Thirst Movie Review

It's the Soylent Green of the horror genre.

Crazed scientists are farming humans as "blood cows" in an attempt to give eternal life to their elderly, semi-vampiric patrons. The story focuses on captive Kate (Chantal Contouri), who is brought into the farm in order to marry the leader of the cult and fulfill some destiny or another.

With shades of Suspiria, Rosemary's Baby, and General Hospital, Thirst is one of the quirkier horror films in recent history, with blood-spewing showers, bodily fluids packaged in milk cartons, bizarrely tilting (and throbbing) rooms, and Contouri stumbling through all of it. The movie comes off as one long dream sequence (which it is, as Kate goes through a long programming session) -- it's mood music for the eyes, and bloody music at that.

It all wraps up with the Satanic ceremonies and gore-infused dramatics that we've come to expect of the vampire-kidnapping-mind control genre. There's even a woman drowning in a vat of blood. And Henry Silva hanging from a helicopter. That you gotta love.

But the flipside of this is that Thirst doesn't have much of a story to tell. It's one scene of mindless horror followed by another -- creative and well-produced, but not really Omen-class enthralling. All the borrowing from too many genres just muddles the picture. And the score, which sounds like it's straight from The Story of O, is unbearable.