Thirst | A Secret Society of Australian Vampires

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]If you're after a vampire movie with a twist, a vampire movie with a different angle, a vampire movie with a different set of fangs, a vampire movie that uh digs deeper into the vein of horror than most uh examples of the genre, then look no further than First from 1979, part of the uh the Osloation movement at the time. And first is about a young lady called Kate who seems quite uh confused. She's having a bit of an identity crisis to say the least.

[00:00:36]Doesn't know who she is or what she is, but that'll all make sense later on in the movie. So Kate is uh kidnapped by a weird cult in rural Victoria and taken to a uh weird commune which seems to be occupied by um kind of zombified uh brain dead automatan people who uh seem to be enjoying just uh lazing around the pool and playing croquet and uh all kinds of low intensity activities at this weird uh commune that looks like a bit of a health farm or something like that. And Kate soon learns that she's actually the fullblooded, if you'll pardon the pun, descendant of Elizabeth Baie. And Elizabeth Baie, as you may well know or may not know, was known as uh affectionately known as Countest Dracula.

[00:01:38]She was a countess that used to bathe in the blood of virgins in a quest for uh eternal life.

[00:01:47]So uh quite a bunny boiler, quite a piece of work. And apparently Kate, our heroine in this movie or our protagonist, is a direct descendant of Elizabeth Baie.

[00:02:01]So that's the setup for thirst.

[00:02:04]And uh this commune is uh quite nefarious. It has some weird secret society vibes going on.

[00:02:13]Uh the location of the commune's quite impressive. I believe it was filmed at a uh a Melbourne art commune called Monsalvet which is still around. Uh, I think I got the name right and I'll leave a link in the uh pinned in the comments just in case any of you are are interested in the uh visiting this particular location. I'm sure this arts community would be highly impressed by a bunch of uh exploitation fans rocking up and asking them about uh 1970s vampire movies. So, there's that.

[00:02:49]I'll leave that pinned in the comments.

[00:02:51]But uh the whole movie has quite a strange and unusual vibe to say the least. Uh some of the commune members include Henry Silver of all people, best remembered from Bronx Warriors 2, reviewed recently on the uh on the channel and also of course he was in uh Trapped, one of my favorite uh Canucks exploitation movies of the 80s. So Henry Silva was in KU exploitation and O exploitation which is quite a feat.

[00:03:22]And there's also David Hemings. David Hemings some of you may remember as the Paul McCartney lookalike from uh Deep Red aka Profondo Roso.

[00:03:33]And uh they join a uh quite a quirky ensemble cast of uh strange and unusual cult members. cult members that kind of remind you of uh Scientologists or something like that. And basically the uh the deep dark secret is they are a coven or a cult of bloodrinkers of uh modernday vampires at least modern day in 1979 vampires.

[00:04:03]And the uh this particular retreat, this commune also includes a uh a uh blood harvesting facility to uh cater to all of the cults bloodthirsty needs. And this looks a lot like a uh an old milk factory because I believe it was an old milk factory from what I understand uh somewhere in Melbourne that no longer exists.

[00:04:33]But they're basically um yeah, they're basically harvesting blood for this secret society of uh of uh adrenochrome, I guess, drinking elites.

[00:04:46]Uh kind of like the Epstein class, I guess you'd say. So, this was one of the early movies that kind of hypothesized people like that walking among us and harvesting us and so on and so forth back when uh that sort of thing was pure fantasy, pure horror, pure speculative fiction and back before it basically became a documentary in 2026.

[00:05:12]So, pretty cool movie. It is quite different to a lot of your uh garden variety vampire movies, especially your Hammer movies and even the Lost Boys or something like that. This one's of course of course is a uh bit of an allegory or a bit of a uh bit of a fable about class.

[00:05:35]the uh the top 1% and the uh the bottom 99% who are uh basically viewed as cattle as the movie uh none not so bluntly asserts.

[00:05:49]So uh the bottom 99% are basically there to have their blood harvested for these uh vampire elites including Henry Silver and the guy that looks like Paul McCartney out of uh Profondo Roso aka Deep Red.

[00:06:04]So, the social com commentary in this one, needless to say, is heavy-handed.

[00:06:09]It comes in thick and fast. It It is quite a cool movie. Uh maybe because of that, maybe in spite of that, who's to say? And the reason I love this one is why I love a lot of these Oloitation movies. A lot of them were made by uh basically Rackon.

[00:06:29]um rackonurs or entrepreneurs same same and they hadn't been sort of formally trained in film making or anything like that. So they did give their own perspective, their own interpretation of uh of cinema uh in this uh fantastic oploitation movement and as a result you see these movies with uh quite disparit plot elements uh quite disparit uh and uneven plot structures but that's what makes them so unique and so memorable to this day. And Thirst from 1979's no different. It's a bit of a pastiche, of course. It's part vampire movie, part cult movie, part um dystopian science fiction movie. It uh wears all of these various uh patches on its sleeve and uh it does um throw in enough cliche vampire tropes to keep the uh the uh Christopher Lee or Bella Losce crowd interested, but it does also throw in enough uh different wild and disparit plot elements as with a lot of these exploitation movies where you can tell that it really did uh appeal to the uh the drive-in crowd and the uh the double feature crowd, the the grindhouse crowd at the time. And there really was uh something for everyone as long as everyone had a uh very dark sense of humor and questionable taste in uh in cinema.

[00:08:16]So, a lot of memorable scenes in this one. It's always good to see Henry Silver chewing up the scenery. Uh David Hemings, the um the Paul McCartney lookalike's great in this one. I love the whole uh the metaphor for uh for basically uh people that think that they're above the law, above everyone else, treating everyone else's cattle, which we've seen turned up to 11 sadly in recent years with all the uh the scandals involving the whole Epstein class and so on and so forth. Uh what did as I said what did look like fiction does begin to uh resemble fact after a while. So uh these movies are quite interesting in retrospect that did explore these themes that once uh seemed far-fetched when I was a kid that once seemed uh fantastic when I was a kid and now they almost feel uh documentary style.

[00:09:16]So, uh, first from 1979, fairly easy one to see either on the, uh, the deep dark gray area corners of the internet or YouTube. It's also streaming on Broly.

[00:09:30]You can probably pick up a, uh, copy on physical media as well fairly easily uh, from Umbrella here in Australia. And I'd highly recommend Broly, the streaming service that I revisited this one on recently. Broly is uh free to those of you in Australia or those of you who can pretend to be in Australia for an hour and a half and uh is one of the uh the better value streaming services purely by virtue of being uh 100% free and uh having relatively few ads a lot like uh an Australian Tuby.

[00:10:11]So, I hope you've enjoyed this uh quick look at Thirst uh the quintessential Osloation vampire movie.

[00:10:22]Good uh good part of Osloation history from producer Anthony Janine, of course.

[00:10:29]And don't forget to uh check the pinned comment. you can visit the uh the main location from this movie even right now in 2026 if you happen to be going through rural Victoria.

[00:10:42]So uh something I think we should all put it put on our bucket list if we're passing through the area.

[00:10:50]And if you're an Australian horror fan, it's probably about as close as you're going to get to uh getting to somewhere like Monroeville Mall or the uh the house out of Texas Chainsaw Massacre or the house out of Halloween. So worth uh worth pinninging on the uh antipity and bucket list.