Blood Feast

1963
Dir. Herschell Gordon Lewis

A bushy-eyebrowed caterer messily murders various women in order to resurrect an ancient Egyptian goddess. Several inept detectives attempt to track him down and put a stop to his nefarious deeds. 

Produced by exploitation guru David F. Friedman, and economically directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis, Blood Feast abounds with an impish glee and carefree abandon. With not a shred of decency or taste in sight, inconveniences such as plot and story are flung aside in favour of shoddily staged scenes of carnage and makeshift mayhem. Hurrah! This title holds the dubious honour of being the first ever ‘gore movie’ or ‘splatter film’ – films centred around gory special effects and scenes of depravity and sadism. Back in the early Sixties all this was new and subversive and naturally horror audiences thirstily lapped it up as they clambered to catch a glimpse of what would become a milestone in schlock cinema.

Anyone who has seen Blood Feast will know that it is a film designed around a number of grisly special effects-heavy scenes in which various characters are hacked, slashed, decapitated, de-tongued and generally slathered in their own gore – all in the name of entertainment! These moments are sprinkled sporadically throughout a vague and plodding story with an emphasis on gross out gore effects and close-ups of hapless victims being outlandishly murdered by a creepy caterer wielding a copy of ‘Ancient Weird Religious Rites’. 

Prowess and subtlety are not words in Lewis’ vocabulary, and we wouldn’t want them to be. The film’s very raison d’être is to provide audiences with an abundance of over the top and gory imagery and showcase the splattery effects. Everything plays second fiddle to this. The acting is gobsmackingly awful and yet immensely amusing. This exchange is just one example of the sort of staggeringly bad dialogue and woeful delivery one can expect whilst wallowing in this sordid viewing experience. As dated as the special effects are, a couple of them still manage to seize attention – particularly those featured in the shot of the dead women on the beach, her head a bloody mess, and the scene in which a character has her tongue slowly ripped out of her throat whilst flailing around a grotty motel room is also disturbing.

This sublimely trashy film firmly falls into the ‘so bad it’s entertaining’ category. Completely tensionless, it more than compensates with its sheer camp value. Blood Feast is cheap, nasty and a bloody fun time. I watched it through the bottom of a wine glass at a recent screening in Belfast’s Safehouse Gallery as part of a new film night dubbed Texploitation. Organised by local comedians and fans of exploitation movies, Texploitation is set to take place at least once a month for the foreseeable future. For more info, simply follow the linkage…