Thirst

Watched May 18, 2015

1979
Starring: Chantal Contouri, Shirley Cameron, Henry Silva, Rod Mullinar

Kate (Chantal Contouri) is a professional lady about to take some time off from work. Apparently she is the descendant of a vampire clan, but she in unaware of this. A group of scientific vampires kidnap her and take her to a farm where they keep humans that they milk the blood out of like cows. The scientists are convinced that they just need to awaken the blood thirst that is in her genes for her to claim her vampire destiny. They drug her and perform various experiments to try to convince her that she wants to drink blood.They don't do a very good job of making her like the blood. They make her hallucinate so that she is surrounded by mysterious forces, and they only stop when she drinks blood.

After the initial tests don't seem to work, they let her go back home and to work but then she bites her friend and her boyfriend. The scientists bring her back for more conditioning but it still doesn't seem to work. They invite her to participate in a special ritual, they give her fangs to bite one of the human blood cows and she does it. Even though she has now had some blood, she still doesn't embrace her inherent vampirism. The group also kidnapped her boyfriend and brought him to the farm, one of the doctors tries to help them both escape. The doctor pushes the lady scientist into a blood vat, and she dies. The doctor and Kate escape on a helicopter but another scientist grabs on. When he falls off he falls onto power lines. Kate is taken to a weird basement cave where her boyfriend is being drained of his blood. The doctor says that Kate can drink him, but she doesn't want to. Then Kate lets the doctor drink from her. She then seems to embrace her vampire heritage.

Good special effects, it's slow in places, but overall pretty interesting. The exposition of the story can be frustrating. I did want Kate to escape the vampires and it seems like she resists for so long, so it's disappointing when she succumbs. Since they are constantly drugging Kate it's so confusing what is real or fake for her. If I was trying to turn someone into a vampire I wouldn't make them have terrible drug trips I would make the vampire lifestyle seem really glamorous, but the scientists don't take that approach.