User reviews

I'll be a little less harsh than my fellow reviewers here, who all seem to agree that this `Incense for the Damned' is a giant waste of time, effort and film. I can't deny this is a failure in all viewpoints but I'm deeply convinced that the story's potential, along with the talent of the cast, could have resulted in a much better film. Although the screenplay remains faithful to Simon Raven's novel, the film completely lacks feeling and coherence. Small aspects, like the annoying use of voice-over, ruin the horror atmosphere and the occult-aspects are dreadfully overstressed. There's a drug trance/ sexual ecstasy sequence near the beginning of the film and it takes WAY too long! Even Imogen `the Queen of Cleavage' Hassall doesn't manage to keep you fascinated during this tedious scene.

But I still stand by my idea that the messy `Bloodsuckers' (the more appealing a.k.a of the film) contains several neat moments of clarity! Like a brief appearance by Edward Woodward, giving us a little insight on the unusual and slightly perverted sexual fantasies of humans… Or Desmond Dickinson's brilliant camerawork on location in Greece. I might even say that the entire substance of the story is excellent horror matter! Richard, a young and respected Oxford student has disappeared in Greece and a group of friends, including his girl, go on a search for him. Richard seems to be under the influence of a beautiful, sexy vampire who even forces him to perform sado-masochism. Believing they annihilated the ravishing bloodsucker, the return to Britain. Yet, Richard's behavior when back at Oxford remains bizarre and alarming… The plot is promising enough, no? If `Incense for the Damned' would have been directed by Roman Polanski, I might have enjoyed a classic status by now. Erotic morbidity is definitely more his field! Or, who knows, in the hands of Italian mastermind Mario Bava this could have been one of the greatest horror masterpieces ever. Instead Robert Hartford-Davis directed it and the only appreciation he gets is when people hear he took his name off of this project afterwards. Better luck next time.

The picture concerns about a bunch of friends ( Patrick Mcnee , Johnny Sekka..) , as they are looking for a English young student (Patrick Mower) who is seduced into an old cult carried out by a beautiful vampire (Imogen Stubbs) and being disappeared while was researching in a Greek island . There happens various unsolved killings and the police blame him as perpetrator of the creepy murders but his friends and the fiancée whose daddy is the University Principal (Peter Cushing) no believing his culpability but is spelled by a blood-sucking vampire .

It's a mediocre British terror film with suspense , action and vampires but a little bit boring and slow-moving . However , it contains some spectacular and glimmer Greeks outdoors , besides set on Oxford University . Patrick McNee ( Avengers) interprets smartly , as always . The great Peter Cushing plays correctly the starring's dad but his acting is secondary , also Edward Woodward (The wicker man) acts in a minimum role . Patrick Mower (Devil rides out)as charmed young is good and Johnny Sekka (Naked prey) in a quite secondary role is nice . The movie is regularly directed by Robert Hatford Davies , author of some other Horror film as ¨Corruption¨ (with Peter Cushing) , ¨The Fiend¨ (with Patrick McNee) and Blaxploitation movies as ¨Black Gunn¨ (Jim Brown) and ¨ The Take¨ (Billy Dee Williams) . This director due to disagreements with producers signed the film as Michael Burrows and the motion picture was shelved during years until its cinematic exhibition.

One of the worst pieces of film I think any of the stars must have been in. Edward Woodward, and Patrick Macnee should really dissasociate themselves from it completely. Peter Cushing makes a cameo appearance, strong and wonderful as always. The film is a complete pile of nonsense. The script is half-baked and confused, and some of the worst editing ever has gone on as well. I was truly disappointed. Having expected a fine piece of British horror, all I saw was a mess of a film and lots of wobbly bits of flesh in a completely bizarre and unneccesary sex scene. My advice is to avoid it, even if it means your Peter Cushing collection isn't complete without it. On the other hand, if you love it, then try No Secrets from 1982. It makes about as much sense.

An Oxford don (Patrick Mower) goes to Greece to study mythology. Suddenly he disappears and nobody hears from him. A bunch of his friends and fiancée travel there to find him. They discover he is traveling all over Greece--and wherever he goes there's a murder. He's also under the spell of beautiful but deadly Chriseis (Imogen Hassell)...

This DOES have some good points. The initial story is intriguing and there is some beautiful location shooting in Greece and a few exciting fights here and there. Also Peter Cushing and Patrick Macnee are in it--they're not given much to do but they're both very good. Also Mower is pretty good and Hassall is VERY good (and beautiful).

But the plot gets increasingly confusing (and sillier) as it goes on. When they threw in the vampirism it was badly handled and just too ridiculous to take seriously. There were obvious production difficulties--quite a few scenes just have narration. Also Madeleine Hinde is just horrible playing Mowere's fiancée.

Basically though--it's boring! I dozed off a few times...and didn't miss a thing. And, as a horror movie, it just doesn't work. It plays more like an action film or a travelogue of Greece.

Not totally worthless (because of Cushing and Macnee) but not really worth seeing. I give it a 4.

A relic of the hippy, trippy, psychedelic early-'70s, this contemporary take on vampirism is a colossal waste of the acting talent involved. Peter Cushing, Edward Woodward, Patrick Macnee and Patrick Mower can do nothing to save this boring mess of a movie that treats vampirism as a sexual perversion, with impotent Oxford don Richard Fountain (Mower) only able to achieve orgasm while having blood sucked from his neck. This leads him to fall under the spell of sexy Greek vampire Chriseis (Imogen Hassall), and become part of a hippy cult that dabbles in ritualistic murder.

Concerned about Richard, his girlfriend Penelope (Madeleine Hinde) and friends Bob (Johnny Sekka), Derek (Patrick Macnee) and Tony (Alexander Davion) travel to Greece where they carry out a daring rescue mission.

Within the first fifteen minutes, a prolonged, multicoloured, kaleidoscopic orgy scene set to prog rock tests the mettle of even the most determined of bad movie fans. Make it past this and you will be rewarded with lots of pretentious dialogue, some incredibly poor action, a perplexing scene in which Richard harps on about an eagle, Macnee plummeting to his death off a cliff, and Richard upsetting his stuffy academic superiors during a banquet (a scene that is both dull and confusing).

The film finishes with Richard snacking on Penelope, being pursued by Bob across the Oxford University rooftops, and falling onto spiked metal railings (not a moment too soon).

Got to say I agree with much of Wayne's comments on this film and the note that the director refused to be associated with the screened version doesn't surprise me. This film was shown on TV in the UK in 2004 and I have to say it has to be the worst quality film I have seen on the box. It seems to be made up of the film shot by the director covering the story, inter-cut with stock travelogue shots of Greece. The lighting is such that the black character's facial features are lost in a lot of scenes. The acting from the supporting cast is wooden and even the stars are on the verge of rabbit-in-headlights unease. Not a pleasant evening's viewing!

Incense for the Damned is a huge mess. The director, Robert Hartford-Davis changed the name he would be credited as for this movie, and anyone that sees the film will see why he did that.

The movie tries to be a horror movie and a social satire, but it succeeds at being neither; it just can't get away from the fact that it's a trashy load of rubbish. The plot is meandering, and is loosely strung together by a narration, which seems more like a way for the movie to save money from it's poor budget than anything else. It follows the story of Richard, an upper class Oxford University student that has got lost somewhere in Greece. A group of his friends then set out to find him, only to discover that he has come under the spell of a female vampire, and then, believing they have killed her, the group take Richard back to Oxford, unaware that he is now a vampire also.

This movie bills Peter Cushing as one of it's main stars, but in actual fact he appears in the movie for a combined time of about five minutes. Furthermore, Edward Woodward appears in the film, just before he would go on to make the best British horror movie of all time; The Wicker Man. However, his appearance is little more than a cameo. Patrick Mower, who was in The Devil Rides Out, also appears in the film, and he is an actor that will be best known by British people for his role in the rubbish, yet popular soap opera; Emmerdale. The movie also features performances from Patrick Macnee, who would later appear in The Howling and Alexander Davion, who appeared some years earlier in the British horror; Plague of the Zombies. The cast is very much B-movie, but all are somewhat experienced in the horror genre. The fact that the cast is B-grade is evident through the acting if nothing else; which, with the exception of Cushing and Woodward (both of which also aren't great) leaves a lot to be desired.

Overall, Incense for the Damned is a waste of time that manages to be neither memorable nor interesting. I even recommend that Peter Cushing fans skip this one.

"Oh, this looks good" I thought scanning the DVD slick of 'Bloodsuckers'. Horror legend Peter Cushing, 'The Avengers' Patrick Macnee, Edward Woodward just before 'The Wicker Man', plus Patrick Mower, who was in 'The Devil Rides Out' and Alex Davion from 'The Plague Of The Zombies', two of the best and most underrated Hammer movies. Well nothing could prepare me for how poor it turned out to be! Even the worst Hammer movie I've seen is ten times better than this. It's confusing AND boring, with way too much narration and production values that make it look like an episode of 'The Champions' or some other half forgotten 60s/70s TV show. Cushing is hardly in it, Woodward even less (one scene), and the highlight is a donkey chase! I'm not kidding! The disc I watched included a 6 minutes deleted scene of a psychedelic drug orgy which wasn't used in the final cut. Too bad because it's better than anything that was used. Director Robert Hartford-Davies ('The Yellow Teddybears') apparently disowned this movie and I don't blame him one bit!

What were these big-name stars thinking? Patrick MacNee and Peter Cushing star in this hideous excuse for a horror movie. Cushing obviously couldn't have read the entire script, as his portions are dignified, well-acted, and have nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of the movie. Otherwise, bad script, bad acting, bad direction, bad writing and a truly bad plot hold sway.

The highlight for me of this cinema mudpie is an "orgy" scene shot with a dragonfly-eye lens so that the filmmakers wouldn't have to pay more than two actors. The worst of the worst. Don't waste your time watching a second of it.

Blood Suckers is a bit of an oddity really. On the surface it looks like yet another typical British horror movie from the early 70's. A little bit of the occult, some nudity and starring Peter Cushing. But, in all honesty, it's not that typical at all. Despite having a pretty impressive cast – Patrick Macnee (The Avengers), Patrick Mower (The Devil Rides Out), Edward Woodward (The Wicker Man) and Cushing – it doesn't really utilise them very well at all. Cushing is in it at the beginning and end but doesn't really register; Patrick Macnee is killed half way through, Woodward has an uninteresting cameo role, while Mower seems to sleep-walk through his role. Technically the film itself is, at best, a little haphazard. It appears to have been edited together using a hack-saw, while the storyline could charitably be described as a little confused and unfocused. In fact it begins with the kind of voice-over that is normally used to cover for the fact that a lot of material was not filmed; seemingly the film ran into some difficulties so this may explain this.

Having said all this it is a little unusual and that does garner it some points. The story of the are-they-or-aren't-they vampires is a little different, if admittedly not all that successfully told. The varied locations do offer something a little different to the norm too, although it does feel more like an action-adventure than an actual horror film a lot of the time. So, it's a mess but a mess not without some interest. Also, on the DVD release I saw, the deleted scene was an extended psychedelic orgy which was completely removed for some unfathomable reason; it would have easily have been the best sequence in the film proper if it had been included.

In Greece where he spends his vacations, Richard Fountain, an Oxford student, falls in love with Chriseis, a pretty young girl who has the particularity of practicing black magic. Through her, he finds himself involved in a vampiric adventure. His friends will try to get him out of it.

A vampire movie with Peter Cushing, how enticing ! The result unfortunately does not live up to expectations, to say the least. Granted, there is Peter Cushing and his impressive natural authority, but in a frustrating minor role. But besides him and a few beautiful views of Greece, everything is mediocre, not to say ridiculous: the very approximate direction, the discourse on vampirism and sexual deviations, a thrilling chase... on the back of a donkey, etc. Moreover, apart from Cushing, the actors are anything but convincing, the worst being Alex Davion who fascinates more by his long ears than by the subtlety of his acting. One consolation though, many of the characters die before the end!

Pretty much everyone so far has the same opinion of this film, but I couldn't find any comments about the horrendously brutal editing, which goes some way to ruining the pace and flow of the film. I'm pretty sure there's a half-decent film on the cutting room floor!

"Blood Suckers," directed by Robert Hartford-Davis in 1971, is an ambitious yet ultimately flawed attempt at blending gothic horror with the psychedelic vibes of its era. The film follows the story of Richard Fountain (Patrick Mower), a British archaeology student who ventures to Greece and becomes entangled with a vampire cult led by the enigmatic Chriseis (Imogen Hassall). As his friends try to rescue him, they uncover a dark and sinister world filled with eroticism and bloodlust.

Despite its intriguing premise and a setting ripe for atmospheric horror, "Blood Suckers" struggles to deliver a coherent and engaging narrative. The film's pacing is erratic, with moments of genuine tension often undermined by disjointed storytelling and a lack of character development. Richard's descent into the vampire cult is depicted with a surreal, almost dreamlike quality, which, while visually interesting, detracts from the emotional impact of his plight.

The performances are a mixed bag, with Patrick Mower delivering a somewhat wooden portrayal of Richard, while Imogen Hassall shines as the seductive and malevolent Chriseis. The supporting cast, including Peter Cushing and Edward Woodward, are underutilized, their talents wasted in roles that fail to exploit their acting prowess.

The film's cinematography is one of its few redeeming qualities, capturing the eerie beauty of the Greek landscapes and the gothic interiors with a stylistic flair. However, the special effects and makeup are dated and often unintentionally comical, detracting from the film's intended horror.

Overall, "Blood Suckers" is a curious relic of its time, more notable for its ambition than its execution. Despite its potential and occasional moments of eerie beauty, it falls short of being a compelling horror film.

Whilst in Greece researching a book on Greek mythology, a young Oxford Don (Mower), falls under the spell of Chriseis (Hassal), a beautiful but sexually perverted vampire who murders her victims for their blood.

An oddity in the history of the British horror genre. Director Robert Hartford Davies disowned the picture due to never fully explained production problems, although it has been suggested that the low budget ran out and that scheduled re-shoots never happened. As a result the film was pasted together quickly and it's disgruntled director was credited under the pseudonym Michael Burrowes. The film got a trade show in 1972 but it wasn't given a London showing until 1976.

The picture does show a few scars of it's troubled production like when a studio rock is quite clearly seen bouncing off an actor's head without doing him any injury, but it's interpretation of vampirism as a sexual perversion is interesting although there quite clearly wasn't enough time to develop it properly. The location shooting in Greece of Desmond Dickenson is first class and the best performances come from Patrick Macnee (who had just finished The Avengers) as Major Longbarrow, Patrick Mower as the ill-fated scholar and Peter Cushing as Dr Goodrich who put the pressure on Mower academically to such a degree that it made him tempted to join the perverted vampire for excitement.

The film has been reissued on DVD under it's alternative title, "Bloodsuckers", featuring a deleted scene which attempted to add drug addiction to the mixture of sex and vampirism.

Unless you like incoherent exploitation films that focus more on dialogue, you will be bored senseless with this movie. It has very minor interesting bits, but other than that you'll be paying attention to literally anything else for an hour and 20 minutes.