13 Best Horror Movies On Shudder Right Now
6. Thirst (1979)
When it comes to great vampire movies, this Australian flick from 1979 rarely gets a mention. Which is a bloody shame.
Thirst deals with a creepy cult called the Brotherhood who are keen on drinking that sweet, sweet sanguine. They abduct Kate (Chantal Contouri) because she is a distant relation to infamous real-life blood drinker, Countess Elizabeth Bathory. When Kate arrives at the Brotherhood’s cult, we see an unsettling pleasant commune of tranquilized young men and women who are routinely farmed for their blood (and as such, referred to as blood cows - nice!)
It sounds like all the ingredients of a typical 70’s sleaze fest, but Thirst avoids any exploitative pitfalls, and shares a similar slow-burning class to the best of 70’s horror like The Exorcist (1973) or Don’t Look Now (1973), all within a The Prisoner setting.
The use of gothic imagery is gorgeous and never campy, and the psychological rabbit hole sequence halfway through becomes surprisingly transcendent.
And there’s blood. Lots of blood. And when most of the characters are wearing white, that blood looks very red.
A must for vampire fans. To quote the cult - “The thirst is in all of us”.