“You’ll recoil and shudder as you witness the slaughter and mutilation of nubile young girls . . .”
“Guru of Gore” Herschell Gordon Lewis presented this gruesome and graphic oddity revolving around Fuad Ramses (Mal Arnold), a demented Egyptian caterer in Miami, and his insane plot to collect body parts from young maidens in order to resurrect the ancient Egyptian goddess Ishtar.
The film opens with a bleach-blonde relaxing in her bathtub while the voice on a tinny old radio warns of a murderer on the loose. In a scene with a heavy sexual undertone, Ramses breaks in and hacks off her leg.
Later, a couple are making out on the beach when Ramses swoops down on them and ends the fun by decapitating the girl with a meat cleaver. The boyfriend runs away and leaves Ramses to masturbate into the entrails.
His next victim is a drunken blonde with a beehive and a wet shirt. She sneaks off to a hotel room with her good-time-Charlie boyfriend, who wears a captain’s cap. When Captain Hat leaves to get some more booze, Ramses charges in, pins down the woman and shoves his fingers down her throat, ripping her tongue out of her bloody mouth (the film’s most infamous gruesome highlight).
In addition to catering, it turns out that Ramses also publishes obscure Egyptology pamphlets. He receives a letter from a girl inquiring about one of his publications, which prompts him to indulge in some onanistic worship of his Ishtar idol.
Cut to a group of girls in bikinis sitting by a pool, listening to music. Ramses limps onto the scene from out of nowhere and knocks down his stern-looking new brunette pen pal.
Suddenly, she’s chained to the wall of Ramses’ lair, where he whips her bloody with a cat-o’nine-tails made of clothesline as he bellows, “Give yourself up to the Goddess!” and throws a human leg from his freezer into a pizza oven.
The police get the word to go to Ramses’ catering shop, where the corpse of the woman is discovered, covered head to toe with red welts. They know they’ve got their mad butcher.
Now Ramses has prepared enough parts for the ceremony, he hypnotises socialite Dorothy Fremont (Lyn Bolton), who is giving an engagement party for her daughter, Suzette (Connie Mason), at which he plans to perform the ancient rites of summons, using Suzette as his final sacrifice.
At the 11th hour, as everyone is about to devour the prepared feast, the police show up and chase him across the swamps.
He jumps aboard a garbage scow and the blades start grinding away and chop him up into hamburger mince. It’s a sophisticated plot line!
Screened in ‘Blood Color’, this almost legendary bad film was one of the first films to feature graphic violence on screen. Shoddy camera work, poor picture quality, inane script and horrible dialogue are just a few of the film’s charms.
When Blood Feast was successfully prosecuted by the UK’s Director of Public Prosecution in 1983, it joined the “video nasties” list, becoming the oldest film to appear on that roll of shame.
Forty years after it was first released, it finally got an uncut UK release.
Det. Pete Thornton
William Kerwin Fuad Ramses
Mal Arnold Suzette Fremont
Connie Mason Frank (police captain)
Scott H. Hall Mrs Dorothy Fremont
Lyn Bolton Trudy Sanders
Toni Calvert Tony
Gene Courtier Marcy
Ashlyn Marton Pat Tracey
Sandra Sinclair Dr Flanders
Al Golden Motel Victim
Astrid Olson
Director
Herschell Gordon Lewis
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The film opens with a bleach-blonde relaxing in her bathtub while the voice on a tinny old radio warns of a murderer on the loose. In a scene with a heavy sexual undertone, Ramses breaks in and hacks off her leg.
The police get the word to go to Ramses’ catering shop, where the corpse of the woman is discovered, covered head to toe with red welts. They know they’ve got their mad butcher.
