Powerful

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Blood Feast. 1963. I wasn't even a twinkle in my parents eyes. So. With that said, let's get on with our review. Hey, you can't knock Blood Feast! A budget of under 25 grand, and you even got a Playboy babe in the film? Where else, folks, where else? Pennies pissed into production, and you made millions off this massive hunk of sh*t. Genius, Herschell. Genius! We lost our director in 2016, the mad slasher year of several talented celebrities. While Herschell may have been known as the underground horror giant of several films, such as this and 20,000 Maniacs, his movies have earned him a cult following...and remains that status to this very day. This film proves my theory true about film, both classic and modern: Just because a movie didn't make money at the box office doesn't mean it's not any good. And, in the example of Blood Feast, just because the movie made money...does not mean you have made anything to be proud of. The movie boasts to be a horror movie. However, it is not. It's more of a mystery. All the victims are female, and missing certain body parts. Leg. Eye. Oh! That eye! To put a stop to this killer, a detective must figure out why this killer is doing what he is doing. Well, you better get to work quickly, because this movie is only an hour and ten minutes long! Not much of an investigation. And, really, come on...IMDB actually spoils the mystery part, and tells you why he is doing this, in the sypnosis. Great! Now you don't have to watch it, you already know. However, I know there is a following for 60's, 70's, and 80's trash films...I review these films respectively, however, am not a big fan of them. If this is your kind of thing, you may want to give Blood Feast a fair shake, but I, on the other hand, steer clear of it. I only watched it all the way through, to find out, how they off the killer out of the picture! So many ways to do it. Bullet to the head, knife to the throat, push him down an elevator shaft, set him on fire, you know, something good like that. However, the way that he dies....it is so drop dead funny, and I want to tell you, but I am still laughing just thinking about it. Watch it! Fast forward to the ending if you have to. Watch him die....just the last ten minutes! Heh heh! Turns this mystery horror movie into a comedy!

This may well be the worst picture ever made.For those of you who don't know, the plot involves a loony Egyptian caterer who must prepare the titular Blood Feast for the goddess Ishtar.Unfortunately for the nubile young women who live in the area, the "Feast" consists of their body parts.He's an enterprising psycho and goes about the town killing, butchering and dismembering the young women.There is not one aspect of this film that is not atrocious (maybe with the exception of the cinematography which is barely adequate.) The script is inane and the actors are the worst I have ever seen.Director Herschell Gordon Lewis makes Ed Wood seem like Cecil B. DeMille in comparison.This film isn't one of the so-bad-it's-good bad films.No, it's just bad, bad, bad.

Director HG Lewis broke new and important cinematic ground with this incredibly terrifying and horrific film. The imagery in this motion picture is still haunting even 50 years after its release. Lewis' film remains one of the most powerful horror movies ever made and is a touchstone in screen history. The graphic detail of slaughter and bloody mayhem was without precedent at the time and opened the door for all that was to come, all that we enjoy so immensely today. It was not a creative leap for producers to follow the path from Blood Feast to the torture porn packing theaters at this very hour. It is indeed a courageous, innovative, and farsighted accomplishment by a true auteur.

There are movies in the history of cinema that started a trend....Blood Feast is an horror movie that broke the taboo's of on-screen gore.Don't expect a twist-filled horror movie and great acting, just expect cheesy acting and gore, just imagine the audience of the 60's on how they were "shocked" as hell for the gore, the on-screen gore was a revolution and still to this day directors actually have the balls to show on-screen gore (even in mainstream cinema).This is one of the greatest horror movies ever made, it started a trend and an element very close to horror movies (the gore).Herschell Gordon Lewis, you have your name burned in the history of cinema, if you are curious to see how the splatter and gore movies started, take a look at Blood Feast....if you don't like because it's "too old" or "too cheesy" then rent Saw (The story lines of Saw is cheesier than Blood Feast....really).