The Thirsty Dead (1974)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Best movie ever!

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Beautiful young girls are kidnapped off the streets of Manila by a death cult that needs their blood to remain immortal.Apparently, back in the 70's the dark streets of Manilla were littered with hot blonde white chicks. They get captured by crimson hooded guys and offer no resistance whatsoever.The movie is fairly typical of these Philippine 70's films. Dark, little real action and the same music over and over, all filmed on grainy high speed over saturated 35 mm.There was a documentary made about these movies recently and apparently, there was little safety on the sets and sometimes stunt men died! I guess Marcos made it very advantageous to make movies here back then because so many cheapo horror/girls in prison films were made there.This movie follows the same format and if you are a fan of the genre because the films are so bad, you'll probably like it. It's a fun midnight movie to laff at.

Several young women are abducted by a mysterious cult located deep in the jungle. Said cult needs the blood of healthy young gals in order to sustain their immortality. While the offbeat premise has promise, alas Terry Becker's lifeless by-the-numbers direction fails to effectively realize the potential of said premise: The pace is sluggish, the tone too serious, there's precious little tension or spooky atmosphere, and the PG rating puts a damper on any tasty gratuitous female nudity and graphic gore. The competent cast do their best with the blah material: Jennifer Billingsley makes for an appealing heroine as the perky Laura, John Considine acquits himself well as charming cult member Baru, Judith McDonnell adds some much needed (and appreciated) humor and energy as brash and cynical go-go dancer Claire, and Tani Guthrie projects a perfectly ruthless quality as lovely, but evil high priestess Ranu. Moreover, the dungeon of withered old crones is reasonably creepy, Nonong Rasca's fairly polished cinematography provides plenty of pretty shots of the lush tropical scenery, and Richard LaSalle's shivery score hits the spirited shuddery spot. Unfortunately, the always welcome presence of the ubiquitous Vic Diaz is wasted in a regrettably minor part as a police lieutenant. In addition, this picture quite simply lacks the necessary spark to qualify as a fun Grade B fright flick. A merely passable time-waster.

Wow...this is one seriously goofy film! You can't help but laugh at the histrionics and costumes used in the low-budget turkey! And you know that if they go all the way to the Philippines to save money in the production it will be a bad film. Fortunately, however, it's also so incredibly silly and stupid that it is worth watching for bad movie fans. You certainly won't be bored with this weird flick--at least not for the first 2/3. Later, it does drag quite a bit! The film starts with four young ladies being kidnapped and taken into the middle of no where. Eventually they learn that they are being held by a weird cult that plans on sacrificing several of them on behalf of "the Chosen One"--one of the girls who is supposedly the reincarnation of their god...or whatever. The elixir they make from the victims' blood will supposedly let the Chosen One live forever...or at least a very, very long time. However, this Chosen One has no interest in killing others for her own immortality and refuses their "gift".The film is so silly and overly serious that you can't help but laugh. But, if you look at the poster art currently on IMDb, you can also see that the costumes worn by the cult members is even funnier--like cast-off clothes from the original "Star Trek" series. Oh, and speaking of "Star Trek", you may recognize Judith McConnell in this movie as a lady who guest starred on a Trek episode, "A Wolf in the Fold".

This movie's main flaw seems to be that it takes itself too seriously. Its skirting around camp, taken in consideration with some moments that seem quite earnestly acted and scripted (however poorly it worked out), becomes an unintentional side-effect. This negates 90% of the reason to watch this movie. It is cheaply made on top of this which detracts even further in that rather than go for a more natural look, they tried for some sort of sci-fi exotica kind of thing and ended up with a office dress party.The plot works fair enough, though it probably would have worked more had they dropped the horror pretenses and moved straight into action/adventure style territory. There is no new ground here.The acting is not always wooden, and has some okay moments, but is largely inconsistent. Signs of grief or panic are often achieved by a far off look or a hand biting scene.All in all, the biggest flaw here (besides a low budget, which they could have worked around, I have seen too many good low budget movies) is that they are tapping into a 1950's era schlock flick flavor, and somehow trying to keep it fresh and end up with a poor mix altogether.