Blood Freak (1972) 
Blood Freak is one of those films that could only be made during the '70s.
Steve Hawkes stars as Herschell, a Vietnam veteran turned biker on his own righteous path to God, who one day pulls over to help a girl with a flat tyre. He takes her back home which in turn happens to be hosting a drug party at the time, and is introduced to the girl's sister, Ann, who is a free spirit and the opposite of her straight-laced religious sister Angel. After declining to use any of their drugs and alienating a few of the party-dwellers, Herschell is led away to meet Angel and Ann's father who happens to own a turkey farm and in turn offers Herschell a job.
Admittedly, this all sounds pretty straight-forward so far, but it is when we reach the turkey farm that things begin to turn towards the bizarre and the absurd. The farm has an experimental lab on site run by the girls' father, who along with a team of dim-witted scientists are experimenting with genetically altering turkeys through various experimental drugs. Meanwhile, Herschell is pressured into smoking some dope by Ann, has sex with her, and then later having worked up an appetite, tucks into a turkey dinner laid on by the dope addicted mad scientists, itself laced with a super-addictive experimental drug. This causes some changes in Herschell, who grows a massive turkey head and decides to go on a killing spree stringing up drug users and dealers alike and draining their blood - each kill preceded by maniacal gobbling.
Obviously, all this wasn't bizarre enough for the film-makers, as in addition to all this there is inter-cut narration throughout from a sleazy seated elderly man preaching pseudo-religious/philosophical statements to the audience, which literally stops the film dead in its tracks.
Terms like 'low budget', 'amateur', and 'shoddy' are thrown about quite freely when talking about films of this type, and although Blood Freak adheres to these tropes in spades, they actually act to enhance the weird, trippy, and flat out bonkers vibe that the film emanates to the point where you feel as if you have passed the boundaries of cinematic trash, and are in fact experiencing a whole new plain of reality where little makes sense - and nor does it have to.
Blood Freak is certainly an oddity (even by 1970s independent cinema standards), and has to be seen to be believed.
Originally posted here:
Nightmare USA Films Discussion Thread.