Blood Feast (1963)

“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 Ishtar – an ancient goddess.

He saws the legs off one, rips the heart out of another, tears the brains out of a third, pulls the tongue out of a fourth (the film’s most infamous gruesome highlight) and when he has prepared enough parts for the ceremony, he hypnotises a woman giving an engagement party for her daughter, at which he plans to perform the ancient rites of summons, using the daughter 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

Video