Thirst starts with a strong minded career woman named Kate Davis (Chantal Contouri) rising from a coffin in a crypt of some sort in typical Gothic horror fashion. On the soundtrack two voices can be heard, a Dr. Barker (Shirley Cameron, the IMDb listing is definitely wrong as her character's name is Mrs. Barker not Mrs. Cameron which is obviously her real name) & a Mr. Hodge (Max Phipps) who talk about Kate's conditioning & that she is a completely different woman from that of a week ago... Thirst then cuts back to presumably a week ago when Kate was just an normal Australian living a normal life who is about to take an extended holiday on her own as unfortunately her architect boyfriend Derek Whitehall (Rod Mullinar) is too busy at work to join her. However the morning Kate is due to leave she is kidnapped by the Hyma Brotherhood who are a secret sect of modern day Vampires who regard themselves as a superior race gaining power & youth from drinking blood. Kate is taken deep into the Australian outback to a complex where the Brotherhood are based, known as the farm there are no cattle or crops, just people. Kate is told by Dr. Barker that her Great Great Grandfather was a direct descendant of Countess Elizabeth Bathory & that she must accept her ancestral blood drinking heritage, at first Kate is understandably reluctant to believe what she is being told & thinks everyone is crazy. The Brotherhood feel it's essential for Kate to accept her heritage so Dr. Barker, Dr. Gauss (Henry Silva) & Dr. Fraser (David Hemmings) devise a programme of conditioning to convince Kate that she is indeed a Vampire who must drink blood. At first Kate refuses to give in to the Brotherhoods tactic's but how long can she hold out with the constant bombardment of brainwashing?
This Australian production directed by Rod Hardy is in my opinion is as dull as dishwater & didn't really do a thing for me. I have to give the filmmakers credit for trying something different even if the end result is less than spectacular. The script by John Pinkney mixes some of the traditional Vampire cinematic themes such as fangs, blood drinking & glowing red eye's with new ideas like the farm where humans are kept like livestock, bleed through special hi-tech machinery & scientifically checked for disease before it is packed into milk cartons & shipped out to other Vampires all over the world. Unfortunately the main problem with Thirst is that is just so slow, boring, dull & at 90 minutes far too long & drawn out. Thirst never explained why the Brotherhood wanted Kate to join them & become a Vampire so badly, was it just so Hodges could have sex with her & merge the two families together as mentioned at the end? If so why just not have sex with her against her will? Or have sex with her even if she isn't drinking blood? They put an awful lot of time & effort into conditioning Kate to become a blood drinking Vampire for no good reason as far as I could make out. One more thing, why wait until now to condition Kate? Why not years earlier in her life while she was still vulnerable before she had fully developed her personality & career? There are a couple of good sequences in Thirst like the tour around the factory where the humans are bleed & Kate's shower of blood is decent for a cheap thrill I suppose. I also have to mention the so-called twist ending which I figured out a long time before I actually had to sit through it. There's not much blood or gore in Thirst, half a mangled face, some neck biting & a few jars of blood is about it. The acting is pretty good throughout, maybe the acting was the best thing about Thirst in fact. Tecnically the film is OK, the cinematography is adequate despite what many say & just because a film is shot in scope doesn't automatically make it brilliant. There is a funny scene when an old woman listed as blue rinse lady (Paddy Burnet) bites someone on the neck during some sort of ceremony, she looks like cross dresser Barry Humphries in his Dame Edna Everidge costume, now that's scary folks! Overall Thirst definitely has some interesting ideas which are wasted in this dull, boring & tedious horror film, I'll take Christopher Lee as Count Dracula in one of Hammer's fine period horror films over this confused mix of ideas that seem to have just been haphazardly thrown together. One to avoid unless your an insomniac.
This Australian production directed by Rod Hardy is in my opinion is as dull as dishwater & didn't really do a thing for me. I have to give the filmmakers credit for trying something different even if the end result is less than spectacular. The script by John Pinkney mixes some of the traditional Vampire cinematic themes such as fangs, blood drinking & glowing red eye's with new ideas like the farm where humans are kept like livestock, bleed through special hi-tech machinery & scientifically checked for disease before it is packed into milk cartons & shipped out to other Vampires all over the world. Unfortunately the main problem with Thirst is that is just so slow, boring, dull & at 90 minutes far too long & drawn out. Thirst never explained why the Brotherhood wanted Kate to join them & become a Vampire so badly, was it just so Hodges could have sex with her & merge the two families together as mentioned at the end? If so why just not have sex with her against her will? Or have sex with her even if she isn't drinking blood? They put an awful lot of time & effort into conditioning Kate to become a blood drinking Vampire for no good reason as far as I could make out. One more thing, why wait until now to condition Kate? Why not years earlier in her life while she was still vulnerable before she had fully developed her personality & career? There are a couple of good sequences in Thirst like the tour around the factory where the humans are bleed & Kate's shower of blood is decent for a cheap thrill I suppose. I also have to mention the so-called twist ending which I figured out a long time before I actually had to sit through it. There's not much blood or gore in Thirst, half a mangled face, some neck biting & a few jars of blood is about it. The acting is pretty good throughout, maybe the acting was the best thing about Thirst in fact. Tecnically the film is OK, the cinematography is adequate despite what many say & just because a film is shot in scope doesn't automatically make it brilliant. There is a funny scene when an old woman listed as blue rinse lady (Paddy Burnet) bites someone on the neck during some sort of ceremony, she looks like cross dresser Barry Humphries in his Dame Edna Everidge costume, now that's scary folks! Overall Thirst definitely has some interesting ideas which are wasted in this dull, boring & tedious horror film, I'll take Christopher Lee as Count Dracula in one of Hammer's fine period horror films over this confused mix of ideas that seem to have just been haphazardly thrown together. One to avoid unless your an insomniac.