Invasion of the Blood Farmers 2001 Horror Movie Review

What do you think of when you hear the words “bad movie”? For most members of the movie going public, bad cinema translates into big budget disasters like “Gigli” or “Batman and Robin.” And if you listed these two films as miserable dreck barely worth mentioning without cringing, you would be correct. Big studio pictures that take a tumble are horrific to watch. But for a certain small segment of the public, these sorts of films really don’t represent the worst of the worst. Sure, watching Arnie Schwarzenegger don his Mr. Freeze outfit is worth a chuckle or two, as is witnessing Affleck’s attempts at a New Yawk accent, but for real kicks you have to dig much deeper. Those stalwart souls who wish to view the truly horrific need to check out movies made during the golden age of the drive-in. During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, the drive-in provided audiences with spectacularly bad films, real howlers that would give anyone a nervous breakdown. “Invasion of the Blood Farmers” falls neatly into this category, a category that shelters movies like “Blood Feast” and “Manos, The Hands of Fate.” Yep, “Invasion” is as bad as “Manos,” if not worse. Of course, I loved this film because I simply adore bad movies made by people who haven’t a clue as to how to construct a motion picture.

“Invasion of the Blood Farmers” tells the story of an ancient cult of druids (!) called Sangroids disguised as farmers in the modern day. These bib overall wearing dudes—there appear to be about three or four of them total—start working their way through the residents of Jefferson Valley in order to harvest a supply of blood. They need plenty of the red stuff to carry out various cheesy rituals and to resurrect their comatose queen, a lady who spends most of the film lying around in a glass box looking anemic. Unfortunately for the blood farmers, a local scientist, his daughter, and her goofy boyfriend not so quickly catch on to the unfolding hijinks. Problems start when the daughter’s dog disappears under mysterious circumstances, a local man stumbles into a bar in a terrible state, and the scientist finds some blood that reproduces itself at an amazing rate. Meanwhile, the blood farmers spend their time pumping blood out of bodies with some sort of Rube Goldberg contraption and yucking it up over their slumbering monarch. Eventually, the scientist and his assistant meet up with a professor at the local university who seems to know a lot more about the strange events in Jefferson Valley than he is willing to let on about. “Invasion of the Blood Farmers” doesn’t conclude as much as it judders to a halt when the scientist, with daughter and boyfriend in tow, locks horns with the druids during the resurrection ritual at the end of the film.

Just in case you get bored with the idea of a sleeping druid, some guy referred to as Creton (more like Cretin) pops up from time to time to help move the film along. This chap, who overacts with a ferocity rarely witnessed in any form of cinematic expression, is a true find for the bad film fan. He whines, he gesticulates, he commands, he violates every known rule of acting; this is a man who knows his limitations but simply doesn’t care. You won’t, either, after witnessing his histrionic performance. I really shouldn’t pick on Creton since none of the performances in the film are worth mentioning except in tones of absolute derision. I found the guy who played the scientist especially annoying. At the end of the film, the man does something very kind for his daughter and then LAUGHS AND LAUGHS in a very disturbing manner. What is he laughing about and why is he laughing so hard? Who knows, but that scene alone provides all the shocks you’ll get out of this film.

Nothing works in “Invasion,” absolutely nothing unless you count utter badness as a virtue. The cinematography resembles a style used in atrocity footage, and the film stock is in such bad shape that it looks like the director shot his movie in psychedelic-vision. Large chunks of the movie fade in and out amidst oceans of grain and haze, colors suddenly turn wacky, and the scenes look as though director Ed Adlum spliced them together with a chainsaw. And the special effects! Ha! What did they use for blood, a fizzy fruit drink? I’m not even going to excavate the mountain of continuity errors and just plain dumb dialogue in the film. To do so would simply take too long and require more energy than I am capable of at this point. “Invasion” will stupefy you with its dazzling array of banalities, overwhelm you with its sublime stupidity. Forget “Gigli” folks; “Invasion of the Blood Farmers” is the archetype of garbage cinema.

The DVD is odd for such a bad movie. There’s a big windup from Fred Olen Ray before the movie even starts. Ray’s directed plenty of bad movies in his own right, so his presence here is at the least appropriate and at the most annoying. Freddie and some floozies perform a few lame sketches in an effort to get you to send in a card enclosed with the DVD. Skip past this junk to get right to the gold: “Invasion of the Blood Farmers,” some stills from the film, and a boatload of schlock trailers. Only those viewers with iron constitutions and brains of lead should give this one a go. It’s an atrocious film sure to upset most people’s outlook on life. Would I watch it again? You bet. Cheese never tasted as good as this.