Director: Robert Hartford-Davis (as Michael Burrowes)
Year: 1971
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: Incense for the Damned
Genre: Vampire
Plot:
Worried about their missing friend, a group of students descend into the drug-fueled underworld he’s feared to have fallen into, and when they free him of the influence of a mysterious woman and return home fail to realize he’s now turned into a ravenous vampire.
Review:
Overall, this was a decent enough, if somewhat underwhelming, British vampire effort. Where this one works the best is in the over-the-top and generally appealing sexual content on display that tries to showcase what type of depravity that their friend has fallen into. While establishing that he’s become the victim of a special underground club on the outskirts of society and that they’re going to rescue him to bring him back to normal, this creates the proper sign for how they’re going to go about rescuing him, as the figure controlling him is in the midst of ingratiating their friend into the world of orgies, free love, and other forms of sexual delights. That comes about through an extended, prolonged sequence of debauchery and sexual shenanigans where not only is the frequent nudity fun to look at in that sense, but the storyline connotations are intriguing by setting up the force behind his corruption.
That gives this a solid race into the countryside to uncover the hideout of the group holding him captive, as there’s plenty of strong action here to bring that about. From the opening introduction to the island being a frantic chase through the streets into a hidden corridor among the buildings and leading into a brutal street fight between the various thugs involved in the chase and the group trying to find him, the raid on the remote fort where the vampires have him contained in their grasp leading to a convoluted ploy by the friends to free him from their grasp while the main vampire tries to distract them enough to get back to him, the action here is solid and generally fun. While not entirely packed with action, it makes for some intriguing enough time here.
There are some big drawbacks with this one that bring it down. The main issue here is the sloppy and misshapen storyline where it takes a pretty simple story and just lets it meander all over the place trying to make something out of it. The group takes forever to find the vampire cult the mysterious woman runs and try to free their friend from her spell, yet it seems as though everyone knows each other and who they are, so it just comes off clunky and awkward. The idea of them being vampires is kept to such bare-bones basics you forget they are at times, especially with the unnatural behavior exhibited here, with the characters moving about in daylight or failing to turn others they bite. It’s just part of why this tends to feel chaotic and all over the place, with very little of the film making sense and just going around in some random order to pull a plot together, and nothing makes any kind of sense with so little action happening, holding this one back the most.
Overview: **/5
An intriguing if overall problematic genre effort, this one has enough to be better than expected but is still let down quite a bit by some problematic factors that are quite damaging and keep it down quite a bit. Those with an interest in the subject matter or who appreciate what’s going on here will have the most to like, while most others out there should heed caution.
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