Blood Sucking Freaks
Troma had the film cut to gain an "R" rating, then shipped the unrated print to theaters telling them it was the R rated version. Eventually, it was discovered when a woman allegedly complained the film upset either her, or her child. Eventually the MPAA sued Troma for improper use of the copyrighted "Rated R" logo.,During a conversation between Natasha and Tom - where he is in the bed and she is standing at a mirror - the sequence is made up of shots of Natalie at the mirror with Tom reflected in it. And shots of Tom on the bed. Tom swaps from one side of the bed to the other between shots. This was obviously done deliberately to keep Tom consistently on the left of the screen but it would have been less obvious if he didn't change his position in relation to the pile of books behind his head.,Master Sardu: Her mouth shall make an interesting urinal!,The R-rated cut runs 84 minutes, the director's cut is also the uncut version and runs 89 minutes. Some DVDs state it is 91 minutes long, but this is an error. There never was a 91-minute version.,Edited into Dying: Last Seconds of Life, Part II (1988),Blood Sucking Freaks is often considered an exploitation classic, and is one of the select few Troma films to receive a reputation anything like that. It's not hard to see why this film is so well revered among fans of wayward cinema - the gore is disgusting, the torture scenes are extended and make for highly unpleasant viewing and there's an extremely misogynistic tone running throughout the film; something that is very popular with many fans of this sort of cinema. I definitely consider myself an exploitation fan, but I'm only going to rate this film as a must see for people like me; as in it's own right, Blood Sucking Freaks really isn't all that good. The film reminded me a lot of a HG Lewis movie, and the plot seems to take some influence from the "classic", The Wizard of Gore, as it follows a stage act. The stage act here concerns S&M and torture, and the "magician" at the centre achieves his realistic effects through actually killing his actors on stage while his crowd watch. Furthermore, the girls are put to use again for his own sick pleasure, and he has a cage full of rabid, meat-eating naked women in his basement...

The main problem with this film as far as I'm concerned is that it gets too caught up in the sadistic acts and the plot doesn't move fast enough, so after a while it starts to get boring. Director Joel M. Reed clearly has an eye for nasty torture, however, as this film features some of the sickest sequences I've ever seen; chief among them being the guillotine scene, and the part where someone drills a hole in someone's head and proceeds to suck out their brains with a straw! Seamus O'Brien is the lead actor, and it's not surprising that this was one of only two roles for him. His acting is campy and silly, and I really couldn't see him fitting into any other kind of film...which is both praise and a criticism. The locations and special effects all look very cheap, and it's clear that this film was shot on a very low budget; but this grittiness creates a very unclean atmosphere, which helps the film overall as it bodes very well with the nastiness of the action on display. Overall, Blood Sucking Freaks isn't exactly a classic film for my money - but it is mandatory viewing for exploit fans.,