And So It Begins...

Video Nasty #1

Blood Feast

1963

NOTHING SO APPALLING IN THE ANNALS OF HORROR!

NTSC Running Time: 66:55

Directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis

Written by A. Louise Downe, with uncredited story contribution from Lewis & Friedman (The A. stands for Allison.  She was Mrs. H.G. Lewis until 1971.)

Produced by David F. Friedman

Starring: Thomas Wood, Mal Arnold, Connie Mason, and numerous victims.

Body Count: 7

Naked People: 1

Availability: Easily acquired on DVD from Something Weird Video.

BBFC Status

Why it's a Nasty: Wall-to-wall dismemberment of women who are going to be cannibalized.

What was cut: 23 seconds of a woman's bare back being whipped.

Current UK status: The uncut version received an 18 certificate on April 5, 2005.
Blood Feast was successfully prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act of 1959 (OPA), making it one of the DPP39.

At long last!  The trip through the Nasties begins!

When nudist camp movies weren't pulling in the money they used to, H. G. Lewis and his business partner David F. Friedman hit on an area of film that had yet to be explored: Gore.

Blood.

Guts.

Grue.

Viscera.

First shown in Peoria, IL in July of 1963, Blood Feast is beautiful in that special "so bad, it's good" kinda way.  The Setup: Fuad Ramses sells a book called "Ancient Weird Religious Rites" through mail-order and murders the nice young girls who answer his ad.  He's using one piece of each victim to prepare the Feast of Ishtar...which he will feed to a bunch of unsuspecting partygoers...because he's also a caterer!  Will Fuad achieve his dream of serving up the Blood Feast?

Played over-the-moon bonkers by Mal Arnold, Fuad is a great, kitschy villain.  He speaks like a crazy person (which he is) and loves to say "Five Thousand Years Ago!" whenever possible.  There's a new corpse about every nine minutes, and the camera makes sure to linger on innards and mutilated victims...and lamps...and landscapes.  Every shot is held too long to pad the running time, and it adds to the campy appeal.

The gore effects are surprisingly good for a film that cost less than Clerks, and the blood here is a bright crimson that should be used more in splatter movies.  Brains, guts, a tongue, what might have been a spine, a leg, and assorted squishy red things occupy a decent portion of the running time.  The loose plot is an excuse to have women attacked and dissected, the rest doesn't matter.  Lewis shot the film himself, and the camera jerks, zooms twitchily, and at one point a scene ends in such a way that I think he ran out of film.  The dialogue will have you chuckling, especially that of the cops, who bumble through everything like refugees from a Police Academy prequel, ignoring clue after obvious clue.  This movie was, for the filmmakers, a shameless cash grab, and it worked: Since no one else was supplying copious blood on the big screen, Lewis and Friedman raked in 160 times their budget at drive-ins coast to coast, guaranteeing that more of the same would follow.  A new kind of film had been born, and its' success helped push the boundaries of what could be done in the movies.

I really enjoyed Blood Feast, and I was surprised.  I've never been much for the campy side of movies, but this one was so earnest in its' gratuitousness that it won me over completely.  I love movies that say "I'm trashy and proud of it!  How about a hug?" and this one did just that.  Don't look for subtext, don't look for logic, don't look for anything of quality, just hang in there for that next gross-out sequence.  If you've been exposed to modern horror films (and I'm gonna bet you have), this will probably not freak you out, but if you appreciate film history, it's important to see, and if you appreciate unintentional comedy, you're stoked for an hour.  A solid beginning to my endeavour.

I'm hungry.  Anyone know where I can get a decent rare steak at this hour?  Good thing I keep some emergency food supplies close at hand.  Because my name's Justin.  JustinCase.