The centerpiece of Bloodthirsty is a sustained, disembodied shot of a human limb being pierced, and the blood extracted from it through a steel straw. Neither the flesh nor the blood is an obvious prosthetic, and the filmmakers take evident pleasure in showing it off (much like the swastika-carving that caps Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds), so squeamish viewers should be wary.
Commendably, the filmmakers make this violent shot easier to stomach by surrounding it with semi-ridiculous pantomime. The premise, described in a muffled phone call over a black screen, is that a few people have gone missing near an abandoned building. The detective sent to follow the trail is attracted to an oil portrait of a lady in red hanging on a wall (it beckons to him in cheaply humorous voiceover), all the better for someone to emerge from the shadows and bonk him on the head. The "wine-tasting" that gives the film its title, a drug-addled rave sequence, and a "shock zoom" into a new victim snarling with prosthetic vampire's teeth cap these bizarro proceedings. Clever use of the "no-budget horror" aesthetic, though none of the film would hold up to higher expectations or production values.
Commendably, the filmmakers make this violent shot easier to stomach by surrounding it with semi-ridiculous pantomime. The premise, described in a muffled phone call over a black screen, is that a few people have gone missing near an abandoned building. The detective sent to follow the trail is attracted to an oil portrait of a lady in red hanging on a wall (it beckons to him in cheaply humorous voiceover), all the better for someone to emerge from the shadows and bonk him on the head. The "wine-tasting" that gives the film its title, a drug-addled rave sequence, and a "shock zoom" into a new victim snarling with prosthetic vampire's teeth cap these bizarro proceedings. Clever use of the "no-budget horror" aesthetic, though none of the film would hold up to higher expectations or production values.
