Blood Feast

So, in keeping with the horror fest that I am going to try up until I head to Portland, OR in late April, I have found that a fairly limited selection in the ol' DVD collection has me trying to improvise. Fortunately, the fact that I haven't really watched most of the films in the collection in their entirety helps here, as does this blog that you are reading right now.

Earlier, I covered a Herschell Gordon Lewis film in The Gore Gore Girls. Today, I will cover an earlier film that he did that is considered one of the first gory films in movie history in Blood Feast.

Blood Feast is about women getting killed in gruesome ways and the idea of preparing a feast for the Egyptian goddess Ishtar. Before I continue, Ishtar is actually a Babylonian goddess, but considering that this is a B-movie, all logic should be thrown out the window. Unfortunately, some of that logic could have easily been used, especially for the detectives that are trying to solve the particularly gruesome killings (more on this later). Immediately, the killer is known to the viewers, as the old man Fuad Ramses kills a woman in her bathtub and hacks off a leg. Soon, it is revealed that Ramses runs an exotic catering shop and is asked by a mother to help cater an Egyptian style feast for her daughter. To help prepare for this feast, Ramses kills another woman on the beach and takes parts of her brain, but not before knocking her boyfriend unconscious. Another killing sees Ramses pulling out a tongue of an anonymous woman staying at a hotel. More killings happen until the feast, when Ramses tries to offer the daughter as a sacrifice to the goddess Ishtar. Before he can, he gets run off by the screaming mother and eventually meets his fate by trash compactor.

The murders are particularly gruesome, which while it may not be as spectacular as say, Suspiria, the murders in Blood Feast did set a standard for subsequent horror movies to follow. For most of the movie, the viewer will likely find themselves screaming at the detectives. Despite the fact that the victims had some link to a "book club" and one victim describing the murderer (accurately, I might add) and mentioning something that sounds like "Eethar," which sounds similar to "Ishtar," the detectives still can't put it all together. Acting isn't all that great, either, but what would you expect from a B-movie? Those inconsistencies aside, Blood Feast is recommended for those who enjoy campy 60's horror and gore.