Invasion of the Blood Farmers (1972) NMD Film Distributing Company/Horror RT: 77 minutes Rated PG (violence and fake gore) Director: Ed Adlum Screenplay: Ed Adlum and Ed Kelleher Music: Beau Eurell (as “Beau Burell”) and A.J. Smutt (as “A.J. Smut”) Cinematography: Michael and Roberta Findlay (as “Frederick Douglass”) Release date: August 23, 1972 (US) Cast: Norman Kelley, Tanna Hunter, Bruce Detrick, Paul Craig Jennings, Jack Neubeck, Richard Erickson, Cynthia Fleming, Tom Edwards, Lucy Grant, Frank Iovieno, Warren D’Oyly-Rhind, Richard Kennedy. Box Office: N/A
Rating: ***
People make such a fuss about crime in big cities. Have they ever stopped to consider that the really weird stuff happens in small rural towns like the one depicted in Invasion of the Blood Farmers? The citizens of Jefferson Valley (located in scenic Westchester County in upstate New York) are concerned because some of their neighbors have gone missing. It turns out to be the work of a murderous Druid cult. They’re kidnapping folks and harvesting their blood in order to resurrect their long-dead queen. They just need to find the right blood. Compared to this, muggings and drive-by shootings sound completely sane.
Invasion of the Blood Farmers is probably one of the greatest exploitation titles. It positively rolls off the tongue, does it not? Like a lot of such titles, the actual movie doesn’t quite measure up. In fact, it’s really bad, like Edward D. Wood Jr. bad. It’s directed by Ed Adlum, a former rock musician and writer for Cashbox magazine, who co-wrote the script with co-worker Ed Kelleher. As is the norm in exploitation filmmaking, they started with a title and took it from there.
Here’s an interesting factoid. The “blood farmers” were originally supposed to be aliens, but budget constraints forced the two Eds to go with something more down to earth. With only $24,000 to work with, it was cheaper to buy overalls and straw hats than alien costumes. Corners had to be cut in other areas as well. Instead of paychecks, the cast was paid in beer. Money wasn’t the only thing that was tight, so was time. Invasion of the Blood Farmers was filmed over the course of three weekends. That’s all the time the Eds had to get the job done. That didn’t leave a lot of time for second takes. In this way, they did William “One-Shot” Beaudine (Billy the Kid vs. Dracula, Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter) proud.
A prologue gives us a brief history of the Druids, aka “the Secret People” and “Sangroid blood eaters”. A narrator who sounds a lot like esteemed British actor James Mason (no, it’s NOT him!) explains that they’re been around since the time of Christ. He intones, “They created the mystery of Stonehenge and made mistletoe the kiss of death.” He goes on to say, “Midnight was their sacred hour and blood sacrifice under the full moon was their religion.” They continue to hide among us in remote places (like upstate New York?) while preparing to raise their queen from the dead. What they plan to do after that is anybody’s guess.
Our tale of terror begins when one of the missing locals, a guy named Jim Carrey (I’m not joking), stumbles into the town bar covered in blood. He gurgles before falling to the floor dead. Nobody knows what to make of it, especially the dimwitted deputy who’s temporarily filling in for the police chief while he’s out of town on another matter. Let me tell you, this guy is so dumb (altogether now, HOW DUMB IS HE?!), he couldn’t find a hooker in 70s-era Times Square on a Saturday night. He’s basically useless, spending most (if not all) of the work day sitting in the bar taking calls on the pay phone. Thankfully, town pathologist Dr. Anderson (Kelley) is on the case. His eager young assistant Don (Detrick), who’s engaged to the doc’s daughter Jenny (Hunter), is the only one who thinks to take a blood sample from the victim. The two soon discover something’s not right. For unknown reasons, the blood self-reproduces at a rapid rate. What could be the cause of this? The doc is determined to find out.
The cult is led by a weirdo named Creton (Jennings) who spends most of his time hanging around the glass coffin containing the body of their queen (Fleming). The time to revive her is drawing near; he really needs his flaky flunkies to come through with the right blood. Creton’s main guy on blood collection duty is Egon (Neubeck), a crazy-eyed lunatic whose weapon of choice is a cane with a brass top. With it, he bludgeons his victims. He moves pretty fast for a guy with a bum leg. He’s seen running away from the Anderson house on more than one occasion. Early on, Jenny’s dog chases him through the woods only to meet a grisly fate. Egon, it seems, has a taste for blood. He’s also a colossal screw-up, losing some key-like object crucial to the queen’s reawakening ritual. He eventually finds somebody with the needed blood. Guess whose veins it courses through? I’ll give you a wee hint. She was probably voted “Most Likely to Become a Damsel in Distress” in her high school yearbook.
WOW! Is Invasion of the Blood Farmers ever bad. That’s what makes it so awesome! It reeks of amateurism through and through. It’s one of those regionally made deals that utilize the dubious “talents” of local actors and townspeople. I use the word “talent” in quotes because none is apparent in the movie. Their lack of experience in front of a camera shows. The acting is all over the map. It ranges from wooden to OTT. Kelley and Jennings play to the cheap seats with their wild overacting while others are stiff as a board. The latter is especially true of Frank Iovieno who shows up late in the game as the absent police chief. This guy’s a hoot. He looks like a mid-level Roy Orbison impersonator. He never takes off his sunglasses, not even when he’s sitting at his desk. His ability to read lines leaves a lot to be desired however. Come to think of it, the same can be said of the entire cast. You call tell by the halting way they deliver their dialogue that they only memorized it and not very well at that. They’re all bad actors which is probably (likely) why none of them ever worked (or hardly worked) again.
The effects in Invasion of the Blood Farmers are cheap and piss-poor. The stage blood used is pinkish in color. It doesn’t look like the real thing at all. The editing is haphazard. The kill scenes are just goofy. The overly dramatic stock music, often used in scenes that don’t call for it, adds to the movie’s unintentional comic value. The sound recording is off. Sometimes the words don’t sync up with the characters’ speaking. The biggest gaffe, however, is the Eds’ mishandling of day for night. It always seems to be daytime in Invasion of the Blood Farmers even when it’s supposed to be nighttime. Note the scenes with Jenny in her nightgown being told to go to bed while it’s still daylight. OOPS! Somebody at the lab screwed up. Either that or the Eds couldn’t afford the effect. Either way, it’s hysterical!
Invasion of the Blood Farmers carries a PG rating. The good news is it’s PG by 1972 standards which means it’s not a kids movie. It has some gore and violence and while it’s not all that graphic, it pushes the envelope a bit, especially the scenes where cult members harvest blood from their captives via an ancient pump and tubes attached to their bodies. That sucking sound is unsettling. The bad news is PG of any era means no nudity or sex. The closest we get to anything like that is honeymooners in a motel room engaging in suggestive behavior before Egon shows up and kills the mood (and the hapless couple). An exploitation horror movie without bare boobs is like listening to Iron Butterfly without a joint in hand.
Invasion of the Blood Farmers is the only movie Adlum directed. He and Kelleher would go on to write the equally stupid Yeti movie Shriek of the Mutilated. After that, he left the filmmaking business. To be fair, he’s not the worst filmmaker I’ve ever encountered. Oh, he’s not good at it, not at all. This movie is completely inept in every way. It’s clumsily directed, poorly written, sloppily assembled and badly acted. It’s low, LOW budget shows in every frame. It’s a bad movie! BUT it’s bad in a “so bad, it’s good” way meaning it’s not unwatchable. It’s totally laughable. I’d rather watch this than any of the hundreds of horror movies that go straight to streaming services. The FX might be shabby and cheap, but they’re practical effects. I’ll take crappy effects to CGI any day and twice (or thrice) on Saturday afternoon.
If you love schlock and haven’t yet seen Invasion of the Blood Farmers, you should rectify that ASAP. It’s currently showing on Tubi. It’ll be 77 minutes well spent, I can tell you that.
