| The SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review |
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| Science-Fiction |
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| Horror |
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| Fantasy |
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THIRST
Rating:  ½
Australia. 1979.
Director – Rod Hardy, Screenplay – John Pinkney, Producer – Anthony I. Ginnane, Photography – Vincent Monton, Music – Brian May, Special Effects – Chris Murray & Conrad C. Rothmann, Art Direction – Jon Dowding. Production Company – FG Films/New South Wales Film Corporation/Victoria Film Corporation.
Cast:
Chantal Contouri (Kate Davis), David Hemmings (Dr Eric Fraser), Shirley Cameron (Mrs Barker), Rod Mullinar (Derek), Max Phipps (Hodge), Henry Silva (Dr Gauss), Rosie Sturgess (Lori)
Plot: Kate Davis is abducted by the Hyma Brotherhood, a secret society of vampires, and is taken to their farm where humans are kept as cattle to feed upon. There Kate learns that she is a direct descendant of Elizabeth Bathory, but refuses to accept her birthright as a vampire that the Brotherhood are determined she will inherit.
This Australian entry is one of the more interesting and unusual variants on the vampire film. It was the first attempt to place vampirism into the scientific arena and became the most interesting stab at doing such at least until the arrival of tv’s Ultraviolet (1998) and the British film Blood (2000).
Particularly striking is the film’s alikening of vampirism to cattle herding with images of victims being pushed into pens and hooked up to automatic pumping machines. In one resonant image a group of visiting foreign dignitaries are shown through the plant by a tour-guide who describes the operation in a perfect parroting of the detached anonymity of a tour-guide. In fact these image are so effective that when the film does try to rely on more classical vampire imagery – fangs and optically enhanced glowing eyes – it seems to be slipping back into a cheesier mold. Director Rod Hardy sets up and sustains the suspense very nicely, particularly during Chantal Contouri’s escape from the Farm and eventual recapture, although a long fevre dream sequence is overwrought.
Cast:
Copyright Richard Scheib 1992
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