{"id":641494,"date":"2026-06-16T11:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T11:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/641494\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T11:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T11:18:09","slug":"thirst-review-member-dismembering-icelandic-gore-fest-rips-it-up-in-trashy-80s-style-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/641494\/","title":{"rendered":"Thirst review \u2013 member-dismembering Icelandic gore fest rips it up in trashy 80s style | Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wibbling willies! This gore fest from Iceland<\/a> starts as it means to go on: parked on a quiet back road, where a balding 1,000-year-old vampire has lured a middle-aged man into his car with the promise of a quickie. The vampire\u2019s head lowers into his poor victim\u2019s lap. \u201cNot quite so hard,\u201d the man implores, unheeded. Just three minutes into the film, we get sight of a dismembered member \u2013 the first of many to come. Filmed in trashy 1980s style, with plenty of red smoke and a synth-heavy soundtrack, Thirst is over-the-top and deliberately ridiculous, though I couldn\u2019t stop myself yelping at one or two moments.<\/p>\n

This is not a film graced by first (or even second) rate acting, though Hj\u00f6rtur S\u00e6var Steinason gives an entertaining performance as the vampire Hj\u00f6rtur, all weary nihilism with the occasional wrench of spiritual anguish. One night, he takes a shine to a young woman called Hulda (Hulda Lind Kristinsd\u00f3ttir), who is being harassed by local cops over the death of her brother from a drug overdose. After watching him split the skull of a local thug in two, Hulda is understandably petrified. But Hj\u00f6rtur reassures her that he is only interested in men. One of the cops pursuing Hulda is Jens (Jens Jensson), a uniformed officer of retirement age. His wife is a religious crank in a tracksuit who makes broadcasts for TV warning that the end is nigh \u2013 which it certainly is for some of Reykjav\u00edk\u2019s residents.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

There is no meaning or message here, no obvious metaphor for the vampirism. Just a midnight movie with the spectacle of Hj\u00f6rtur relieving his male victims of their dangly bits, and another vampire tucking into the internal organs of his (still living) victim. There is a lot of yuckiness, but not really any bite. Though one or two scenes \u2013 I\u2019m thinking of Hj\u00f6rtur tucking into hotdog with a twist (\u201cI don\u2019t eat processed meat\u201d) \u2013 may be destined for cult status.<\/p>\n

Thirst is on digital platforms from 22 June.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wibbling willies! This gore fest from Iceland starts as it means to go on: parked on a quiet…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-641494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}