I didn’t bother to get the names of the people in this movie or the director. I’m sure they’d all be better off if I didn’t name them anyway. It’s not as if you’re ever going to hear of any of these people ever again anyway. Hell, the movie doesn’t even have an IMDB listing. That should tell you something right there.

Simply put, this movie is an absolute disgrace! How a production that’s this amateurish on every single level and employees bait and switch tactics to lure in viewers got released an official home video release simply boggles the mind. Heck, none of the Blockbusters in my area even stock PINATA: SURVIVAL ISLAND, which actually had production values and name actors, yet they allowed this waste of space to clutter their shelves.

Where to begin?

Let’s start with the bait and switch. One would think that a movie called BLOODTHIRST: LEGEND OF THE CHUPACABRAS would actually have chupacabras in it.

WRONG!!!

There is a chupacabra but it only has about 6 seconds of screen time, one second for an obvious model head and the other 5 for a blurry shot of a poorly animated CGI creature. Those six seconds occur in the first half hour. The monsters in the rest of the movie are nothing more than the kind of vampires you’d see in an early 80s heavy metal video. Either they couldn’t afford to keep doing the chupacabras or they never intended too. Either way, it is a total bait and switch tactic that is only going to piss off the viewer. If I wanted to see a no budget vampire movie there is no shortage of movies to choose from out there. If the movie was going to focus on the legend of the _Mocha vampire then the movie should have been called BLOODTHIRST: LEGEND OF THE MOCHA VAMPIRE! I rented this movie because I wanted to see a monster movie about the chupacabra and that’s what the title and the box art are selling it as. Total bait and switch! It’s for that reason that I’m not cutting this movie any slack. It’s total garbage!

How about the production values? Somebody on the message board who also got suckered into renting this said it was like a movie you’d see on Atom Films. I’ve seen movies on Atom Films that looked like TITANIC compared to this production. The picture looks like it was filmed on a combination of digital video and a VHS camcorder because the quality varies from scene to scene. In one scene things are crystal clear and the next scene the picture has a haze to it. The sound almost always sounds like it has an echo or was read by somebody standing about 10 feet away from the microphone.

As for the acting… What acting? The performances makes me suspect that the filmmakers just cast their friends or some local non-actors. The only person in the movie that seems to be trying to give something resembling a performance is the lady playing the old gypsy woman but instead she sounds like she’s doing a bad impression of Madame Zelda (Carla’s personal psychic on Cheers). Even more laughable is the lead hero’s family. His mom looks like she should be playing his older sister. And his grandfather looks more like someone who should be playing his dad. They must have kids when they’re really young in that family…like when they’re 10 years old!

How about the plot? The description of movie talks of a treasure map and a lost mine. The movie doesn’t even get around to that until 40 minutes in. Up until then the movie was more like a really bad, really cheap Mexican soap opera only with a predominately Caucasian cast. You got extended scenes of people arguing about paying the rent, numerous scenes of a reporter asking people questions, and endless scenes in a bar where virtually nothing happens other than some woman singing a folk song. The plot doesn’t even start until the movie is halfway over and even then it’s a total snooze. If I haven’t mentioned it yet, this…movie…moves…very…very…slowly…and…is…very…very…boring.

You really want to know how dreadful this movie is? It took several viewing to finish this movie. In fact, I actually turned it off at one point so that I could watch TURBULENCE 3: HEAVY METAL on Cinemax and I’ve already seen that movie more than once. Actually, that may say more about me than this movie but it definitely says something about the lack of entertainment BLOODTHIRST: LEGEND OF THE CHUPACABRAS provides.

There is one thing I’ve come to realize having viewed this movie and BOG CREATURES. I’m now convinced that it is virtually impossible to create any sort of spooky atmosphere require for a horror movie on digital video. It just can’t be done. Everything looks too glossy and too clear on digital and that works against the atmosphere you want to create in a horror movie.

This movie gives bad movies a bad name. Hell, it gives movies a bad name! BLOODTHIRST: LEGEND OF THE CHUPACABRA is so atrocious that it makes CHUD 2: BUD THE CHUD look like EVIL DEAD 2! I asked Butane if there was an icon for negative Dracs because this thing deserves negative 4 or 5 Dracs. Unfortunately, I’ll just have to settle for a No Dracs rating. That’s still giving this movie more credit than it deserves.