Thirst

Thirst (1979)

A woman named Kate Davis is abducted by a secret society and told that she is a descendent of Elizabeth Bathory, an infamous vampire. This makes Kate herself a vampire, which makes her a member of their secret society. At first they try and convince her to join them by showing her how well the humans the farm for blood are treated. This is the preferred method of the kindly Dr. Fraser, who realizes what a shock this all is to Kate. But when that fails they become more and more forceful in their efforts to bring her over to their way of thinking. The harder she resists the harder they try. Who will give in first? Will Kate ever join the society of vampires?

This is an interesting and offbeat vampire movie. First of all don’t expect any strange accents (well they are all Australian), capes, bats, or cringing from the sunlight. This movie treats vampirism more as a lifestyle choice where an elite group of people have discovered that drinking blood makes them smarter and more vital, but not supernatural. The movie also focuses more on Kate and her psychological struggles against the society’s efforts to change her mind to see the world as they do. I thought this was kind of interesting and a completely different take on the vampire genre. But that said this movie has a couple of very slow stretches where things get sort of surreal and confusing. And I did get bored with the movie. I was also disappointed that a movie which went so far out of it’s way to be different ended in such a predictable manner. Chantal Contouri stars as Kate and is a great actress with the charisma and screen presence to carry the movie. Also really good in the role of Dr. Fraser is veteran actor David Hemmings (Deep Red). Honestly the rest of the cast isn’t bad, but neither are they very memorable.

This isn’t a gory movie, though there is a couple of tame effect shots, so don’t expected a lot of the red stuff. There are a few really cool camera effects, especially when the movie is being a bit more surreal and showing the audience what Kate is seeing while drugged. Other than that I found the movie to be a technically solid, but uninteresting effort.

Well this is going to be a shorter review for me. But to be honest there just isn’t much to say about Thrist. At times it is interesting and I give it credit for being different from every other vampire movie I’ve seen. In the end though it is just a mediocre movie. If you are really into vampire flicks I recommend a rental, but it isn’t worth dropping $20 on a purchase. Trust me this is a watch once and toss on a shelf kind of movie.

2 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer