Thirst (1979)

Successful Australian businesswoman Kate Davis (Chantal Contouri) is kidnapped by a cult of modern-day vampires and self-proclaimed supermen known as ‘The Hyma  Brotherhood’.

They have a ‘farm’ in a remote Australian location where they harvest blood from the “blood cows” – clinically ‘milking’ blood from brainwashed and sedated people, filtering it and testing it for impurities, and distributing it in milk cartons to vampires all around the world.

Kate is revealed to be a descendant of 17th-century Hungarian serial killer and bloodsucker extraordinaire Elisabeth Bathory (known as “The Blood Countess”) but refuses to accept her birthright as a vampire and join the cult.

Kate manages to escape, stealing a truck to make her getaway. But with dreadful inevitability, the truck breaks down and who should happen along but the leaders of the group in their Rolls Royce, who help her back to the Farm.

They debate whether to give her hallucinogens in order to break down her resistance and brainwash her. Psychologist Dr Fraser (David Hemmings) is against the idea but is outnumbered and the group use an experimental psychotropic approach which sends Kate teetering on the brink of insanity.

Kate is duly initiated into the cult, feasts on blood and is returned home.

Sadly, with around 15 minutes to go, the film loses its magic, and while the last scene is quite good, Thirst does not recover. 

Kate Davis
Chantal Contouri
Mrs Barker
Shirley Cameron
Mr Hodge
Max Phipps
Dr Gauss
Henry Silva
Derek Whitehall
Rod Mullinar
Dr Fraser
David Hemmings
Lori
Rosie Sturgess
Sean
Robert Thompson
Ditcher
Walter Pym
Leah
Jacqui Gordon
Toni
Val Christensen
Martha
Amanda Muggleton
David
Christopher Milne
Nurse
Lulu Pinkus

Director
Rod Hardy