Skip to content

Category: Felipe Sacdalan

Published on

Plot: aristocratic vampire and his aides terrorize sleepy Filipino village.

Kulay dugo ang gabi (The Night Is the Color of Blood or Blood Is the Color of Night, Google Translate insists on the former, the cult blogosphere at large on the latter. Regardless, it was released internationally as The Blood Drinkers and, for a later reissue, The Vampire People) influenced by Universal horror films and the Hammer horrors of the day and, more importantly perhaps, is historic for being "the first color horror picture produced in the Philippines.” It was based on a serial komik (which one is a mystery to us at this point) from Hiwaga Komiks by Rico Bello Omagap and illustrator Jim Fernandez. Directed by Gerardo de León, produced by the Filipino Roger Corman, Cirio H. Santiago with his Premiere Productions in association with AM Productions for Hemisphere Pictures; The Blood Drinkers is a pompous partially in color gothic horror with that undeniable Southeast Asian flavour and an all-star cast including Ronald Remy, Amalia Fuentes, and Celia Rodriguez. The Blood Drinkers might very well be the first Filipino vampire horror and is alternatively delightfully old-fashioned or completely campy. Before the Blood Island saga brought Filipino madness to grindhouses around the world, there was The Blood Drinkers.

Gerardo “Gerry” Ilagan de León (or Gerardo de León) was a medical doctor who left the profession to start acting in 1934. After appearing in front of the camera for eight pictures he decided he was more at home behind it when he took up directing in 1939. During World War II de León produced a spate of anti-American propaganda films in alliance with the occupying Japanese forces. For this he was arrested, imprisoned, charged with treason, and sentenced to be executed by government officials. He was exonerated at the last minute when exculpatory evidence that he had aided the Filipino resistance surfaced. De Léon had directed Terror Is a Man (1959) - a fairly conservative (and semi-faithful) big screen adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Island Of Dr. Moreau – just five years earlier. Not only did de León give the Philippines its first multi-part vampire epic, together with his erstwhile protégé Eddie Romero he contributed to the Blood Island saga by directing Brides of Blood (1968) and Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1969) for Hemisphere Pictures. His career spanned an impressive four decades before grinding to a halt in 1976. He was the most awarded director in Filipino history winning seven FAMAS Awards (three of them consecutively) from 1952 to 1971. In 1982 he was posthumously bestowed the title of National Artist by the Order of National Artists of the Philippines for his contributions to the development of Philippine art. His enduring legacy and cultural importance was reflected when the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) in association with the Philippine Postal Corporation ran a limited line of commemorative stamps in 2013.

Ronald Remy would later play Dr. Lorca in de León’s Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1968). He was nominated for a FAMAS (Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences) Award for Best Actor but lost to Joseph Estrada (who would form the Movie Workers Welfare Foundation or Mowelfund in 1974 as well as the Metro Manila Film Festival in 1975 and would later serve as the Mayor of Manila and as the 13th president of the Philippines from 1998 to 2001). Remy would later turn to directing himself. Likewise was Amalia Fuentes nominated for a FAMAS Award for Best Actress for her Barbare Steele-esque double role but lost to Marlene Daudén. Fuentes was dubbed the "Queen of Philippine Movies" and the “Elizabeth Taylor of the Philippines” by fans and critics alike and starred in over 130 films. In the '60s Asia Magazine crowned her “Asia’s Most Beautiful Actress” and in 1964 she became the first-ever Filipina ambassador for Lux bath soap. All through the 1960s to the end of the 1970s she wrote, produced, starred (and sometimes directed) in the films she made with her own production company AM (Amalia Muhlach) Productions. She also served as a member of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) and was one of the highest paid actresses of her generation. Celia Rodriguez on the other hand did win a FAMAS Award for Best Supporting Actress. Implacable pulp pillar Vic Díaz lends only his voice this time around and was last seen around these parts in Naked Fist (1981) and Raw Force (1982). Consider this the Filipino The Vampire and the Ballerina (1960) or The Monster of the Opera (1964) and a precursor to Spain’s Fangs Of the Living Dead (1969), replete with all the heaving bosoms and religious overtones you’d want. Not strange then that this won FAMAS Awards for Best Picture and Best Director.

After an unspecified time abroad local member of nobility (and landowner) Doña Marissa (Mary Walter) has returned to her native Philippines to arrange a heart transplant for her daughter Katrina (Amalia Fuentes). Since she was only able to take one daughter abroad she left her identical twin sister Charito (Amalia Fuentes) in care of poor peasants Elias (Paquito Salcedo) and Losela (Felisa Salcedo). During her time away Marissa has fallen in with the vampire cult led by Katrina’s bald physician (and lover) Dr. Marco (Ronald Remy) who will oversee the procedure. Marissa has promised Marco to arrange a suitable donor for Katrina’s procedure. Who a better candidate for said transplant than her estranged twin sister Charito? Marco is madly in love with the ailing Katrina but this does not stop his assistant Tanya (Celia Rodriguez) from vying for his affections. The arrival of Dr. Marco and his entourage (including the hunchback Gordo and a midget, both mute) coincide with a spate of exsanguinations of nubile village maidens in the surrounding jungle. Charito is courted by the suave and metropolitan Victor de la Cruz (Eddie Fernandez) while her best friend Ruben (Renato Robles) has an unrequited love for her. When her foster parents are brutally slain in a nocturnal vampire assault Doña Marissa offers to take Charito in now that she’s functionally a warden of the state. Thanks to her social and political sway Marissa is able to obfuscate, inveigle, and deceive local authorities. Only the pious village priest (Andres Benitez, with the voice of Vic Díaz) is able to see through the aristocrats’ deception and recognize the situation for what it truly is. Will the priest’s belief and the combined power of Charito’s friends be enough to withstand and ward off the vampyric threat that has consumed their sleepy peasant village?

In age-old gothic horror tradition The Blood Drinkers is a morality play on good and evil and a very Catholic one at that. If the heavy-handed narration doesn’t make it clear, the continual religious iconography certainly will (or should). What this most resembles is a very loose retelling of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The main plot recreates most of the key events and each lead character has a book counterpart and is true to their respective arc. Dr. Marco is Count Dracula, Charito and Katrina are Elisabeta and Mina Murray Harker, Victor de la Cruz and Ruben are Jonathan Harker, Tanya and Doña Marissa are R. M. Renfield, and the priest as Professor Abraham Van Helsing. The Living Corpse (1967) from director Khwaja Sarfraz did the unlicensed adaptation thing a lot smoother than de León and Cesar Amigo do here. The Living Corpse (1967) is even more impressive considering it was made in Pakistan. More than anything the color scheme is what ensured this its cinematic longevity. Since color stock was in short supply in the Philippines and thus too expensive to use carelessly The Blood Drinkers was shot alternately in color and black-and-white (later tinted in hues of blue, pink, red, magenta). Not only does this color-coding greatly enhance the atmosphere, it actually has a contextual function. Whenever Marco appears - or whenever the vampires prey on their victims and dread rises - the screen will be painted red (characters will even break the fourth wall and exclaim “It’s all red!”), suspenseful scenes are dyed in blue with pink and magenta appearing for the character scenes in between. There are scenes in color, but they are far and few, and headscratchingly random. A harana ensemble has an entire dedicated color segment for their nightside courtship serenade, a young maiden is exsanguinated in the jungle by Marco but the kill is not in color whereas the immediate aftermath is. It truly boggles the mind. The score from Tito Arevalo is suitably bombastic, portentious, and creaky. Oh yeah, there’s even a rubber bat on a string that the American distributors loved. As always, the original Tagalog version (with subtitles) is preferable but the edited international English-language version is charming in its own dim-witted American way.

Perhaps there’s a point to be made that The Blood Drinkers might be a tad too quirky for some (where else are you going to see a bald vampire wearing cool sunglasses and alternatively dressing in a cape in one scene and in mod-fabulous attire in the other?) and for those who thought The Dracula Saga (1973) wasn’t insane enough or for whom Fangs Of the Living Dead (1969) didn’t have enough family dysfunction and all the attendant melodramatics, this will certainly tide you over. The Blood Drinkers contains some of the biggest names of the First Golden Age of Filipino weird cinema, both in front and behind the camera. If this gives you the occassional The Playgirls and the Vampire (1960) vibe, you’re not wrong. While not overtly comical there are several things (the sunglasses, the rubber bat, the bad wigs, the dubbing, et al), whether intended that way or not, that the ensuing six decades have made unintentionally funny. Regardless of the kitsch (again, your mileage on that may vary) The Blood Drinkers stands as a monument of Pinoy cult cinema. It helped usher in an era of prosperity of domestic exploitation cinema and saw its domestic features exported around the world. The Philippines and its exploitation industry became so attractive during the wicked and wild 1970s and the decadent 1980s that the island all but was a second home for American, Italian and other foreign exploitation moguls. Two years later it was graced with the even better spiritual sequel Blood of the Vampires (1966). While Terror Is a Man (1959) was certainly the true pioneer, The Blood Drinkers put the Philippines on the international pulp cinema map – and for that reason alone it has more than earned its place in exploitation history.

Published on

Plot: martial arts instructor investigates the disappearance of her brother.

That Cirio H. Santiago would try his hand at blaxploitation should surprise no one. He after all was the man behind Terror Is A Man (1959), as well as the first partially colored Filipino gothic horror with The Blood Drinkers (1964) and its sequel Blood Of the Vampires (1966) (both with Amalia Fuentes). By the mid-seventies two things were big in drive-ins across America and grindhouses on New York’s 42nd street: blaxploitation and martial arts imports from the Far East. Santiago commenced establishing a footing in North America by co-producing The Big Doll House (1971), The Big Bird Cage (1972), and The Hot Box (1972) with and for Roger Corman. That in turn would give him the leverage to launch his own features through Corman’s distribution network. Before Naked Fist (1981) and Angelfist (1993) there was Jean Bell and TNT Jackson, or the first of Santiago’s loose trilogy of topless kickboxing movies. Everything has a beginning, and Cirio H. Santiago kicked open all the doors with mad energy.

Never one not to be with the times TNT Jackson (released back home as Dynamite Wong and TNT Jackson and, understandably, abbreviated for the international market) is the perfect response to Hong Kong martial arts capers as The Tournament (1974) (with Angela Mao Ying) and Sister Street Fighter (1974) (with Etsuko Shihomi). Santiago would often play up his stars with (fabricated and very much non-existent) martial arts championship titles, and with the granddaddy of them all it’s no different. That Santiago teamed up with Roger Corman for North American distribution was a deal made in exploitation heaven. No wonder then that TNT Jackson has stood the test of time. By comparison Naked Fist (1981) and Angelfist (1993) are more obscure. Santiago always had a talent for female-centric action and while Jean Bell hardly was a full-blooded action star she’s given plenty of opportunity to show off her chops.

Martial arts instructor Diana Jackson (Jean Bell, as Jeanne Bell) has traveled to Hong Kong to investigate the mysterious disappearance of her brother Stag. Landing in one of the seedier districts Jackson is almost immediately accosted by a bunch of street thugs. Jackson is able to hold her own but is picked up by Elaine (Pat Anderson) who just happens to be passing with her limo. Back in the city Diana seeks out the Joe’s Haven pub. There she quickly befriends retired martial arts instructor Joe (Augusto Valdes Pangan Sr., as Chiquito) and learns that her brother had fallen foul with the local drug cartel run by the American Sid (Ken Metcalfe, as Ken Metcalf). Diana crosses paths with Charlie (Stan Shaw) and sparks fly between the two. Ming (Joe Mari Avellana) warns Sid of the obvious danger Diana poses to their operation, especially now that Charlie’s enchanted with her. Elaine expresses her reservations about the way recent shipments have been handled. As Diana continues her investigation and deliveries are intercepted a senior cartel partner (Joonee Gamboa, as John Gamble) decides Jackson’s too much of a threat, and has his goons intercept her. Meanwhile Elaine reveals that she’s a deep undercover narcotics operative and that Sid ordered Charlie to kill Stag. Upon learning that the man she has been sleeping with is responsible for her brother’s senseless slaying TNT is forced to live up to her nickname and explodes in a blind rage…

At a brisk 72 minutes TNT Jackson does not have the luxury of fucking around, and it doesn’t. The plot, minimal as it is, is feeble even by lowly Santiago standards. The action choreography is laughable and bad and laughably bad at that. Nobody was expecting TNT Jackson to measure itself with Hong Kong or the average Robert Clouse epic, but even Death Promise (1977) had better action choreography. The routines are slow and brawlish with constant dancing around and no sense of pace, rhythm, or gravitas. No amount of rapid-fire editing can hide that Jean Bell had no background in martial arts. There were no less than 4 (!!) martial arts instructors on hand during production, but not one among them could apparently decently choreograph a single fight. Stan Shaw acquits himself with well enough but he was no Jim Kelly or Jim Brown, to say the least. The screenplay was a co-written by Santiago regular Ken Metcalfe and Richard Miller. Who’s Miller, you wonder? He was the gunshop owner in The Terminator (1984). Where Naked Fist (1981) and Angelfist (1993) took their time to tie up loose ends, TNT Jackson doesn’t bother with such trivialities, or with much else for that matter.

The star (inasmuch as such a thing is possible with Santiago) was Playboy Playmate of the Month (October, 1969) Jean Bell. Bell worked with everybody from Martin Scorcese to Terence Young and Lee Frost and shared the screen with blaxploitation superstars as Jim Kelly, Jim Brown, Fred Williamson, and D’Urville Martin. She can be seen in Mean Streets (1973) and The Klansman (1974) as well as blaxploitation crime/martial arts drive-in romps as Cleopatra Jones (1973), Policewomen (1974), Three the Hard Way (1974), The Muthers (1976), and Disco 9000 (1977). Bell was no Pam Grier or Tamara Dobson but she was able to hold her own well enough regardless. Pat Anderson was in Bonnie's Kids (1972). Ken Metcalfe and Joe Mari Avellana were Santiago regulars. Metcalfe frequently worked with Eddie Romero and Bobby A. Suarez. He can be seen in Naked Fist (1981), Enter the Ninja (1981), Stryker (1983), Savage Justice (1988), and Angelfist (1993). Avellana was, among many others, in Wheels of Fire (1985), Silk (1986), and Silk II (1989). In short, there’s a lot of familiar faces here and for a Filipino production this looks decidedly American. Blaxploitation was the ticket and Santiago managed to capture the decade’s grindhouse drive-in zeitgeist. TNT Jackson is as lean, mean, and grimy as they come – and it never makes any excuses for what it is.

While Europe was mesmerized by the Italian gothic horror revival, the giallo explosion, Spanish fantaterrors, and Scandinavian sexploitation America experienced sweeping societal changes in the economic recession and collapse following the postwar boom. Social progressive values that sprung up in the previous decade grew stronger. Civil rights, women’s liberation, environmentalism, and anti-war protests erupted everywhere. No wonder then that urban revenge tales and underdog vigilante heroes became fixtures in cinema, mainstream and otherwise. On the one hand there were the biker counterculture flicks following Easy Rider (1969), LSD cinema in the wake of The Trip (1967), and gritty actioners on the model of either Dirty Harry (1971) or Death Wish (1974). The black community had their own cinematic heroes in the form of Melvin Van Peebles in Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971), Richard Roundtree as Shaft (1971), and Pam Grier as Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974). Bruce Lee had brought kung fu to North America with Enter the Dragon (1973) and following his untimely death Hong Kong imports were everywhere. Downtrodden and impoverished commoners fighting back against feudal oppressors was something that resonated across cultures. Martial arts was the language of the oppressed and disenfranchised demographics/communities (typically either African-American or Latino) embraced it wholeheartedly. In other words, TNT Jackson benefitted tremendously from the decade’s social upheaval and, retroactively, is very much a product of its time.

Seeing as how TNT Jackson almost immediately followed Foxy Brown (1974) there’s a degree of overlap between the two, intentional or otherwise. As said earlier, Bell was no Pam Grier or Tamara Dobson yet thankfully TNT Jackson is a cut above, say, the average Serafim Karalexis chop sockey joint or poverty row revenge action as Road Of Death (1973). It speaks to the viability of a concept that Cirio H. Santiago would return to the same well over the ensuing decades and twice with Caucasian women in the starring roles. Were Jillian Kesner and Catya Sassoon better actresses? That’s debatable. Like Bell, Kesner was an exploitation veteran and Sassoon was famous mostly thanks due to her hair stylist/business tycoon father. Of the three Kesner was the better fighter and Bell could genuinely act. The talents (while considerable) of the late Sassoon lay elsewhere, fighting and acting generally not being among them. Quentin Tarantino kinda-sorta paid tribute to it with his Kill Bill (2003-2004) (in truth more of a Hong Kong valentine) and it certainly was ripe for the exploiting. Which raises the only real question left: when is Rene Perez going to remake this with Stormi Maya, Alanna Forte, or Elonda Seawood?