Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Disturbing yet enthralling

Absolutely brilliant

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

This was made in 1965 but released in 1971 on the US grindhouse circuit - that is why the film "feels" like a 1960s film (some people don't seem to realize this).Grindhouse? Well it's women missing and some found dead... so an American sex-crime specialist has been called in on the case by a detective friend in Manila. It's not overly bloody nor a gore-fest, it's just believed to be sex-crimes and the film was made in the Philippines.It's better than it looks - yes it's a monster that looks like chewed bubblegum that appears at the latter part of the film (you can see that by the poster/video cover) but if you can look past that then you'll find an okay detective crime-horror film. But how does the the blood cult fit into all this? Are they Vampires? Witches? 4/10

From the clothes, hairstyles and black and white film grain it looks like Blood Thirst was filmed in the Philippines by an American production company around the mid Sixties, but wasn't released until 1971 on the bottom of a double bill with British vampire movie Bloodsuckers (1970). Even in 1971 Blood Thirst would have seemed like an anachronistic curio – quaint, and for the most part uneventful, until the ludicrous ending's payoff where we see the film's chewed bubblegum-faced monster. Then, and only then, can I say: baby, all is forgiven.Chubby Vic Diaz (and let's face it, it's not a Philippines B film without the seedily lovable Vic) plays Inspector Ramos, a Makati policeman on the trail of missing hostesses from the Barrio Club, a downbeat tourist trap run by the suspicious Senor Calderon. When the girls turn up hanging upside down and drained of blood from cuts on their arms, he sends for his old friend from the States, a cop named Adam Rourke who, as a New Yorker, is obviously used to seeing ritual murders. Posing as an "Ugly American" on a writing assignment, he goes undercover at the Barrio Club, asks one too many questions, cracks jokes like a proto-Arnie while shooting a would-be assassin, and turns out to be an ill-tempered ladies man with his eye on every Caucasian-looking woman in Manila. Just like every sleazy Hawaiian shirted white guy on a Philippines hayride.His eyes settle on both Inspector Ramos' adopted sister Sylvia, who resists Rourke's questionable charms until she can no longer stand it, and on the Barrio Club's featured attraction, the exotic dancer and blond Peruvian bombshell named Serena. It seems her beauty is more than skin-deep: it's vein-deep, and may be the still-beating heart of a blood cult of Mayan or Incan origin – or older, we're never quite sure – in which Golden Goddesses are kept eternally youthful with the blood of club hostesses. The Golden Goddess theory may explain, though not fully, why Serena looks more Swedish than Peruvian, but definitely won't point to where she's stashed her stewardess uniform for Scandinavian Airlines.And so to the "horror" element: a blood cult, a bubblegum faced monster waving a knife at a young girl strapped to an altar. And…that's pretty much it. It's an odd film reminiscent of an undercooked episode of Hawaii Five-O minus the pineapple, that's more interested in its mystery angle than the gore or supernatural elements. It also feels empty, and not just plot-wise – Blood Thirst is the only film I can recall that makes a city of over 10 million people seem uninhabited. Still, it's an interesting 73 minutes, more for what it is than what it does: a cheapo spook-show which predates the John Ashley/Roger Corman deluge of Philippine horrors by several years. And, to be fair, it's not every day you see a monster clobbered to death by an undercover cripple's fake leg.Adam: There's a killer on the loose… a homicidal maniac with delusions of ancient history. Now, can I use your phone?

This is a real textbook case of how to fail to make a chandleresque film in spite of every effort. Use the dialog that is rich with ominous one-liners and full of household clichés and heavily sexual innuendos that are from the bottom of the lowest barrel; be sure the action is full of tough and cool wannabes slapping each other in uncontrollable sexual frenzy; add the soundtrack that suffocates the viewer with loads of sexually sizzling cool jazz and exotic (equally sexually loaded) Latino mambo music. Make sure the lightning is never above dim and shadows are lurking everywhere in this moist, hot jungle of sexual predators. A few exotic dances by a blond sex goddess wouldn't harm, even when the lady is only capable of waving her arms a little - as long as she is oozing sexual promiscuity. Note the frequent use of the word "sexual"? Add some more sexuality, and voilà! there's your rip-off of The Big Sleep multiplied by Double Indemnity. Or, that's what you might think. In gruesome reality, you get Blood Thirst, a ridiculous B programmer that is a parody of itself. For film noir lovers this film is a must - you get the techniques of the genre laid bare before you. Great for studying what film noir is all about - there's much to learn about why the ingredients don't always sum up to what one might expect.

I was pretty startled to find out that this film was made in 1971. It has all the earmarks of a 1950s B-lister - ambiguous horror, randy hero, tons of gorgeous dames, peril, black and white photography. There's barely enough horror in this film to call it such, and what there is, is extremely cheesy, but I found myself loving it nonetheless. The Manila, Phillipines setting is interesting and the strained one-liners of the hero (and his primary love interest) are gold-plated howlers. This is a fine movie to put on and mock, while having a few pina coladas, before watching something actually good (or at least, a genuine 1950s B-movie horror classic). You won't feel bad about not giving it your complete attention, but fulfilled when you do.