Rating: NR
Genre:
Horror
Release Date: 02/22/2000
Dubbed: English
Sound: 1/5.1
Run Time: 67 min
Flags: Not For Children, Gore
Distributor/Studio: Image Entertainment
Herschell Gordon Lewis, the acknowledged "Godfather of Gore," shattered taboos against graphic violence onscreen with this bloody
horror film.
Mal Arnold plays
Fuad Ramses, a mad Egyptian caterer with bushy eyebrows who is gathering body parts to use in a "Blood Feast" to honor the ancient goddess
Ishtar. He's been hired by the mother of young Egyptology student
Suzette (
Playboy Playmate
Connie Mason) to cater a special party. Luckily,
Suzette happens to be dating a cop (
Thomas Wood) who is also in her class and is on the case of a gruesome serial killer who removes body parts from his female victims. The cop finally solves the case and chases
Ramses into the back of a garbage truck, where he is bloodily compacted.
Wood and
Mason returned the following year in
Lewis'
Two Thousand Maniacs! ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
It was bound to happen, and
Herschell Gordon Lewis and
David F. Friedman got there first. While hardcore pornography was still almost a decade away from becoming legal and widespread, this groundbreaking feature from 1963 performed the same task for onscreen violence.
Blood Feast exists solely to ogle grotesque acts of carnage, scene after scene of bloody bodies that the camera lingers upon lovingly and without shame. The plot is threadbare, the acting is on a par with the clumsiest of high-school plays, and the direction is static and uninvolving. Nevertheless, this is one of the important releases in film history, ushering in a new acceptance of explicit violence that was obviously just waiting to be exploited, as
Blood Feast was an instant success and changed the way that
horror films were judged (as well as allowing other genres to raise the pain threshold). The desire to gaze upon gory, gaping wounds has something in common with the urge to view naked bodies engaging in sexual acts.
Lewis tapped into this subconscious craving to view the private insides of humanity and not only made a bundle from a subsequent career of car-wreck-level motion pictures but also allowed films to go into more intense visual areas.
~ Fred Beldin, All Movie Guide
;)
