Shot in the Philippines, Z-grade horror The Thirsty Dead opens with voluptuous go-go dancer Claire (Judith McConnell) gyrating wildly in a cage as drunken sailors ogle admiringly. Shortly after her entertaining routine, the woman is abducted by hooded assailants, and the film goes rapidly downhill from thereon in.
Together with three other women—blonde beauty Ann (Fredricka Meyers), Filipino cutie Bonnie (Chiqui da Rosa), and Laura (Jennifer Billingsley), who ain't so attractive—Claire is transported to the remote jungle headquarters of a strange cult who drink a potion consisting of human blood and leaves that keeps them eternally young. Imprisoned in a papier-mâché cave, the girls are forced to wear sexy bikinis and are drugged for the bleeding ritual, all except for Laura, who is given the opportunity to enjoy immortality thanks to her resemblance to a painting by cult member Baru (John Considine). However, Laura isn't wild on the idea of eternity in a cave and refuses to drink the potion; together with the other three girls, she makes a bid for freedom.
As attractive as Claire, Ann and Bonnie are in their skimpy get-ups, The Thirsty Dead is still extremely hard going, a dreadfully sluggish pace, boring dialogue, a distinct lack of action, wooden performances, and lousy production values all taking their toll on the viewer. Not-so-special effects include the slicing of one of the girl's neck with a knife and the subsequent healing of the wound using a special leaf, a disembodied living head in a glass box (around which bucktoothed cult priestess Ranu, played by Tani Guthrie, does a tribal dance), and the rapid ageing of Baru as he goes beyond the cult's 'Ring of Age' in a bid to help the women escape (after a surprising change of heart).
