| Blood Feast | 
 enlarge | Director: Herschell Gordon Lewis
Actors: Mal Arnold, Lyn Bolton, Toni Calvert, Gene Courtier, Jerome Eden
Studio: Image Entertainment
Category: DVD
List Price: $9.99
Buy New: $5.50
You Save: $4.49 (45%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  39 reviews
Sales Rank: 30860
Format: Color, Dvd-video, Full Screen, Special Edition, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: Unrated
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 67
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
DVD Layers: 1
DVD Sides: 1
Picture Format: Pan & Scan
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: D6012D
UPC: 014381601220
EAN: 0143816012208
ASIN: B00004KDER
Theatrical Release Date: July 6, 1963
Release Date: February 22, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com
A serial killer is on the loose. Women are being killed and body parts are being stolen. The police are stumped (so to speak). Meanwhile, Egyptmania seems to be gripping this small Florida town. Fuad Ramses's "exotic catering" shop is doing a booming business and his book, Ancient Weird Religious Rituals, is being studied by the local book club. Is there a connection between Ramses and the murders? Of course! In this movie by the wizard of gore, Herschell Gordon Lewis, plot and suspense take a back seat to the gruesome and bloody murder scenes. The acting may not be very good, the script is weak at best, and the effects don't hold up to later standards of Hollywood gore, but there is an infectious enthusiasm that comes through Lewis's desire to shock his audience. The exploitation elements may be dated, but that only makes them all more entertaining. A shocking drive-in sensation when released in 1963, Blood Feast remains a milestone in the exploitation genre, followed (in what would come to be known as Lewis's "blood trilogy") by Two Thousand Maniacs! and Color Me Blood Red. --Andy Spletzer
Description
Nothing so appalling in the annals of horror has ever been seen before. When Mrs. Fremont hires crackpot Egyptian cultist Fuad Ramses to cater a party for her daughter, Suzette, she commits the culinary catastrophe of the century! Fuad immediately prepares a Blood Feast made from the grisly body parts of nubile young women. The world's first (and most notorious) "gore" film, "Blood Feast" is both shocking and hilarious. It's also the first of the infamous "blood trilogy" from director Herschell Gordon Lewis and producer Dave Friedman, who followed this perverse classic with the equally twisted "2000 Maniacs" and "Color Me Blood Red."
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| Customer Reviews: Read 34 more reviews...
 Gold Mannequin Destroys Miami Suburb, film at 11 August 26, 2008
If you went into this, taking it seriously, then the problem is at your end. The acting, props, special effects and story line are supposed to be hokey. Don't believe me? Then watch the movie with the Herschell Gordon Lewis and David F. Friedman commentary.
The story, is simple, sacrifice women to appease and resurrect the Egyptian Goddess Ishtar.
There is plenty of gore, and considering this is pre-FX, pretty impressive. Utilizing items such as chicken skin, studio blood mixed with Kaopectate to give it texture and a rotten lamb tongue (more on this later). This was how American Gore all started, this was the flagship and I value the ingenuity.
Fuad Ramses (Mal Arnold) overacts to a degree that is comical and it fits perfectly. Ramses is killing and mutilating young women in a Florida suburb, taking bloody souvenirs to the idol of his revered goddess Ishtar, (which is a store Mannequin painted gold in a Channel dress). There are a series of quality kills, for its time and if you keep your mindset, in a place that accommodates 50/60's exploitation, I promise you, you'll enjoy yourself.
There is one kill I do want to mention. Ramses infiltrates (surprisingly powerful for a short, thin gimp) Aldrid Olson, (whom by the way, was found by David Friedman at the Playboy mansion, he went there in search of an attractive woman with a large mouth(for the tongue scene), this is also where he found Connie Mason). Anyway, I digress, Ramses, proceeds to rip out Aldrid's tongue. This scene, as amateurish as the special effects were, was ghastly. The tongue was gruesome and in all actuality, it really was. It had once belonged to a sheep, it was a real tongue. The story behind it is that the production team had to obtain it from a slaughter house in Tampa, which was quite a haul from the production set. While it was resting in a refrigeration unit, the power had gone out and the tongue quickly became rank. However, getting a replacement was not possible due to scheduling restrictions. The solution was attributed to Scott H. Hall (if I remember right); he drenched the tongue in Pinesol which rectified the stench. Pretty gross, I'd say.
The movie is well worth the watch, I also encourage you to re-watch it with the commentary.
Happy Horrors
Blood Feast is a Splatter Fest. February 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I discovered Herschell Gordon Lewis through a reference in the movie Juno, and Blood Feast is my first Lewis film experience. Also known as the "Godfather of Gore," Lewis is best known for creating the "splatter film" subgenre of horror films. He made several nudie films in the early Sixties (Living Venus, B-O-I-N-G!, Adventures of Lucky Pierre, and Goldilocks and the Three Bares, none of which I've seen) before making Blood Feast in 1963. Blood Feast is considered to be the first "gore" film. I can only imagine what it would have been like to experience this unprecedented and sensational film at a drive-in theater.
Blood Feast tells the story of Fuad Ramses, an insane Egyptian caterer (insert Talking Head's song "Psycho Killer" here), who is killing nubile young hotties for their body parts to serve at an Egyptian Blood Feast in honor of the Egyptian goddess Ishtar. Is the film violent? One scene depicts the deranged caterer ripping the tongue out of a young woman's mouth. Badly acted, badly directed, and badly plotted, Blood Feast is nevertheless a must-see cult classic that opened the door to later horror films such as the Friday the 13th and Halloween series. As the trailer warns, Blood Feast is not for small children or the faint of heart.
G. Merritt
 Awfully Entertaining September 29, 2007
Released in 1964, H.G. Lewis's "Blood Feast" owns the distinction of being the world's first "gore" movie, i.e., the first horror film to show death and dismemberment in gruesome "blood color." Audiences were shocked, but they loved it, and the film was a huge hit at drive-in theaters. (Aside from the grindhouses, most indoor theaters declined to show the film, as it was considered too distasteful.)
Grisly as the film is, it's hard to imagine anybody actually being scared by it. With its obviously low budget, awful acting, and crackpot story about a cannibalistic Egyptian caterer with the absurd name of Fuad Ramses, "Blood Feast" seems more hilarious than horrifying, yet audiences in 1964 were seriously freaked out by it. Even today, over four decades later, this offbeat gem of cult horror cinema remains weirdly, inexplicably entertaining, perhaps because it is the seminal exponent of the almost hypnotically bizarre sensibilities that would come to distinguish Lewis's films from those of every other exloitation filmmaker in the business.
Lewis was a former literature professor, advertising executive, and part-time independent filmmaker who shot many of his films in south Florida in order to escape Chicago's brutal winters. The sphinx's head in the opening titles of "Blood Feast" was actually an architectural decoration of the Suez Motel in the Sunny Isles section of North Miami Beach, where Lewis and crew frequently stayed while shooting their epics. Till recently, the Suez Motel and its sphinx still existed on Collins Avenue in North Miami Beach, and over the years had become something of a mecca for cult film fanatics due to its association with Lewis's films. Until, that is, the old motor court was razed to make way for one of Donald Trump's new luxury condo developments.
"Blood Feast" featured Playboy playmate Connie Mason (1963's Playmate of the Year) in her first starring role as the ingenuous damsel-in-distress. She was hired by Lewis's partner, David F. Friedman, who felt that she was "decorative"--and also exploitable, on account of her Playboy fame. Unfortunately, director Lewis quickly became frustrated with her lack of acting skills. As the latter-day drive-in movie critic, Joe Bob Briggs put it, Connie Mason "couldn't act her way out of a potato sack if there was a rattlesnake in there with her."
Another unintentionally hilarious highlight of the film is the appearance of Scott H. Hall, who played the police captain to Bill Kerwin's (aka, "Thomas Wood") detective. Hall was a famous carnival talker (you never call them "barkers"), whose spiel had been recorded by the Smithsonian Institute as part of their American Circus archives. Hall was also a friend of "Blood Feast" producer David F. Friedman, who persuaded Hall to play the part of the police captain after the actor originally cast in the part reportedly flew into a drunken rage and attacked screenwriter Allison Louise Downe after reading a final draft of the script.
Hall had many talents, but acting wasn't one of them. Lewis told him, "If you can't emote, just shout your lines," So he did. Trooper that he was, Hall was also incapable of memorizing dialogue, so he wrote his lines on the palms of his hands, and can clearly be seen "reading his palm" in several scenes.
Encouraged by the success of "Blood Feast," Lewis went on to make his most famous film, "Two Thousand Maniacs," and subsequently churned out a whole slew of sleazy, low-budget gore and exploitation flicks, all of which were suffused with his unique brand of tasteless lunatic humor. In 1972, he made his most ferocious gore film, "The Gore-Gore Girls," a movie that many people still find unwatchably offensive due to the extreme, misogynistic violence. All of Lewis's previously films had been released unrated, and "The Gore-Gore Girls" was, ironically, the first film that Lewis had ever submitted to the MPAA for a rating. Lewis's subsequent censorship battles over the film were sufficiently frustrating that he temporarily abandoned filmmaking altogether in order to focus on his advertising business.
Years later, Lewis was invited to speak at a retrospective of his films, during which one of the attendees asked him whether he considered himself an artist--to which he replied, with a mixture of amusement and astonishment, "Have you seen my films?"
Herschell Gordon Lewis currently lives in south Florida, and is a prolific writer and marketing consultant who still occasionally makes outrageous films.
In 2002, Lewis and his former partner, Dave Friedman, were persuaded to helm a "Blood Feast" sequel entitled "Blood Feast 2: All You Can Eat." Despite the film's extreme gore, deliberately campy tone, and an amusing cameo by longtime Lewis fan and gonzo director John Waters (as a priest!), the film was poorly received by critics and fans, many of whom blamed the movie's troubles on reported creative differences between the producers and the Lewis / Friedman team. The film received a limited theatrical release, after which it was distributed directly to DVD for the home entertainment market. Two versions of the DVD were released: an unrated version which Blockbuster Video refused to carry; and a milder, R-rated version in which the gory, climactic face-ripping scene was removed altogether.
Undaunted by his experience with "Blood Feast 2," the indefatigable Lewis is reportedly planning to lens several other original films, including a project called "Herschell Gordon Lewis's Grim Fairy Tales," and another, tentatively entitled, "Win, Lose, or Die."
No word on the status of those productions.
Whether you love his movies or hate them, Herschell Gordon Lewis is rightly known as the "Godfather of Gore." He is the inventor of that most existentialist of genres, the "splatter" movie, and is one of the last surviving icons of exploitation cinema, having directed such outrageous grindhouse classics as "She-Devils on Wheels," and "Just for the Hell of It."
If you're a film snob, don't bother with "Blood Feast," or any of Lewis's movies, because you won't get them. On the other hand, if you have a gallows sense of humor and an appreciation for the absurd, you may very well enjoy the guilty pleasures of Lewis's subversive, backhanded genius.
Eat Up August 30, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Blood feast isn't what you'd call a "good" movie, but it is an important movie whether you like it or not. Onscreen gore is rather commonplace now, and though usually associated with the horror genre, has found it's way into many other genres over the years. Hell, look at Passion of the Christ or Monty Python and the Holy Grail(or Meaning of Life for that matter). Gore is everywhere and we have Mr. Herschell Gordon Lewis and his opus Blood feast to thank for it. The paper thin plot consists of a lunatic caterer who goes around killing women and stealing their body parts as ingredients for a special Egyptian feast.....A BLOOD FEAST!!! This feast is part of an ancient ceremony that will resurrect an old goddess named Ishtar. Fuad Ramses, our lunatic caterer, has suckered a family into going for this feast(they don't know what's all in it though). His plan is to sacrifice the daughter(who's going out with one of the detectives on the case) and have the entire party take part in the feast, thus resurrecting Ishtar to......well, to do whatever Ishtar does. This flimsy plot merely works as a way to move from one bloody murder scene to the next. Though there are a handful of bloody kills, this film isn't quite the gorefest you may think. For the time I'm sure it was just completely insane and shocking, which was the intention. Some of it still looks rather gruesome. Most of it consists of "aftermath" kinda stuff. You won't actually see Fuad hacking off a woman's arm, but you'll see him holding the bloody severed arm in his hands. Today it's easy to laugh at the horrendous acting and primitive gore effects(though they aren't as bad as you may expect considering the budget), but back in 1963 I'm sure people were in too much of a state of shock at the images they were seeing to notice the bad acting. Lewis has said that no one had ever walked out of one of his films because of bad acting or dialogue. The most important thing to remember about Blood feast as well as all of Lewis' gore films is that it's all meant to be fun. I recently had a chat with Lewis(that's right, mofos! I did!) and he said that these films were never meant to be taken as serious horror films-they were always done with tongue planted in cheek and you were supposed to laugh at them. Essentially he made gory comedies. So even though Lewis' films will always be under the "horror" label, they were never meant to frighten or horrify. Sure they were meant to shock and gross out, but Lewis wanted you to have a few laughs along the way, and depending on how twisted your sense of humor is, I think Blood Feast achieves that quite nicely. Excellent commentary too.
The first ever "Gore" flick. July 18, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
A crazed caterer who secretly worships an Egyptian goddess named Ishtar, he goes around the city seeking fresh young virgin girls then murders them especially hacks them to pieces so he can use their parts to appease his goddess. The police seemed baffled and disgusted by these strange and vile murders for they investigate, a mother is planning on having a party as she invites the caterer over as he has some plans in his twisted mind to appease Ishtar.
This movie went on to become the first ever gore flick to hit the screen, there'd been nothing like it before in cinema at the time. But when this movie hit theaters in july of 1962, audiences were appalled and disgusted by this flick for it made a fortune and gained infamy thus creating a landmark horror flick for being the first gore flick. The acting is kind of bad especially the script writing but there's some good if a little dated gore effects here in this movie like the gross tounge ripping scene, though it may be kind of laughable by today's standards this movie will remain an important flick in the genre for starting gore flicks and made H.G. Lewis a household name.
This special Edition DVD has decent picture and sound with extras like commentary from the director, trailer, a short and poster-and-still gallery.
Also recommended: "Blood Sucking Freaks", "Hostel", "Re-Animator", "Caligula", "Men Behind The Sun", "Maniac ( 1980)", "Cannibal Ferox", "Driller Killer", "The New York Ripper", "From Hell", "Demons", "Ichi The Killer", "Evil Dead II", "Cabin Fever", "Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky", "From Dusk Till Dawn", "Two Thousand Maniacs ( 1964 and 2005)", "High Tension", "Beyond The Darkness: Buio Omega", "Audition", "Opera", "American Psycho", "Street Trash", "Kill Bill", "Reservoir Dogs", "Saw 1 & 2", "Pieces", "Scream", " I Spit on Your Grave", "Basket Case", "8MM", "Snuff", "Nightmare on Elm Street", "Friday The 13th Series", "Freddy Vs. Jason", "Blood Diner", "The Toxic Avenger", "Candyman", "Texas Chainsaw Massacre series & 2003 remake", "Wizard of Gore", "Color Me Blood Red", "Dead Alive (a.k.a. Braindead)", "Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers", "Eaten Alive! ( 1980)", "Cannibal Holocaust", "House of 1000 Corpses", "The Devil's Rejects", "Intruder", "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer", "The Toolbox Murders ( 1978 and 2004)", "Natural Born Killers", "Uncle Sam", "Last House on The Left", "House on The Edge of the Park", "Hellraiser 1 & 2", "Se7en" and "Bloody Birthday".
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