this movie is the first slasher flick...and it's got all of the bad acting and gore you could ask for. the killer basically looks like a giant oompa loompa, which is fantastic. but anyway, the gore was a lot at the time, but when compared to movies of today, the it's pretty tame here. but anyway, it's pretty grand and worth a watch for those who want to see where the slasher genre of films began.
Tell me...what do YOU consider to be..unUSual? o_O God I love this movie! It's got it all....laughable special effects...horrible acting...if you love bad movies...this is a must see :D
I realise that in the Sixties, Blood Feast was cutting edge and hailed as 'the first splatter film' and this makes me somewhat reluctant to slander it.
But this isn't the Sixties.
The "horror" was banal, the acting tiresomely asinine, the plot platitudinous, the dialogue forgettable, the camera movements as smooth as a cat's tongue and the only real element of exploitation was a little whipping toward the end of this ridiculous crapfest.
Awful enough to be cult, and grim and bloody enough to disturbing. Unfortunately, those two aspects don't mesh very well. (It's hard to have some Ed Woodian laughs, when someone's mother is sobbing about the dress she's going to bury her daughter in.)
Sure, this may be the first splatter film, but that doesn't make it good. Would you want to drive the first car ever built? I think not. Even I'm being sentimental by giving it two stars - one more than it rightly deserves - because of it's historical importance, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking that if BLOOD FEAST had never been made, there'd be no splatter films, someone else would have come along and made a (probably better) gore film fairly soon anyway.
Heralded as the first ever "gore" film, H.G. Lewis' "Blood Feast" really is something else! It's often compared to the likes of Ed Wood films, and I suppose that is a pretty fair assumption (only with a lot more blood). Even though the dialogue is ridiculous and the acting atrocious, this film still manages to be quite a fun trippy ride. I have to laugh at all of the complaints about the acting. I mean c'mon, do you really think Robert De Niro could have played this any better? Personally I think it IS the bad acting in little psychotropic films like this that give'em that certain charm and character.
The story here deals with a man names Ramses, who is attempting to resurrect the ancient Egyptian goddess, Ishtar. To do this, he must perform an Egyptian Blood feast, which he cleverly manages to persuade a naive older woman into having for her daughters birthday. What this woman doesn't know is that this feast requires the body parts of several women. So with that set up, the film follows Ramses along on his quest. Also, in this bizarre story is two of the most stupid cops your ever likely to see on the screen. Watching them try to figure out this devilish plot with the intelligence of pre-schoolers is a riot.
I guess in the end this film has great historical importance as well as cult relevance. The gore is pretty lame compared to todays standards, but hey...you had to start somewhere didn't you? "Blood Feast" is the first of Lewis' "Blood trilogy" which also includes 'Two Thousand Manics' & 'Color Me Blood Red. Highly recommended.
Oh I ADORE Blood Feast and I had better. I have this horror book I got when I was a little girl and I desperately wanted to see this gory film. I looked everywhere, and it took me about seven years to find a rental copy, but I did (an hour away from where I lived at the time). The version I had found even had an introduction from Joe Bob Briggs (who is a genius) and as he described some of the effects and the way the movie was made, I couldn't have been more excited for it to start. The thing was, it was worth searching for seven years for. It was worth all the dirty looks from every video store clerk in the surrounding area when I asked about this title. This is probably my first real favorite low budget film, and it's been an obsession since. The budget was I think around a twenty-five thousand dollars and you would definitely know it, but I certainly couldn't think of a way to make a more entertaining film on less.
Herschell made the story up as he went along, he rented a hotel room that happened to have an Egyptian theme, and since he was going to be shooting there he planned around it. There is an Egyptian Goddess named Ishtar that the local limping (limp switches legs throughout the movie) Exotic Caterer wants to carve up a human feast for. What a better idea than having an.....Egyptian Feast! Well little Miss Playboy (Connie Mason) happens to be studying Egyptian culture so her mother decides to hire a caterer. You see where this is going right?
The acting is ridiculous (you can see them reading their lines off of furniture), the plot obviously a spur of the moment kind of thing, but the film is priceless. It's one of the funniest things I've ever seen, it's gorier than hell (especially when you consider it was the early '60s) and there is plenty 'o death. I can't recommend it enough if you are even somewhat patient with low budgets. PS, You'll LOVE the music, I promise!
Hilarious film even when it tries not to be. I remember the video cover, the REAL video cover, from my video store with a chick with her tounge ripped out.
As I venture forward in my quest to broaden my movie watching horizens. I stumble into some of the old grindhouse style horror films. Back when blood and more of the goriness of films was just starting to be seen in films. So I figured I would start off with Herschell Gordon Lewis one of the first to ever bring these effects into a horror film.
Blood Feast if I understand correctly is his first film with said gore in it. What I want to say first is in order to watch a film like this you have to put yourself in the mindset that this film was made in the 60's. The acting is a little on the corny side. The special effects aren't near what we have now and basically you just have to get in the mindset that back when this film was made it was cutting edge stuff and it probably scared some people. But even at that the film is actually quite good.
As I already mentioned the acting was pretty much lacking. But you have to remember the time and also remember that most of the acting done in horror films even today is poor. They don't really pick all that great of actors to star in horror films. I guess because they are just going to get killed anyways. Also the special effects, as in the blood and the killing, was very poor but again you have to look at the time it was made in. They didn't have the things we have today.
The story overall was decent. It was a little farfetched at times but overall still good. It's a film that I definately could watch again and probably will. I also want to state that the reason I have ventured onto this journey of movie cinema is because of Tarantino's and Rodriquez's Grindhouse. I wanted to see some of the films that inspired the making of such a great double feature of films. Give this one a look just put yourself in the right mindset of when it was made and I think you will enjoy it. Especially them horror fans out there.
This is the splatter anticlassic all us sickos know and love. The non-plot is, well, pretty simple and it's only an excuse to cut loose with loads of very extreme gore and sadism. Fuad Ramses (Mal Arnold), an Egyptian maniac of pagan bloodlust, must serve up a "blood feast" to Ishtar, his horrible goddess of gory days gone by. Y'know, back when chicks used to get their hearts yanked out on altars IN BLOOD COLOR! How does he get the morsels for his feast? It's an easy guess! Tongues pulled out. Limbs cut off. Brains hacked out in a blood-splattered mess. It's the grand-daddy of all the sickest stuff you've ever seen, and even though it's pretty stupid and bad, it sure is fun! It's even funny on purpose (as well as the other way around). For those of you who dig this unsavory and depraved type of junk the way I do, find this bad mother as soon as possible and surrender to the forbidden pleasures of the first splatter-comedy ever! (I think...)
Herschell Gordon Lewis was the pioneer of the gore film. The acting is beyond terrible, the background organ music is annoying, but the gore effects are still pretty nasty, even after 45 years. An amputation, a scalping and a tongue removal are what's in store for your viewing pleasure. So bad, so horrible, but for some reason more funny than scary to watch.
Pretty good flick. The effects today would be considered cheesy and that blood is oh so paint red, but if you love the older horror movies, you'll say the effects were damn gruesome for their time. The acting was helter skelter, some good, some bad. Fun little film.
This movie is so bad it's good. Terrible acting, hokey story, cheap sets, but thats what makes the movie for me. If Hollywood made this movie today they would spend 80 million dollars on it and put Tom Cruise and Paris Hilton in lead roles and it would suck. Anyway....poor Connie Mason couldn't act her way out of a wet paper bag and the fellow who played the police cheif was so bad Herschell just told him to yell his lines. Bad acting not withstanding, this film single handedly launched a new genre, the gore/splatter film. All you fans of "Friday The 13th" and "Nightmare On Elm Street" bow to the greatness of H. G. Lewis!
Often hilarious cringe inducing bad moving making. Really inept except the fact it was an originator of gory films but most glorious for the z-grade crowd. Worth a brief demented chuckle (only 67 minutes long) especially for the most elusive gimp aside Kaiser Soeze.
the wizard of gore(herschell gordon lewis) brings us "blood feast" this is considered by many to be the first "gore" film. shot in nine days in miami. this movie is a hoot. lots of fun and lots of old school gore to boot . plus the dialogue and acting is so bad makes its very entertaining . plus the killer in this movie is a gas :)
H.G. Lewis isn't really director as much as a showman.Indeed much of this is of the point and shoot variety and if the actors stumble over each others lines just keep rolling as long as screen time is being filled.Still Blood Feast ranks high historically as the first bona fide drive-in splatter movie.Sure it's crude and completely unconvincing with it's meat covered mannequin parts but that's part of it's goofy charm.It also has some of the funniest bad acting and awful dialogue in bad movie history.For whatever reasons imaginable Blood Feast still endures and remains one of the best sellers in Spmething Wierd Video's line up.Remember,"It hasn't been served in five...thousand...years!" He,he,he.
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