April 12: 412 Day — A movie about Pittsburgh (if you’re not from here that’s our area code). Or maybe one made here. Heck, just write about Striking Distance if you want.

Isn’t Blood Freak made in Miami?

Yes, but this is Yinzer Blood Freak, made right here in Pittsburgh. Yes, this time, we’ve moved from the balmy Atlantic breeze to the smell of the Mon.

Herschel (Chuck Connors) has just come into town, riding down 279 when he meets Angel (Shana Connors), who lectures to him about Jesus and why the marijuana that everyone loves is so wrong. She brings him home, where he meets her opposite sister Ann (Ashleigh Schimmel), who loves to get baked and is a bad, bad girl. The kind that lures dumb biker men away from good women and the Good News. But Herschel stays strong and resists the lure of jailbait, which only makes Ann so upset that she gets him hooked on ganja. 

We get this narrated to us by Tim Gross, the man who brings us Grossfest every year, telling us about God, drugs and so much more.

One toke across the line from Ann, however, and Herschel is dancing horizontally with her. Her dad busts in, and he doesn’t kill this biker in bed with his underage daughter. As long as he’s a Christian, he’s OK and can even work at the Light of God Turkey Farm and Science Farm. That leads him to eat radioactive turkey and become a were-turkey, just as in the original. 

Directed by Daniel Boyd and Gross, written by Boyd and made all over Allegheny County, this makes me happy that it’s so good. Unlike the original, this is no dream. Nor is it played as seriously as that movie. 

You can watch this on Vimeo.