''Thirst'' is a 1979 Australian

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit physical or psychological fear in its viewers. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with Transgressive art, transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements of the genre include Mo ...

directed by

Rod Hardy Rod Hardy (born 1949) is an Australian film and television director. Career His interest in film began before the age of 12, when he shot several short films on his brother's 8 mm film camera. Hardy has over 350 hours of credits directing tel ...

and starring

Chantal Contouri Chantal Contouri (; born 8 April 1950), sometimes credited as Chantal Cantouri, is a Greek Australian television and film actress. She has acted in many films and TV series as well as on stage, with one of her best known roles being in the 197 ...

Max Phipps Maxwell John Phipps (18 November 1939 – 6 August 2000) was an Australian actor, known for a number of roles in theatre, films and television during the 1960s until the end of the 1990s. Phipps' most notable roles included portraying Prime Mini ...

, and

David Hemmings David Leslie Edward Hemmings (18 November 1941 – 3 December 2003) was an English actor, director, and producer of film and television. Originally trained as a boy soprano in operatic roles, he began appearing in films as a child actor in the ...

. It follows a woman who is kidnapped by a blood-drinking

cult Cults are social groups which have unusual, and often extreme, religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals. Extreme devotion to a particular person, object, or goal is another characteristic often ascribed to cults. The term ...

of modern vampires who believe her to be an ancestor of

Elizabeth Báthory Countess Elizabeth Báthory of Ecsed (, ; ; 7 August 1560 – 21 August 1614) was a Hungarian noblewoman and alleged serial killer from the powerful House of Báthory, who owned land in the Kingdom of Hungary (now Slovakia). Báthory and fo ...

. It has been described as a blend of vampire and science fiction genres, influenced by the 1973 film ''

Soylent Green ''Soylent Green'' is a 1973 American dystopian thriller film directed by Richard Fleischer, and starring Charlton Heston, Leigh Taylor-Young, and Edward G. Robinson in his final film role. It is loosely based on the 1966 science-fiction nove ...

'' as well as drawing on the folklore of Elizabeth Báthory – one of several vampire films in the 1970s to do so. The film was released in Australia in September 1979, and later was distributed in the United States by

New Line Cinema New Line Productions, Inc., Trade name, doing business as New Line Cinema, is an American film production, film and television production company that is a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, a division of the Major film studios, ...

in 1980.

Plot

Single professional Kate Davis is kidnapped by a shadowy organization known as 'The Brotherhood'. This organization believes her to be a direct descendant of

and claim to be part of an ancient race that consumes blood in order to retain their youth and strength. They have taken her to a hospital-like compound where they clinically 'bleed' brainwashed and hypnotised humans and harvest and consume their blood. Kate is horrified by what she sees and refuses to join, or to take one of the Brotherhood as a mate. She manages to steal a truck and flee the compound but is re-captured. Kate continues to be unreceptive to the Brotherhood and their practices, leading to them using hallucinogens to break down her resistance. Only one member, Dr. Fraser, is against this treatment as he believes that it will only result in losing her respect for them even if it's successful. Kate is brainwashed and initiated into the cult through a ceremony that involves her using fake metallic fangs to drink the blood of a sacrificial victim. Once home Kate acts as if she has seemingly forgotten all that happened, only for her to end up killing a woman in her apartment and drinking her blood. Once back at the compound Kate is still resistant to drinking blood and taking the lives of other humans. In an attempt to make her comply the Brotherhood kidnaps her lover Derek and brings him to the farm. Dr. Fraser helps him escape and seeks out Kate, seemingly in an attempt to reunite them. But it's revealed that he is also descended from a vampire lineage and seeks a union with her. He did save Derek from the farm, but only so he could drain Derek's blood and offer it to Kate. Initially angry at seeing Derek's drained body, Kate's will is finally broken and she submits to Dr. Fraser and the Brotherhood.

Cast

Production

Development

Producer Antony I. Ginnane followed his then-usual practice of hiring new directors from television by giving the job of directing to

Casting

Producer Ginnane had sought out Hemmings and American

Henry Silva Henry Silva (September 23, 1926 – September 14, 2022) was an American actor, with a film and television career which spanned fifty years. A prolific character actor in over 140 productions, he was known for his "dark, sepulchral" looks and ...

in supporting roles to bolster the film's popularity outside Australia.

Donald Pleasence Donald Henry Pleasence (; 5 October 1919 – 2 February 1995) was an English actor. He was known for his "bald head and intense, staring eyes," and played more than 250 stage, film, and television roles across a nearly sixty-year career. Pleas ...

was originally considered for Silva's role, but the production could not afford to hire him due to his rising popularity after the success of ''

Halloween Halloween, or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve), is a celebration geography of Halloween, observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christianity, Western Christian f ...

'' (1978). Chantal Contouri was cast in the film based on her performance in ''

Snapshot Snapshot, snapshots or snap shot may refer to: * Snapshot (photography), a photograph taken without preparation Computing * Snapshot (computer storage), the state of a system at a particular point in time * Snapshot (file format) or SNP, a file ...

'' (1979). David Hemmings accepted the role of Dr. Fraser, which Ginnane said he took as he was suffering financial difficulty at the time and needed to work.

Filming

The film was shot in

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

. The artists' colony of Montsalvat north of Melbourne was used as the cult's headquarters.

Release

''Thirst'' was released on 28 September 1979 in Australia.

acquired the film for U.S. distribution, giving it a

test market A test market, in the field of business and marketing, is a geographic region or demographic group used to gauge the viability of a product or service in the mass market prior to a wide scale rollout. The criteria used to judge the acceptability ...

release in

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

on 25 January 1980. On 7 March 1980, it screened at

Filmex The Los Angeles International Film Exposition, also called Filmex, was an annual Los Angeles film festival held in the 1970s and early 1980s. It was co-founded by Gary Essert, George Cukor and Philip Chamberlin in 1970. In 1976, Alfred Hitchco ...

in Los Angeles, California in a midnight showing. It later opened regionally on 9 May 1980 in

Lexington, Kentucky Lexington is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city coterminous with and the county seat of Fayette County, Kentucky, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census the city's population was 322,570, making it the List of ...

Home media

Synapse Films Synapse Films is an American DVD and Blu-ray label, founded in 1997 and specializes in cult horror, science fiction and exploitation films. It is considered a boutique DVD label. History Synapse Films was owned and operated by Don May, Jr. an ...

released ''Thirst'' on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

in October 2008. In 2014,

Severin Films Severin Films is an American independent film production and distribution company known for restoring and releasing cult films on DVD and Blu-ray. It is considered a boutique Blu-ray and DVD label. History The label was created in 2006 in Los A ...

released the film in a

Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...

and DVD combination set. Indicator Films released the film on Blu-ray and 4K UHD Blu-ray in limited edition sets in both the United Kingdom and United States on 18 March 2025.

Reception

Box office

The film performed poorly at the Australian box office, through Ginnane noted that it did perform slightly better than his previous feature, ''Snapshot'', largely due to exhibition at

drive-in theater A drive-in theater/theatre or drive-in cinema is a form of movie theater, cinema structure consisting of a large outdoor movie screen, a projection booth, a concession stand, and a large parking area for automobiles. Within this enclosed area, c ...

Critical response

The Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, Australia, and owned by Nine Entertainment. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuous ...

'' panned it as a "B-grade" vampire film, criticising the performance of Contouri as well as Hardy's direction as "bizarre" yet "singularly unthreatening." Critic Bill Warren, reviewing the film for its opening at the Filmex festival in Los Angeles, felt that "despite a novel premise and some good acting... the film is basically a failure because the central idea is rather silly." The film was highly regarded by influential American film critic

Leonard Maltin Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic, film historian, and author. He is known for his book of film capsule reviews, '' Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide'', published from 1969 to 2014. Maltin was the film criti ...

, who gave it three stars out of four. On review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

the film holds a rare 100% fresh rating from 5 reviews.

References

Sources

* * * * *

External links

*
''Thirst''
at

Australian Screen Online The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), known as ScreenSound Australia from 1999 to 2004, is Australia's audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting, and providing access to a national c ...

''Thirst''
at Oz Movies {{Authority control 1979 directorial debut films 1979 films 1979 horror films 1970s English-language films 1970s exploitation films 1970s science fiction horror films Australian science fiction horror films Cultural depictions of Elizabeth Báthory English-language science fiction horror films Films directed by Rod Hardy Films scored by Brian May (composer) Films shot in Melbourne New Line Cinema films Vampire films 1979 science fiction films