Lisa gave you the poster, now here’s the movie! Happy Turkey Day!
Before you eat all that Thanksgiving turkey, save some room for a real MOVIE turkey about a man who becomes a hopeless pothead, eats some tainted turkey, and winds up turning into a giant turkey craving the blood of stoners! Sound bizarre? You bet your giblets it is! Hosted by YouTube’s “Al Omega”, here’s 1972’s BLOOD FREAK! Gobble, gobble!:
Today’s artwork of the day has a Thanksgiving theme!
Now, it may not be obvious from looking at the poster above but 1972’s Blood Freak is a film that is uniquely suited for today’s holiday. What’s the film about? Well, in short, it’s about a kinda beefy dumb guy who gets a job working at a turkey farm. He spends all of his time surrounded by turkeys. Well, except for the time that he spends smoking dope!
That’s right — marijuana! The weed with roots in Hell!
He takes a few hits off a joint and, when next he awakes, he discovers that he has been transformed into a blood-thirsty monster that has the body of a man and the head of a turkey!
No, this movie is not a comedy. At least not intentionally. However, it is a classic. And so is the poster! Needless to say, the woman on the poster never appears in the film but the artist, whoever he was, did an excellent job of capturing the essence of the turkey monster.
The only unfortunate thing about the poster is that it doesn’t include a picture of the narrator. That’s right, Blood Freak has a narrator. He pops up randomly through the film, sitting behind a desk and smoking a cigarette. At one point, his narration is interrupted by a sudden coughing fit.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Happy birthday, Erin Nicole!
(And if you want to read more about Blood Freak, check out my review here!)
Hi, everyone! It’s Thanksgiving! Well, actually, it’s the final hours of Thanksgiving. In fact, it’s 10:03 as I start this and it’s totally possible that I won’t be ready to post it until midnight so, by the time you read this, Thanksgiving will probably be over and you’ll be in a Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/None of the Above type of mood. Well, no matter…
So, every year, I make out a list of what I’m thankful for and I post it on this site. Today, as I relaxed at my uncle’s house and I listened to all my cousins talking about football, I realized that I wasn’t really quite sure what I was specifically going to mention.
Don’t get me wrong. There’s a lot that I am thankful for. I’m thankful to be alive. I’m thankful that I have people in my life who love me and I’m thankful that there are people who I love. I’m thankful that my sprained foot is much, much better. I’m thankful that it rained today so I would have an excuse not to lay out in the sun and pretend like I’m actually capable of getting a tan. Seriously, I’m a redhead. We don’t tan, we just burn.
And, because this is an entertainment-related site, this would be a good time to mention that I’m thankful that 2015 has been a pretty good year for film. Mad Max, Ex Machina, Sicario, 88, Inside Out…I’m not even beginning to scratch the surface of how many good films have been released this year. As for the bad films — well, The Fantastic Four, Ted 2, and Vacation were all terrible but you know what? None of them did a bit of good at the box office so at least the movie going public is not adding insult to injury.
It’s been a good year and, as a lover of the Oscars, I’m especially excited by the fact that there is no clear front runner. Oscar season is going to be exciting! Sure, it would appear that The Martian and Spotlight appear to be early favorites but neither has dominated. Seriously, this is going to be fun.
So, there’s a lot that I am thankful for but you know what I’m really thankful for? I’m thankful that I have thoughts to share and I am even more thankful that are people out there who are actually interested in learning them. There is nothing more wonderful than the freedom to say whatever the Hell you want. That, along with so many other things, is what I’m thankful for in 2015.
So, instead of coming up with a big list and trying to show off how witty I am, I’m just going to use this holiday to say “Thank you.” Thank you to all of the writers and reviewers at the Shattered Lens. Thank you to Arleigh Sandoc for asking me, 5 years ago, if I would be interested in contributing to an entertainment blog that he had just started. Thank you to all of the writers who were here before me and thank you to everyone who joined after me. Thank you for keeping this site alive. Thank you for keeping this site interesting. Thank you for keeping things lively. Thank you to all of you. Thank you for everything.
Even more importantly, thank you to all of our readers. They you to everyone who subscribes to this site. Thank you to everyone who has ever left a comment. Thank you to everyone who has ever clicked the like button. Whether you’re a regular reader or if you just found us through a google search, thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Whether today was Thanksgiving or just another Thursday, I hope it was a wonderful one for you!
All my love — Lisa.
P.S. Wow, it’s 10:26 and I’m already ready to post. Happy Thanksgiving!
P.P.S. By the way, since it’s Thanksgiving, here’s the NSFW trailer for Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving. Hurry up and get this movie done, Eli!
P.P.P.S. Finally, since it is Thanksgiving, why not read my review of the classic killer turkey film, Blood Freak?
It’s difficult to explain why exactly Blood Freak, a no-budget horror film from 1972, is a movie that you simply have got to see. I could tell you about how it’ll force you to wonder if the movie was meant to be taken seriously or if it’s all just a huge joke. I could go on for paragraph after paragraph about how this movie (and its status as one of the great cult films of the last century) represents one of the purest triumphs of independent cinema and how this movie is one of the few American films to ever come close to Lucio Fulci’s theory of “pure film.” But I fear that even after I do all that, I will not be able to convey just how beautifully odd and wonderful this movie truly is.
So, instead of doing all of that, I think I’ll just tell you what Blood Freak is about.
Steve Hawkes (a body builder who appeared in several Spanish exploitation films in the late 60s) plays an aimless drifter who, as the movie starts, finds himself in Florida. He meets a virginal young woman named Angel. Soon, they are a very clean-cut, chaste couple. As seen in the clip below, Angel even gets him a job working at the local turkey farm.
However, there’s trouble brewing. Angel has a sister named Ann. Ann is Angel’s opposite in every way. Not only does she stay out for all hours of the night with her sleazy friends but she also introduces our hero to a little drug called marijuana.
Soon, Hawkes discovers that — apparently like most of America in the early 70s — he is now addicted to marijuana! (“I have a feeling I’m hooked!” he explains.) Of course, we all know what happens when you mix marijuana and repeated exposure to turkeys. That’s right, our hero ends up falling asleep and then waking up as a blood-crazed man/turkey hybrid, as seen in the scene below (which, fair warning, has some fake blood in it).
However, if that wasn’t enough, there’s one more thing that makes this movie an absolute requirement for any discerning film lover. Blood Freak has a narrator. And our narrator isn’t some wimpy, off-screen guy with a stern voice and a moralistic outlook. No, our narrator is Brad Grinter, the film’s writer and director. Grinter pops up every few minutes, sitting behind a desk and explaining the larger social and moral concerns raised by the story of a muscle-bound drifter transformed into a half-Turkey. Whenever Grinter appears to lose his train of thought (which happens frequently), he holds up what appears to be the film’s script and reads his commentary line-for-line. While he explains why marijuana is bed (Mmmkay), Grinter puffs away on an ever-present cigarette. Several times, he has to pause in his commentary in order to hack up a lung. One of his more inspiring moments can be seen below:
Blood Freak. See it.
(On a related note, I usually love Something Weird Video but I’m a little bit annoyed with them that they’re apparently only selling the Blood Freak DVD as part of an over-priced box set. Still, a used copy of the film on DVD shouldn’t be hard to track down. Why anyone would want to sell their copy of it, I can’t begin to guess but apparently, not everyone recognizes the brilliance of this film in quite the same way as I do. Their loss.)
Through the Shattered Lens 