{"id":2287,"date":"2024-08-15T04:04:56","date_gmt":"2024-08-15T04:04:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=2287"},"modified":"2024-10-14T11:32:46","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T15:32:46","slug":"invasion-of-the-blood-farmers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/15\/invasion-of-the-blood-farmers\/","title":{"rendered":"Invasion of the Blood Farmers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Invasion of the Blood Farmers <\/strong>(1972)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 NMD Film Distributing Company\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 77 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (violence and fake gore)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Ed Adlum\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Ed Adlum and Ed Kelleher\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Beau Eurell (as \u201cBeau Burell\u201d) and A.J. Smutt (as \u201cA.J. Smut\u201d)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Michael and Roberta Findlay (as \u201cFrederick Douglass\u201d)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 23, 1972 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Norman Kelley, Tanna Hunter, Bruce Detrick, Paul Craig Jennings, Jack Neubeck, Richard Erickson, Cynthia Fleming, Tom Edwards, Lucy Grant, Frank Iovieno, Warren D\u2019Oyly-Rhind, Richard Kennedy.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0People 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<\/strong>? 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\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Invasion of the Blood Farmers<\/strong> 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\u2019t quite measure up. In fact, it\u2019s really bad, like Edward D. Wood Jr. bad. It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Here\u2019s an interesting factoid. The \u201cblood farmers\u201d 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\u2019t the only thing that was tight, so was time. Invasion of the Blood Farmers<\/strong> was filmed over the course of three weekends. That\u2019s all the time the Eds had to get the job done. That didn\u2019t leave a lot of time for second takes. In this way, they did William \u201cOne-Shot\u201d Beaudine (Billy the Kid vs. Dracula, Jesse James Meets Frankenstein\u2019s Daughter) proud.<\/p>\n

\u00a0A prologue gives us a brief history of the Druids, aka \u201cthe Secret People\u201d and \u201cSangroid blood eaters\u201d. A narrator who sounds a lot like esteemed British actor James Mason (no, it\u2019s NOT him!) explains that they\u2019re been around since the time of Christ. He intones, \u201cThey created the mystery of Stonehenge and made mistletoe the kiss of death.\u201d He goes on to say, \u201cMidnight was their sacred hour and blood sacrifice under the full moon was their religion.\u201d 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\u2019s guess.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Our tale of terror begins when one of the missing locals, a guy named Jim Carrey (I\u2019m 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\u2019s temporarily filling in for the police chief while he\u2019s out of town on another matter. Let me tell you, this guy is so dumb (altogether now, HOW DUMB IS HE?!), he couldn\u2019t find a hooker in 70s-era Times Square on a Saturday night. He\u2019s 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\u2019s engaged to the doc\u2019s daughter Jenny (Hunter), is the only one who thinks to take a blood sample from the victim. The two soon discover something\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The 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\u2019s 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\u2019s seen running away from the Anderson house on more than one occasion. Early on, Jenny\u2019s dog chases him through the woods only to meet a grisly fate. Egon, it seems, has a taste for blood. He\u2019s also a colossal screw-up, losing some key-like object crucial to the queen\u2019s reawakening ritual. He eventually finds somebody with the needed blood. Guess whose veins it courses through? I\u2019ll give you a wee hint. She was probably voted \u201cMost Likely to Become a Damsel in Distress\u201d in her high school yearbook.<\/p>\n

\u00a0WOW! Is Invasion of the Blood Farmers<\/strong> ever bad. That\u2019s what makes it so awesome! It reeks of amateurism through and through. It\u2019s one of those regionally made deals that utilize the dubious \u201ctalents\u201d of local actors and townspeople. I use the word \u201ctalent\u201d 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\u2019s a hoot. He looks like a mid-level Roy Orbison impersonator. He never takes off his sunglasses, not even when he\u2019s 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\u2019re all bad actors which is probably (likely) why none of them ever worked (or hardly worked) again.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The effects in Invasion of the Blood Farmers<\/strong> are cheap and piss-poor. The stage blood used is pinkish in color. It doesn\u2019t 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\u2019t call for it, adds to the movie\u2019s unintentional comic value. The sound recording is off. Sometimes the words don\u2019t sync up with the characters\u2019 speaking. The biggest gaffe, however, is the Eds\u2019 mishandling of day for night. It always seems to be daytime in Invasion of the Blood Farmers<\/strong> even when it\u2019s supposed to be nighttime. Note the scenes with Jenny in her nightgown being told to go to bed while it\u2019s still daylight. OOPS! Somebody at the lab screwed up. Either that or the Eds couldn\u2019t afford the effect. Either way, it\u2019s hysterical!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Invasion of the Blood Farmers<\/strong> carries a PG rating. The good news is it\u2019s PG by 1972 standards which means it\u2019s not a kids movie. It has some gore and violence and while it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Invasion of the Blood Farmers<\/strong> 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\u2019s not the worst filmmaker I\u2019ve ever encountered. Oh, he\u2019s not good at it, not at all. This movie is completely inept in every way. It\u2019s clumsily directed, poorly written, sloppily assembled and badly acted. It\u2019s low, LOW budget shows in every frame. It\u2019s a bad movie! BUT it\u2019s bad in a \u201cso bad, it\u2019s good\u201d way meaning it\u2019s not unwatchable. It\u2019s totally laughable. I\u2019d 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\u2019re practical effects. I\u2019ll take crappy effects to CGI any day and twice (or thrice) on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\u00a0If you love schlock and haven\u2019t yet seen Invasion of the Blood Farmers<\/strong>, you should rectify that ASAP. It\u2019s currently showing on Tubi. It\u2019ll be 77 minutes well spent, I can tell you that.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Invasion of the Blood Farmers (1972)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 NMD Film Distributing Company\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 77 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (violence and fake gore)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Ed Adlum\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Ed Adlum and Ed Kelleher\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Beau Eurell (as \u201cBeau Burell\u201d) and A.J. Smutt (as \u201cA.J. Smut\u201d)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Michael and Roberta Findlay (as \u201cFrederick Douglass\u201d)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 23, 1972 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3262,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movies","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Invasion-of-the-Blood-Farme.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2287"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3263,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2287\/revisions\/3263"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}