Chris Jericho’s Last Drive-In Co-Hosting Gig to Feature Bloodsucking Freaks

The film for Chris Jericho’s co-hosting appearance on Shudder’s The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs season premiere has been revealed, and it’s a doozy. Briggs spoke with Consequence of Sound for a new interview and revealed (per Arrow in the Head) that the film they’ll be covering is Joel M. Reed’s 1976 cult film Bloodsucking Freaks.

“Chris Jericho is a horror fan,” Briggs said. “I was on his podcast, and he told me that, from the time he was in high school, he was fascinated with the film Bloodsucking Freaks. He had what was called a Cheap Ass Movie Club among him and his high school friends where they would try to find the worst B-movie they could find and they would bring it in each week and watch it. The all-time champion was Bloodsucking Freaks, and he’s been fascinated with the movie his whole life, so I was like, “Come on and co-host Bloodsucking Freaks, and so he agreed to do that.”

Bloodsucking Freaks is an exploitation-style splatter film that released in 1976 and starred Seamus O’Brien and Luis De Jesus as the evil Master Sardu and his assistant Ralphus. (Wrestling fans may recognize the name Ralphus in association with Jericho from his WCW days.) The two run a Grand Guignol-style theatre in which people are kidnapped and forced into sadomasichistic shows of torture and murder. Its tendency to slip between serious horror and campy comedy elevated it to cult status.

Briggs added, “The time worked out well, too. He’s probably one of the most famous wrestlers in the world right now. He’s the guy who energized the AEW wrestling circuit that challenged the big boys. So, normally we don’t reveal the title of the movie or the guests, but he’s special. But that’s the second feature. The first movie is an all time, feel-good classic, and we have the star of that movie.”

The episode will kick off the show’s second season and premieres on April 24th at 9 PM on Shudder.