Incense for the Damned – also released as Bloodsuckers – is a 1969 British horror film starring Patrick Macnee, Patrick Mower and Peter Cushing. Based on Doctors Wear Scarlet by Simon Raven.
Director Robert Hartford-Davies (Corruption) disowned the film after post-production changes and the inclusion of a psychedelic orgy scene (featuring 
an uncredited appearance by Françoise Pascal). It wasn’t released in the UK until September 1972.
Plot:
A young university student has disappeared in Greece. When his friends search for him they notice that wherever he has been a number of murders have taken place.
They find their friend under the spell of a beautiful vampire, whose blood-sucking methods include the use of sex. Believing that they have killed her, the group return to England, unaware that their friend is now a vampire…
Reviews:
“No real effort is made to depict Richard Fountain’s psychology; rather, the whole is conveyed via dialogue, with first Richard’s friends then Richard himself discussing the possible implications of his mental state. A belated attempt to link the effects of Oxford life with ancient Greek rituals is clumsy at best.” And You Call Yourself a Scientist!
” … the youth movement is not seen as liberating, as it usually was in most films of this period, but is instead painted as inhabited by Satanic orgiastists, drug takers and murderers – exactly what some of the more extreme critics were denouncing it as. Incense for the Damned in its condemnation of both the repressive order of the class system and the wild liberation of the youth movement – yet also seeing both as deeply intertwined – makes a striking metaphor”. Moria
“What I do know is it’s hilarious. The hero, a private eye hired to find Peter Cushing’s son (Patrick Mower, again) tries to keep us updated on what’s going on with his comical voiceovers, and then we’ve got other actors speaking their lines like they’re reading them over the shoulders of their co-stars, or just making them up as they go along”. British Horror Films
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Cast and characters:
Patrick Macnee … Derek Longbow
Peter Cushing … Doctor Walter Goodrich
Alexander Davion … Tony Seymore
Johnny Sekka … Bob Kirby
Madeleine Hinde … Penelope
Patrick Mower … Richard Fountain
Imogen Hassall … Chriseis
Edward Woodward … Doctor Holstrom
William Mervyn … Marc Honeydew
David Lodge … Colonel
John Barron … Diplomat
Filming locations:
Greece and Cyprus in Spring 1969.
Censorship:
British censors the BBCF demanded cuts to obtain an ‘X’ certificate (adults over eighteen years only) which was issued on the 2nd November 1971.
