The Movie Critic
08-29-2015, 05:29 PM
I'll start off by saying that I'll be rating movies on a 5 star scale although I prefer the ten-scale. If I watched the movie on YouTube, I will post it at the end of the review so you can watch it if interested. Now on to the review.
NOTE THAT THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS!!!
Blood Feast is a film by Herschell Gordon Lewis and commonly regarded as the first movie in the "splatter" subgenre of horror movies (a lot of graphic bodily dismemberment including lingering on the aftermath). The film focuses on a killer named Fuad Ramses who kills young woman and takes one of their body parts for a "blood feast" to worship the Egyptian goddess of blood, Ishtar.
The movie actually has a pretty good opening scene which gets you hooked when a woman is at her home listening to the radio which mentions that another strange murder has happened and that all women are advised to stay indoors at dark. The best advice would really be to leave town since the woman turns off the radio, goes to take a bath...and then the killer shows up and takes one of her legs.
We next meet the hero of the story Detective Pete Thornton, who's at the police station. We learn that the police have no clues, no leads, no nothing. It seems like they're never gonna catch the killer. It's another good scene but things start to go downhill from there...
Mal Arnold plays Fuad Ramses, and dear God this is some of the worst acting I've seen on screen. He tries to sound like a mad killer, but most of the time it just comes off as laughable. This is in full display when Dorothy Freemont comes to his store asking asking Fuad to cater her daughter, Suzette's, party. Fuad explains that he'll be preparing something that hasn't been prepared in 5000 years (this becomes important later in the movie).
For the rest of the first half of the movie, it follows a repetitive pattern with Fuad killing a young woman and then a combination of two of the following: Scene at the police station/Scene with Suzette/Scene at Fuad's catering store. During one of these scenes we learn that Suzette and Thornton are in a relationship, which is kind of creepy considering that Detective Thornton looks old enough to be Suzette's father.
Like I mentioned in the thread title, the characters are stupid. One night Suzette and Thornton are learning about ancient Egyptian cults at a local university at night. The cult the professor teaches about is the exact same thing that Fuad's cooking up in his storage room. When she goes home Suzette tells her mom about what she learned and her mom never says "Oh that sounds like what the caterer is doing for your party!". That's not the only instance of character stupidity, in fact it's character stupidity which ultimately foils Fuad's plans and not his own stupidity but I'll get to that later. Here's another example of character stupidity. After learning about the Cult of Ishtar, another woman falls victim to Fuad but she survives and is near death. Thornton goes to see her at the hospital to try to get information out of her. The woman, named Janet, says that Fuar said "Etar" and then she dies. Thornton knows that sounds familiar but he doesn't remember from where. *facepalm.jpg*
After kidnapping one of Suzette's friends and taking her blood as the last ingredient, Suzette's party takes place. This is also when the police realize that Fuad is the killer. Fuad shows up at Suzette's party with the food but he needs Suzette's help. He calls her back to the kitchen and tells her to lie down on the counter, using it as an altar. He tells Suzette to close her eyes and repeat the words of the prayer to Ishtar. Note that Fuar names Ishtar and Suzette doesn't realize the trouble she's in. Fuad has his machete ready to stab Suzette but her stupidity keeps delaying Fuad from delivering the killing blow. At one point she even asks "What were the words again?". I groaned along with Fuad at this.
Suzette's mom enters the kitchen and sees that Fuad is about to kill Suzette and he runs away. The cops also appear at the house. Suzette hugs her mom and says that if it wasn't for her she'd be dead. Umm no, it was Suzette's own stupidity that saved her. The police are chasing Fuad at the end and he tries to escape in the back of a garbage truck. Yea I don't think I even need to say how that turns out for him.
So yea, the movie's pretty bad but I do need to compliment it on one thing and that's the gore effects. The gore looked very good for it's time period and it was pretty disgusting too, especially when Fuad takes the brain of one of his victims and the shot lingers on her open head. I've said it before but not on here so I'll go ahead and say it here: Practical gore effects > CGI gore. CGI gore is absolutely terrible. Go watch Texas Chainsaw 3D for a good example of this.
Like I mentioned before, the acting is horrible with Mal Arnold as Fuad being the worst of the cast. There's one particular scene where the boyfriend of one of the victims is crying hysterically at the police station. At some points during his crying I couldn't tell if he was laughing or crying, it's that bad. He even gets down to his knees and resumes bawling while down there. It's so over the top and I mean that in a bad way. If you want something over the top that actually makes the movie better, go watch Network.
Just because it is the first movie of it's kind doesn't mean I have to react positively to it, besides the splatter subgenre isn't well known for it's good movies but for it's buckets of gore. There are a few gems in the subgenre though like Dead Alive (known as Braindead outside the US). Watch this and you'll be thinking, "Wait Peter Jackson went from this to Lord of the Rings?!". Blood Feast is not one of the gems in the splatter subgenre, in fact it's the subgenre's first stinker.
Final rating: *.5/*****
And here's the movie if you want to watch it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7QCCqhxwqw
NOTE THAT THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS!!!
Blood Feast is a film by Herschell Gordon Lewis and commonly regarded as the first movie in the "splatter" subgenre of horror movies (a lot of graphic bodily dismemberment including lingering on the aftermath). The film focuses on a killer named Fuad Ramses who kills young woman and takes one of their body parts for a "blood feast" to worship the Egyptian goddess of blood, Ishtar.
The movie actually has a pretty good opening scene which gets you hooked when a woman is at her home listening to the radio which mentions that another strange murder has happened and that all women are advised to stay indoors at dark. The best advice would really be to leave town since the woman turns off the radio, goes to take a bath...and then the killer shows up and takes one of her legs.
We next meet the hero of the story Detective Pete Thornton, who's at the police station. We learn that the police have no clues, no leads, no nothing. It seems like they're never gonna catch the killer. It's another good scene but things start to go downhill from there...
Mal Arnold plays Fuad Ramses, and dear God this is some of the worst acting I've seen on screen. He tries to sound like a mad killer, but most of the time it just comes off as laughable. This is in full display when Dorothy Freemont comes to his store asking asking Fuad to cater her daughter, Suzette's, party. Fuad explains that he'll be preparing something that hasn't been prepared in 5000 years (this becomes important later in the movie).
For the rest of the first half of the movie, it follows a repetitive pattern with Fuad killing a young woman and then a combination of two of the following: Scene at the police station/Scene with Suzette/Scene at Fuad's catering store. During one of these scenes we learn that Suzette and Thornton are in a relationship, which is kind of creepy considering that Detective Thornton looks old enough to be Suzette's father.
Like I mentioned in the thread title, the characters are stupid. One night Suzette and Thornton are learning about ancient Egyptian cults at a local university at night. The cult the professor teaches about is the exact same thing that Fuad's cooking up in his storage room. When she goes home Suzette tells her mom about what she learned and her mom never says "Oh that sounds like what the caterer is doing for your party!". That's not the only instance of character stupidity, in fact it's character stupidity which ultimately foils Fuad's plans and not his own stupidity but I'll get to that later. Here's another example of character stupidity. After learning about the Cult of Ishtar, another woman falls victim to Fuad but she survives and is near death. Thornton goes to see her at the hospital to try to get information out of her. The woman, named Janet, says that Fuar said "Etar" and then she dies. Thornton knows that sounds familiar but he doesn't remember from where. *facepalm.jpg*
After kidnapping one of Suzette's friends and taking her blood as the last ingredient, Suzette's party takes place. This is also when the police realize that Fuad is the killer. Fuad shows up at Suzette's party with the food but he needs Suzette's help. He calls her back to the kitchen and tells her to lie down on the counter, using it as an altar. He tells Suzette to close her eyes and repeat the words of the prayer to Ishtar. Note that Fuar names Ishtar and Suzette doesn't realize the trouble she's in. Fuad has his machete ready to stab Suzette but her stupidity keeps delaying Fuad from delivering the killing blow. At one point she even asks "What were the words again?". I groaned along with Fuad at this.
Suzette's mom enters the kitchen and sees that Fuad is about to kill Suzette and he runs away. The cops also appear at the house. Suzette hugs her mom and says that if it wasn't for her she'd be dead. Umm no, it was Suzette's own stupidity that saved her. The police are chasing Fuad at the end and he tries to escape in the back of a garbage truck. Yea I don't think I even need to say how that turns out for him.
So yea, the movie's pretty bad but I do need to compliment it on one thing and that's the gore effects. The gore looked very good for it's time period and it was pretty disgusting too, especially when Fuad takes the brain of one of his victims and the shot lingers on her open head. I've said it before but not on here so I'll go ahead and say it here: Practical gore effects > CGI gore. CGI gore is absolutely terrible. Go watch Texas Chainsaw 3D for a good example of this.
Like I mentioned before, the acting is horrible with Mal Arnold as Fuad being the worst of the cast. There's one particular scene where the boyfriend of one of the victims is crying hysterically at the police station. At some points during his crying I couldn't tell if he was laughing or crying, it's that bad. He even gets down to his knees and resumes bawling while down there. It's so over the top and I mean that in a bad way. If you want something over the top that actually makes the movie better, go watch Network.
Just because it is the first movie of it's kind doesn't mean I have to react positively to it, besides the splatter subgenre isn't well known for it's good movies but for it's buckets of gore. There are a few gems in the subgenre though like Dead Alive (known as Braindead outside the US). Watch this and you'll be thinking, "Wait Peter Jackson went from this to Lord of the Rings?!". Blood Feast is not one of the gems in the splatter subgenre, in fact it's the subgenre's first stinker.
Final rating: *.5/*****
And here's the movie if you want to watch it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7QCCqhxwqw