607-Bloodlust!

Film Year:  1961
Genre:  Horror, Thriller
Director:  Ralph Brooke
Starring:  Robert Reed, Wilton Graff, June
Keeney, Gene Persson, Joan Lora
MST Season:  6
Featured Short:  "Uncle Jim's Dairy Farm"

The Short

Two city kids visit their uncle’s farm where they see firsthand all the hard work of the rewarding life of a farmer.  They have fun ringing bells, swinging from ropes, and performing back-breaking labor, all so they can climb a rope by the end of the summer!

This short is a bit too underdeveloped to maintain a strong educational nature about life on a farm, but I imagine children were the target audience.  It mostly seems to give off the impression of the importance of a good day’s hard work more than anything farm related.  I imagine the setting was mostly chosen to show off cuddly animals to give the impression of such work being “fun.”

To an extent, the short has a lot going for it, being a depiction of child life long before video games and tablets and the like, meaning working on a farm could be about as entertaining as anything else.  One can’t say the short doesn’t have a well meaning message, though I doubt anybody nowadays would pay attention to it.

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

Bloodlust is a low budget Most Dangerous Game knockoff starring a pre-“This group somehow formed a family” Brady Bunch star Robert Reed.  Reed and three friends go sailing and wind up on an island in search of adventure.  They are however unaware that the island is inhabited by a former sniper who lures people to his island and hunts them for sport and displays their taxidermy-prepared carcasses for his collection.

I’d be lying if I said Bloodlust was a particularly skilled production.  It honestly looks and feels like something that was quickly prepared to fill up a double feature.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing, because entertainment value needs to be taken into consideration.  Bloodlust is never boring, which is a good start.  The acting is earnest from its young leads and suitably hammy from those on the island, which is a great way to keep one’s attention.  The screenplay, while unoriginal as hell, keeps things going at a snappy pace.

So no, Bloodlust is not a great movie, but it sure as hell fills its needs.  It’s a likable enough tongue-in-cheek thriller about murder and survival.  It’s never really all that riveting, but it sure as hell can kill a Saturday afternoon.

The Episode

This overlooked gem has often hit my DVD player.  Bloodlust is a laugh riot, featuring a watchable movie that can hold a viewer’s attention while adding the commentary to give the film the spice it needs to really feel flavorful.  The film never takes itself seriously, and Mike and the bots never do either.  They amp up the absurdity of the situations to brilliant levels, with top prize going to the drunk boat captain which is of course pummeled with booze-hound jokes.  On a lower but still funny tier we are given our antagonist’s wife who is having an affair, with adulterous jokes up the wazoo, meanwhile our naïve heroes are ribbed for their goofball, gee-wiz attitudes and their huffy attempts at outsmarting people far more clever than they are.

We are also given an appetizer in a short, paying a trip to Uncle Jim’s Dairy Farm.  This parcel is just as tasty as the main course, as Mike and the bots take aim at more city-folk attitudes toward the overworked lives of farmers, making light of the children’s situation by implying that they simply don’t want to be there.  Sadly these riffs are probably far truer to life than the short portrays.  Also delighting here is a running gag about the kids’ parents having no desire to bring their children back.

For desert we are given the host segments, and they’re short but sweet.  A lot of what’re presented are brief “bark a laugh” gags, with my personal favorite being the “Mystery Murder Dinner.”  This episode is also noteworthy for being the debut of Mary Jo Pehl as Dr. Forrester’s mother, Pearl.  Mary Jo of course would reprise the character in the seventh season before becoming the head Mad during the Sci-Fi era.  It’s hard for us to predict that future based on her appearance here, because mostly her role is ignoring her son in favor of Frank.  If they ever intended on bringing her back at the time, it’s not evident.  The best gag involving her appearance in the episode actually bounces up to the Satellite of Love, where Dr. F gives the crew scripts to put on a presentation for her, and their reads are absolutely hilarious.

Bloodlust is a well rounded episode that never slows down and is virtually flawless.  It’s a wonderful experiment that never seems to get it’s due, and I’d daresay it’s one of the best of the series.

Classic

The DVD

Bloodlust was released on Volume 1 of Rhino’s collection.  Audio and video are both swell, and the unriffed feature is included as a special feature.  The full screen print on this one is pretty worn, with lots of scratches and audio pops.  The print used on the show was in better shape.  There’s also a trailer for the film as well.

Shout Factory re-released this volume many years later, with inferior video.  The uncut film is excluded from the extras, however the trailer remains.  All things considered, the Rhino disc is the one to have in your collection.