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Film: Blood Feast

"Have you ever had an...EGYPTIAN FEAST?"

Blood Feast is a 1963 horror film directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis.

Fuad Ramses (Mal Arnold) is an Egyptian caterer in Miami who secretly worships the Sumerian goddess Ishtar. He plans to resurrect her but he needs the body parts of pretty young women to do this. As the obvious ensues, two detectives try to track him down.

Though about as scary as a child's Casper costume the day after Halloween, the film is nevertheless notable for being the first really, really gory movie — the first "Splatter Movie", as they're called — ever made in the west. It's also notable as the first film in Lewis' unofficial "Blood Trilogy" (the other films are Two Thousand Maniacs! and Color Me Blood Red). It has two spoof remakes: one from 1987, titled Blood Diner, and the other from 2002 by Lewis himself, titled Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat.

According to producer David F. Friedman, the most difficult aspect of production was the fact that the women playing the victims couldn't stop giggling and laughing at what was being "done" to them on camera.

This film provides examples of:

B-Movie
Compelling Voice: Ramses can mind-whammy people with his words.
Dumb Blonde: Suzette and her mother
Exploitation Film
Evil Eyebrows: Fuad Ramses
Gorn: This is the first splatter movie ever made in the west, though not the first splatter movie made period — that honor belongs to the 1960 Japanese horror movie Jigoku.
- This movie is still quite gory even by today's standards, which probably led to more than a few people in the 1963 audiences tossing their lunch.
- Much of the even more violent content was cut from the film as well before release, and is Lost Forever.
Karmic Death: Fuad Ramses, who gets crushed to death in a garbage truck.
Large Ham: Fuad, as evidenced by the page quote
Playing Gertrude: Mal Arnold, who played the "old man" Fuad Ramses, was only 30 at the time.
Romance on the Set: Connie Mason (Suzette) and Thomas Wood aka William Kerwin (Pete), who married in 1964.
Sadly Mythtaken: Ishtar was Babylonian/Sumerian, not Egyptian, Mr. Lewis.
- Lampshaded in the sequel, when a woman working in the police department corrects the naive cops about Ishtar's origin.
- In the 1987 spoof, it's Lumerian goddess Sheetar.
Video Nasty: Having been made in 1963, it is the oldest film on the list.
You Look Familiar: The same actress plays the sacrifice victim and Janet Blake.