I can’t argue on behalf of the film’s quality but I do admire Lewis’ ability to create a sub-genre of horror based on a business opportunity.
1963’s Blood Feast is well-known (and deservedly so) for essentially creating the template for the modern “splatter” film. There is no doubt in my mind that make-up artists like Tom Savini (Dawn of the Dead) and Rick Baker (An American Werewolf in London) would have chosen other career paths had this film not been made. Directly or indirectly, this movie is responsible for many of the gory horror films we see today. However, that doesn’t mean it’s any good. Far from it, actually.
The extremely thin story line revolves around an Egyptian “exotic caterer” named Fuad Ramses (Mal Arnold) who hunts down and murders women. He selectively cuts up his victims, using different body parts as part of a concoction he’s cooking up to honor Ishtar. (The script refers to her as an Egyptian goddess but she’s actually Babylonian. Supposedly, writer/director Herschell Gordon Lewis knew this and didn’t care.)
The local police are baffled as the murderer doesn’t seem to leave any clues. Which I found to be hilarious, because he doesn’t appear to take any special precautions to cover his tracks. Quite the opposite, actually. He’s rather brazen and careless.
In my recent review of 1959’s The Manster, I mentioned that I was surprised by how relatively explicit it was. Had that film come out after Blood Feast, it wouldn’t have seemed that way at all. Where previous horror films mostly hinted at violence or depicted it bloodlessly, this movie’s main selling point was that it was going to show the gory aftermath up-close whether you wanted to see it or not.
From the opening scene, Lewis seems more interested in getting to the gore than he does making any sense story-wise. I have to stress that Lewis doesn’t actually show the victims getting stabbed or sliced up but he does showcase the results of the violent acts in bright, red detail. That’s his modus operandi. Blood Feast is essentially a series of murders where we don’t see the act but we see the murderer’s handiwork in lingering, tight close-ups.
But, really, that’s where the movie’s influence on the horror genre ends. The rest is essentially a slapped-together production with continuity errors galore, an oddball soundtrack, terrible dialogue, and laughable performances. For those with a sense of film history, especially the horror genre, this is an undisputed ground-breaker of a movie that must be seen at least once. For everyone else, Blood Feast is a film that’s better heard about than seen.
Lewis, who came to be known as the “Godfather of Gore,” definitely broke barriers with this film. He knew that a plethora of dismembered limbs and bloodshed would garner word-of-mouth publicity. Despite it’s shoddy production values, Blood Feast was a huge financial success. It grossed approximately $4 million from a budget of around $25,000. I can’t argue on behalf of the film’s quality but I do admire Lewis’ ability to create a sub-genre of horror based on a business opportunity.
2.0 out of 5.0 stars
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