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Blood Feast

 
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Blood Feast

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  • Director: Herschell Gordon Lewis
  • AMG Rating: star
  • Genre: Horror
  • Movie Type: Slasher Film
  • Themes: Serial Killers, Religious Zealotry, Cannibals
  • Main Cast: Connie Mason
  • Release Year: 1963
  • Country: US
  • Run Time: 70 minutes

Plot

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

Review

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

Cast

Toni Calvert - Trudy; Jerome Eden - High Priest; Scott H. Hall - Police Captain; William Kerwin - Pete Thornton; Ashlyn Martin - Marcy; Connie Mason - Suzette Fremont; Astrid Olsen; Thomas Wood - Pete Thornton; David F. Friedman - Drunken Hotel Husband (uncredited); Lyn Bolton - Mrs. Fremont; Mal Arnold - Faud Ramses

Credit

Herschell Gordon Lewis - Director, Frank Romolo - Editor, Robert Sinise - Editor, Herschell Gordon Lewis - Composer (Music Score), Herschell Gordon Lewis - Cinematographer, David F. Friedman - Producer, Stanford S. Kohlberg - Producer, Herschell Gordon Lewis - Producer, Herschell Gordon Lewis - Special Effects

Similar Movies

Bad Taste; Bloodsucking Freaks; The Flesh Eaters; The Gore Gore Girls; The Undertaker and His Pals; Nekromantik 2; Snuff
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Artist: Blood Feast
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Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Pop Artists

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Thanatos, Transmetal, Apocalypse, Mogul Thrash, Chronical Diarrhoea, Siglo XX, Recipients of Death, Necrosanct, Nausea, Morbid Saint, Jerry's Kids, Hexx, Delerium, Coroner, Blood, Benediction, Stormtroopers of Death, Scatterbrain, Possessed, Nuclear Assault, Mordred, Metallica, Megadeth, Kreator, Helloween, Heathen, Devastation, Destruction, Death Angel, Death, Dark Angel, Corrosion of Conformity, Celtic Frost, Bolt Thrower, Bathory, Anthrax, Anacrusis
  • Formed: 1985, Bayonne, NJ
  • Disbanded: 1991, Bayonne, NJ
  • Genres: Rock
  • Representative Albums: "Chopping Block Blues," "Kill for Pleasure," "Face Fate"

Biography

One of countless speed metal bands to emerge from the thrash-friendly state of New Jersey during the 1980s, Bayonne's Blood Feast were formed as Blood Lust in 1985, and actually submitted a few songs from their "Suicidal Mission" demo to New Renaissance Records' Thrash Metal Attack and Speed Metal Hell, Vol. 3 compilations before changing their name. The same label then offered them a contract, and both the full-length Kill for Pleasure and the Face Fate EP -- featuring vocalist Gary Markovitch, guitarists Mike Basden and Adam Tranquilli, bassist Lou Starita, and drummer Kevin Kuzma -- emerged in 1987. Press releases of the time often compared Blood Feast to Slayer, but their rougher style of thrashing, bordering on death metal, more closely resembled German bands like Kreator and Destruction, or Los Angeles' Dark Angel, and their legendary live performances (which invariably culminated in a blazing cover of Celtic Frost's "Into the Crypt of Rays") soon attracted a considerable underground metal following. The departure of Tranquilli reduced them to a quartet, and, following some unexpected delays, 1990 finally saw the release of their critically lauded sophomore album, Chopping Block Blues, through Restless Records. But interest in the band had waned quite a bit and much momentum had been lost, so they soon decided to break up. Nearly ten years later, Blood Feast reformed for a one-off performance at the 1999 March Metal Meltdown Festival in nearby Asbury Park, New Jersey, and 2002 saw the release of a collection of demos and live versions entitled Remnants: The Last Remains. ~ Ed Rivadavia, All Music Guide
Wikipedia: Blood Feast
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Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia
Blood Feast
Directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis
Produced by David F. Friedman
Written by Allison Louise Downe
David F. Friedman
Herschell Gordon Lewis
Starring William Kerwin
Mal Arnold
Connie Mason
Lyn Bolton
Scott H. Hall
Distributed by Box Office Spectaculars
Release date(s) July 6, 1963
Running time 67 min.
Language English
Budget $24,500 (estimated)
Followed by Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat (2002)

Blood Feast (also known as Egyptian Blood Feast and Feast of Flesh) is a 1963 American horror film directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis, often considered the first "splatter film". It was produced by David F. Friedman. This movie today would receive an R rating for violence and blood and gore. The screenplay was written by Alison Louise Downe, who had previously appeared in several of Lewis's other films. Lewis also wrote the film's score.

Significance

Popular with members of Lewis's small but loyal "cult following", as well as by some "B movie" fans, Blood Feast is a low budget horror film about an insane Egyptian caterer who kills people so that he can include their body parts in his meals and perform sacrifices to his "Egyptian goddess" Ishtar (the deity in question is actually Babylonian). Blood Feast immediately became notorious for its explicit blood, gore and violence. Blood Feast is often cited erroneously as one of the first films to show people dying with their eyes open (earlier examples include D. W. Griffith's 1909 film The Country Doctor and the 1931 film The Public Enemy).[1]

Mal Arnold plays deranged murderer Fuad Ramses, described by author Christopher Wayne Curry in his book A Taste of Blood: The Films Of Herschell Gordon Lewis as "the original machete-wielding madman", and the forerunner to similar characters in Friday the 13th and Halloween. Lewis said of the film, "I've often referred to Blood Feast as a Walt Whitman poem. It's no good, but it was the first of its type."[2]

Blood Feast is the first part of what the director's fans have dubbed "The Blood Trilogy". Rounding out the trilogy are the films Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964) and Color Me Blood Red (1965). After the third film, producer David F. Friedman said, "I think that for now we're going to abandon making any more 'super blood and gore' movies, since so many of our contemporaries are launching similar productions, causing a risk that the market will quickly reach a saturation point."[3]

Cast

  • Detective Pete Thornton: Thomas Wood (William Kerwin)[4]
  • Fuad Ramses: Mal Arnold
  • Suzette Fremont: Connie Mason
  • Frank, Police Captain: Scott H. Hall
  • Mrs. Dorothy Fremont: Lyn Bolton
  • Trudy Sanders: Toni Calvert
  • Marcy, Girl on beach: Ashlyn Marton
  • Pat Tracey: Sandra Sinclair
  • Motel victim: Astrid Olson
  • Drunken husband: David F. Friedman (uncredited)
  • Radio Announcer: Herschell Gordon Lewis (uncredited)

Criticism

Originally, critics were not kind to Blood Feast. A Variety review of May 6, 1964 termed the film a "totally inept shocker", "incredibly crude and unprofessional from start to finish", and "an insult even to the most puerile and salacious of audiences". The review labeled the entire production a "fiasco", calling Louise Downe's screenplay "senseless" and the acting "amateurish". Of Lewis' direction, camerawork and musical composition, the review judged that he had "failed dismally on all three counts".[5]

Sequel

Jackie Kong directed the cult favorite Blood Diner in 1986, with the intention of making it a "spiritual sequel" to Blood Feast. A spoof remake, Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat, was released in 2002. It marked the first time Lewis and Friedman worked together on a movie in several years.

References

  1. ^ Palmer, Randy. Herschell Gordon Lewis, Godfather of Gore: The Films. Jefferson, North Carolina, and London: McFarland & Company, 2000. ISBN 0-7864-0808-1. p. 41.
  2. ^ Herschell Gordon Lewis quoted in Palmer (2000). p. 7.
  3. ^ Romer, Jean-Claude, Silver Alain (trans.) "A Bloody New Wave in the United States" (July 1964), in Silver, Alain & Ursini, James (eds.) Horror Film Reader. New York: Limelight Editions, 2000. ISBN 0-87910-297-7. p. 63-64.
  4. ^ Doll, Susan; and Morrow, David. Florida on Film: The Essential Guide to Sunshine State Cinema & Locations. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 2007. ISBN 978-0-8130-3045-6. p. 164.
  5. ^ Blood Feast (film review). Variety, May 6, 1964

External links


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 
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