Blood Feast (1963)
Directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis
Starring William Kerwin, Mal Arnold, and Connie Mason
Film: 1 star (out of 5)
DVD Commentary: 5 stars
This is a great DVD for anyone even remotely interested in the horror/gore genre and the history of film in the United States. The movie itself is no great shakes--the plot can be summarized in a sentence or two. A creepy caterer ("exotic catering for unusual affairs") named Fuad Ramses stalks fetching young women in order to harvest their body organs and dismembered parts. He does this as part of an ancient ritual to bring back an evil deity named Ishtar. (He's even got an elaborate shrine and sacrificial table in the back of his business.)
You know what type of movie it is going to be when the opening scene has a pretty young thing lounging in a bubble bath with a book to keep her company--just a little light reading (Ancient Weird Religious Rites) to relax with. And here comes ol' Fuad to lop off a couple of limbs. Gristle and gore and blood everywhere!
Repeat five or six times and that's the film. All 67 minutes of it. Fuad (played by a buggy-eyed and gimpy Mal Arnold) finds and eviscerates/chops up girl after girl until a couple of inept cops somehow manage to stop him.
What makes the film so groundbreaking is that Blood Feast truly was the first splatter/gore/dismemberment flick. This is THE FILM that spawned an entire genre. Someone had to break through into 1960s conservative America and director Herschell Gordon Lewis was just the man.
HGL, previously known as a director of sexploitation films, nudie cuties, and naturist flicks (Daughter of the Sun, Goldilocks and the Three Bares, Nature's Playmates, etc.) turned the U.S. entertainment industry on its head with the release of Blood Feast. He went on to other gore classics such as 2000 Maniacs and Color Me Blood Red, among others.
Shooting on a shoestring budget (less than $25,000), HGL's motto was "We don't want it good, we want it Thursday." No rehearsal scenes and no reshoots (waste of film). Actor doesn't show up for his part? No biggie, just yank a guy off the crew and have him write his lines on the palm of his hand. Problem solved.
By far the best thing about the DVD is the commentary track. Director HGL and Producer David Friedman discuss the making and marketing of the film. "We had no reverence for established procedures." The opening scene has a radio with an announcer's voice. HGL comes clean--"That's my voice on the radio. We did that for a very logical reason--we didn't want to pay anybody."
The commentary is a FASCINATING behind-the-scenes look full of trivia and interesting anecdotes. They discuss how they shipped the movies out to drive-in theaters, how the word-of-mouth gave the movie legs (good thing, too--no advertising budget), and how different communities tried to shut them down.
For one scene, Fuad had to pull the tongue out of a screaming girl. How to make this work? HGL told his guy to go out and get a girl with the biggest mouth he could find. So, they ended up with some big-mouthed Swedish girl and shoved a bloody sheep's tongue down her gullet for the scene. We learn on the commentary that the fridge where they were keeping this tongue fritzed out and the meat was so spoiled by the time of filming that they had to douse it in Lysol before using it. (We also learn that the editor of the scene is non other than Bob Sinise--father of Gary Sinise!).
The film also stars Playboy Playmate Connie Mason as the main object of Fuad's perverted plan. Of course, she can't act. Being a model, what she CAN do is pose. So she poses each scene. Even so, she could give acting lessons to some of the others.
The digitally remastered DVD looks great. Very clear picture with vivid colors. The picture is full-frame, but I'm not sure if this was the original aspect ratio or not. Mono sound does an adequate job.
Other DVD features: Original Theatrical Trailer. Complete with warning for those with heart conditions or otherwise impressionable persons to LEAVE THE THEATER IMMEDIATELY. There's actually a ton more gore in the trailer than is currently allowed to be shown in trailers, some 50+ years later.
There is also a "Gallery of Exploitation Art" showing movie posters and adverts for sexploitation films as well as behind-the-scenes and publicity stills from Blood Feast. An outtake reel has about 47 minutes of footage not used in the movie. Filmed without dialogue, it's fairly random.
The strangest addition is a short film called "Carving Magic." It's a how-to instructional reel on how to properly carve turkey, ham, roast, and other meats. It tends to go on and on and you'll rapidly loose interest (unless, of course, you really are looking for pointers on how to carve meats.). The interesting thing is that is stars William Kerwin (who played a cop in Blood Feast) and Harvey Korman(!), both of whom HGL had used in a previous film (Living Venus).
