I use this site for. It helps me keep track of the movies I've seen and what I thought about them at the time.

Beyond words

[sb88 · 1/10 · 19 January 2009]

Upon hearing about how awful this movie apparently was, I was ready for an incredibly horrible and amusing ride. I had no idea just how bad it would be.

Writing, directing, acting, special effects and even sound fail on every single level. Watching it, it was hard to believe that such a movie could even be made in a serious manner. It's sheer awfulness will amaze.

It's only redeeming quality is just how hilarious it is. The plot itself of a man turning into a chicken in some bizarre drugs gone wrong scenario and then killing people is absurd enough as it is, but the outfit worn is what makes it truly laugh-out-loud funny.

How bad and hilarious is it? Well, it really has to be seen to be believed. No matter what you're expecting, it'll be worse and, thankfully, even more hilarious.

Such a bad film...wonderfully, unbelievably bad.

[InjunNose · 1/10 · 4 August 2007]

There's little I can say about "Blood Freak" that hasn't been said before, but I will say that I love it for its sheer awfulness. Florida has a strange, tacky tradition of horror film-making, from Herschell Gordon Lewis's gore epics to "Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things" (a forgotten masterpiece of the '60s/'70s exploitation boom) to this movie, which manages to cram an anti-drug message, Christian proselytization, and the surreal story of a homicidal turkey monster into eighty-six short minutes. Speaking of Herschell Gordon Lewis, "Blood Freak" bears an eerie resemblance to the Godfather of Gore's oeuvre in several respects. The amateurishly-staged scenes in which the turkey monster goes on a killing spree were clearly modeled on Lewis's example. Dianne Raymond, whose throat was cut with an electric carving knife in Lewis's "The Gruesome Twosome", appears in this film (under another name, Heather Hughes) as a sexy, Bible-thumping lass who helps everybody get right with Jesus. Hell, even the central character's name is Herschell! (He's played by co-director Steve Hawkes.) Herschell is a beefy, happy-go-lucky, motorcycle-ridin' kind of guy (with an Eastern European accent) who's introduced to marijuana at a party one night. When his supply of grass runs out, he experiences heroin-level withdrawal symptoms and threatens to rip his dealer in half. Then Herschell takes a job at a turkey farm, feasting on large birds to test the possibly dangerous side effects of drugs with which they've been injected to increase their size. Naturally, he gets sick again...but this time around, he falls asleep and wakes up with the head of a turkey. Herschell is now gobbling mad, and he must drink the blood of drug addicts to survive! The above synopsis really doesn't do justice to this film; you have to see "Blood Freak" to believe how horrible it is on every level. It must have been something of a curveball even for hard-bitten drive-in moviegoers. One more bit of trivia for my fellow obsessives, regarding the tie-ins between Florida exploitation flicks: Brad Grinter (co-director and on-screen narrator of "Blood Freak") and Bill Kerwin (aka Rooney Kerwin, aka Thomas Wood; star of Herschell Gordon Lewis's "Blood Feast" and "Two Thousand Maniacs!") both appeared as cops in the closing moments of the aforementioned "Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things".

Not so bad it's good.

[dfranzen70 · 1/10 · 30 October 2019]

I watched this last night, on purpose. With a title like this, there's no chance it was going to be, you know, good, and I'm pleased to announce that indeed it was not. A biker falls in with a drug crowd at a turkey farm and eats some "treated" turkey meat, thus transforming into a turkey himself, as one does. It's a terrible premise, but at least it's a premise. The actor playing the biker, Steve Hawkes, also served as cowriter and codirector, and his comrade in writing and directing, Brad F. Grinter, appears uncredited as the world's worst on-screen narrator. (Because you need a neutral party to clarify why this biker suddenly has the head, but not the body, of a turkey.) What makes him so bad? Not deigning to memorize any of his lines; Grinter instead looks down at note cards every couple of seconds. If he were playing a man giving a speech, I might be okay with that, but he was a man telling the audience what's what, face to face (sort of). Anyway, it looks and is ridiculous, but it pales in comparison to the turkey head that poor Hawkes has to wear. It's ugly, sure, but it's so obviously a papier-mache knockoff, probably bought at a particularly nonselective dollar store. Or whatever would pass for one in 1972. The shoddy costume manages to distract the viewer from the purely amateurish acting and bottom-of-the-barrel script.

Mind blowing.

[latherzap · 1/10 · 29 February 2000]

Love this movie. One of the best bad movies I have ever seen. First saw it six years ago. I had read about it and couldn't believe my luck when I spotted it in the used videos section at the local video store. It's a tale of a vampiric turkey monster, craving the blood of drug addicts. Wonderful.

Aman sized Turkey to anyone but the most ardent bad film lover.

[poolandrews · 5/10 · 13 April 2010]

Blood Freak is set in Miami in Florida where biker Herschell (co-writer & co-director Steve Hawkes who is so good he has TWO on screen credits during the opening sequence!) rides into town, he notices a pretty young lady named Angel (Heather Huges) having car trouble by the side of the road so stops to give her a hand. Herschell isn't much of a mechanic & ends up giving Angel a lift to her sister Ann's (Dana Cullivan) place where she is having a pot fuelled party, Angel is your typical bible basher & frowns upon drugs but before he knows it Herschell is addicted to dope. To earn a bit of cash Herschell takes a job at a Turkey farm where they think nothing of testing chemical laden Turkey meat on human Guinea Pigs, just like Herschell in fact. Not being able to resist some extra dope money Herschell eats the experiential Turkey meat & soon turns into a half human half Turkey creature whose thirst can only be satisfied by human blood!

Written, produced & directed by Steve Hawkes who stars in the thing & Brad F. Grinter who appears as the chain smoking narrator who pops up at seemingly random moments with titbit's of advice, Blood Freak is a quite astonishing film on many levels & is surely one of the incompetent & bizarre films ever commercially released. Where do I even start to describe & review this totally bonkers film? Blood Freak is maybe best summed up as an anti-drug, anti-science religious killer Turkey monster film & the best one ever made at that although at the last count it's the only anti-drug, anti-science religious killer Turkey film ever made. There's some truly hilarious dialogue here, the scene in which Ann sees Herschell as the Turkey monster for the first time & says 'Gosh Herschell, you sure are ugly' just demonstrates a lack of compassion & then Ann goes on to discuss whether their children would look like him! The whole film is quite lifeless & dull, it plods along & even at 80 minutes it drags, it takes what seems like ages for the Turkey monster to show & there's a really bad cop-out ending that just reinforces that drugs are bad, very bad. There's one memorable moment in which a drug dealing rapist has his leg cut off with an electric band saw but otherwise Blood Freak is quite lethargic but it's just so unintentionally funny with hilarious dialogue, bad acting to make you cringe, awful production values & one of the worst monster masks in film history. For me Blood Freak is a so bad it's entertaining sort of film although I suspect most others will just think it's total amateurish crap which to be fair it is (but it's lovable amateurish crap...).

Blood Freak looks like it was shot by people who have no idea how to shoot a film, there's not a steadicam in sight so the camera jerks around like it's in the middle of a gale force wind at times, the cinematography is awful & some of the night scenes are so dark you cannot see whats going on & the sound is poor to with muffled dialogue & silly sound effects. The special effects are poor although the leg cutting scenes look alright since a real amputee was used for it, the Turkey monster mask looks ridiculous. There's a small bit of animal cruelty as a Turkey has it's head cut off & it's twitching headless body is seen. You can often hear the director shout action or other instruction, shots last to long & the actor's look lost too many times & the whole production is quite like no other film I can ever remember seeing.

Shot in Miami in Florida the whole is incompetent & only has it's unintentionally hilarious dialogue, plot, special effects, music & camera work to keep you watching. Apparently the original financiers backed out during production (maybe they saw the dailies) & directors Hawkes & Grinter had to finance the rest of the film themselves, it wasn't money well spent. The acting is terrible, the screams are awful & really irritating & the same one is used over & over again on a loop, couldn't they get someone else to scream slightly differently?

Blood Freak is an amazingly bad film, it's awful in every regard yet it's just so funny, so short & so bad that I thought it was quite entertaining although please, please don't take that as any sort of strong recommendation as this really is awful from start to finish & anyone with any true cinematic taste will not believe their eyes.

Blood Freak'n A!

[TomBofthelivingdead · 10/10 · 14 October 2009]

Total "Suds & Buds" flick! How's that, you ask? It's a term I use for movies that are best appreciated with a couple brews and... some friends (what kind of "Buds" did ya think I was reefer, oh, excuse me... I meant, "referring" to?). That's not to say this movie couldn't be enjoyed without such things, it just adds to the fun. Now, let's make one thing clear right off the bat, this is not what one would call a good movie. This is CULT. If bad acting, shoddy directing, awful effects and the usual stuff that comes with this fare doesn't immediately turn you off, then tune in, turn on and drop to the floor in fits of laughter! If you're the type to take a movie like this too seriously (or serious at all) then keep walking Jack, cause you're not gonna dig it in the least.

Soooo, here we go! Things start with a burly biker named Herschell (who looks like the love child of Elvis Presley and Conway Twitty) riding down the highway and happening upon a girl (named Angel... subtle) having car problems. He gives her a lift to her sister's place and they walk in on a super swinging 70's drug party. Angel's sister, Ann, gets the instant sweats for Herschell but, he's diggin' on Angel. So what does Ann do? Decides to turn him on to weed (yeah, the hard stuff). The problem is, Hersch doesn't get down like that. So Ann plays the old "You're a coward" card and the only thing Herschell hates more than drugs is being thought a coward, so it's puff, puff, pass! Dude, don't ya think it's kinda cowardly to let someone bamboozle you into doing something you don't want to do? Well, he lays Ann afterward, so it's all good.

Angel hooks him up with a job at a turkey farm were it appears he doesn't have much to do but throw turkeys from one cage to another. But, mystery lurks within the confines of this farm. Chief among them is some weird experiments being performed by the 2 most awesomest scientists EVER, Lenny and Gene! I mean, Gene looks genuinely scared to be on camera. Lenny's not much better but, Gene kills me! He stutters and looks shook as hell whenever the camera is on him. They offer him a bunch of pot if he'll take part in their experiments (oh yeah, it might help to point out that after one joint, Herschell became a total junkie for the Devil's Weed). I've seen this movie a whole bunch of times and I'm still not sure what the hell these experiments are or what they're supposed to do to enhance the already pleasurable experience of eating turkey (unless you're a vegetarian). So, he agrees and starts pounding down tainted turkey like it's the last meal he'll ever eat (no doubt aided by a super case of the munchies).

Would you like to guess what happens next? That's right, he turns into a Tukey-monster with an insane lust for the blood of addicts! Or rather, a guy in a f'd up papier-mache turkey head with an insane lust for red paint that comes shootin' outta poorly placed squibs. Turkey-Hersch goes about his bloody business picking off other junkies (and one old man who didn't appear to be any threat to him). Finally, a couple of Ann's friends (who look like roadies for Grand Funk Railroad) catch up to him and give him a hair cut with a big blade, real close to the shoulders like, which is inter-cut with a scene of a real turkey getting it's head cut off (charming). Why? Got me. I'm guessin' it was an affordable piece of shock value footage.

At this point, Herschell wakes up in the woods and realizes it was all a hallucination (natch). He's found by the old dude that runs the turkey farm (who is named Tom... clever) and he calls Angel. She gets Herschell to beg forgiveness from God, just to drive the point home. Through his newfound understandings of His teachings, Hersch forgives Ann and a happy endings enjoyed by all.... well, except for that headless turkey.

Sounds great, huh? Well, I didn't even mention the best part yet... the narrator! This joker pops up once in awhile to do a little bible thumpin' and preach the evils of drugs, all the while, puffing on a cigarette. At one point (and I'm not sure this wasn't some sorta put-on) he suffers a coughing fit... I mean,on camera.... and nobody yells "CUT!"..... and it wasn't even edited out after filming! AWE-freakin-SOME! Not to mention all the other goodies like the camera man's shadow popping up in shots, editing that seems to be done by a 7 year old on acid and some dialogue so inaudible that if you turned your t.v. up to full blast, you still couldn't make it out. Well, as the narrator would say, "Right on"! I know plenty of people wouldn't understand how anyone could enjoy a movie like this and wouldn't hear of the old "so bad, it's good" excuse but, it's harmless to enjoy it for what it is... which is, the best Anti-Drug/Pro-Religion/Turkey-Monster movie ever made! The Good: The freakin' narrator, man! He's too much! He's obviously reading his lines (and probably doing his "lines") off the desk in front of him, which he tries to cover by making it look like he's just looking down and collecting his thoughts or something. If your in the mood, you'll probably laugh your ass off during this flick.

The Not So Good: If your not in the mood for it, this movie will probably seem like the worst thing ever caught on film. Acting is so below the bottom of the barrel, it's really not easy to describe.However, if you were expecting anything else, shame on you.

They Don't Make Turkey-Headed Killer Films Like They Used To...

[EVOL666 · 7/10 · 29 January 2007]

BLOOD FREAK is a classic example of cheezy, inept, but fun cult-cinema. Nothing about the film is particularly "good" except for the total ridiculousness of the whole thing - but regardless, it has a fun "charm" to it that fans of drive-in exploit-style films will no doubt enjoy.

Herschell (a nod to the "Godfather Of Gore", Herschell Gordon Lewis perhaps?) is a kind-hearted drifter who comes across Angel, a sexy bible-banger, broken down on he side of the road, and helps her get her car started. Angel invites Hersch back to her place, where Angel's sister Anne is throwing a drug party. Neither Angel nor Herschell partake, but Anne ends up taking a liking to the manly vagabond. Looking for work, Angel hooks him up with a friend of hers for some farm-work - and all is looking well for Hersch, until...Anne tricks Herschell into smoking some drug-laced pot, making him an instant addict, and some scientists at the farm trick Herschell into eating some drug-laced turkey, turning Herschell into a gobbling, blood-thirsty, turkey-headed freak! Talk about a bad day...

I dig these 70s-era goofy splatter films, and BLOOD FREAK is a suitable entry. The turkey-head concept is totally off the wall and is hilariously enjoyable, and there's a few decent splattery moments as well, including a real turkey-beheading at the end. I will say that the pacing is a bit slow, especially in the beginning - and the fact that there were two hot female leads in this that never showed any skin is downright criminal. For these reasons I can't give this one a "great" rating. But I will say that BLOOD FREAK is essential viewing for early splatter-fans, or those that enjoy turkey-horror...7.5/10

Astonishingly bad

[Leofwine_draca · 2/10 · 13 August 2018]

BLOOD FREAK is an astonishingly bad American indie horror flick with a story that defies description. Basically, drugs are bad, to which end a mad scientist creates a half-man, half-turkey monster (basically a guy with a rubber turkey head) whom he sends out to attack and kill drug dealers. End of story. Yet to watch this film is to wallow in the depths of cinematic ineptness. Every shot has the camera in the wrong place, every line is delivered in the most stilted way imaginable. The cheap gore scenes are quite explicit, but accompanied by annoying looped screaming on the soundtrack, an absolutely ridiculous decision. The running time comes up short too, so we get some old guy coughing and smoking to the camera at regular intervals. This really is the pits.