Blood Feast (2016)
Gareth Jones
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Starring Robert Rusler, Caroline Williams, Sophie Monk
Directed by Marcel Walz
Screened at FrightFest 2016
Marcel Walz’s remake of Herschell Gordon Lewis’ controversial 1963 splatter flick Blood Feast sees the gore-strewn action transported to Paris, France, where Fuad Ramses (Rusler) and his family run a struggling American-themed diner.
Trying to make ends meet, Ramses takes a job as a night security guard at the local museum where, while seemingly off his meds, he’s visited by the spirit of Egyptian goddess Ishtar. Promising him an eternity together if he pleases her, Fuad sets about researching just what it would take to make this particular sexed-up goddess happy.
Turns out the answer is a feast of human entrails, naturally.
Out of his mind and completely dedicated to his newfound passion, Ramses sets about abducting and dismembering folks – including the friends of his student daughter, Penny (Monk) – in order to create his climactic grand feast. But can he avoid the clutches of the local police – one of whom has taken a liking to Penny – in the meantime?
Just to be completely upfront about this, the only thing that Blood Feast has going for it is some wonderful (but not quite as stomach-churning as expected) gore effects. That’s it. Well, perhaps the cast (especially leading man Rusler) deserve a mention for their straight-laced performances… because how they managed to keep a straight face whilst spouting some of the most horrendously stilted (yet flatly earnest) dialogue to scatologically drench a screen in ages is a feat beyond comprehension.
There’s very little verve to the film – it feels slow and plodding, mired in its own seriousness and determination to bring a grim and nasty slant to Lewis’ concept, undermined at every turn by the ludicrous script and a sense that it really just doesn’t understand its own camp value. This intrinsic failure leads to many a bemused groan as the story unfolds, including a scene that sees a woman approach the diner after hours when her car breaks down outside.
Letting her in and calling for a tow truck, Fuad is immediately rewarded for his kind behaviour by the attractive help-seeker offering him sexual favours. He calmly declines, remarking, “You have beautiful eyes.”
Her response? “Would you like to see them with cum all over my face?”
Now, with the correct framing this might be hilarious given the totally out-of-left-field nature of the conversation, but Blood Feast plays it ridiculously straight, sending Ramses in for the kill and setting up another nasty set-piece. There’s no self-awareness, no winking at the audience – no notion that the intention here is a self-deprecating midnight movie. That excuse might be made after the fact, but it isn’t apparent in purpose from one single frame of Blood Feast.
With the potential psychological aspects that are introduced this time around — is Fuad really being goaded on by an Egyptian goddess, or is he just going stir crazy? — delved into with all of the depth of a newborn baby’s bathwater (what is Ramses’ medication even for, exactly?), there is precisely nothing of interest to be latched onto as this train wreck unfolds.
Hanging on for the titular banquet won’t do you much good, either, as the admittedly grim circumstances surrounding the climax become obsolete in effect – the darkness overridden by presentation and editing that obscures the events and sees just how big a mess the ending is being scarier than anything else Blood Feast has to offer.
And that’s exactly what this remake is: a total mess. Only sporadically entertaining – for all the wrong reasons – not even some satisfying gore and a warm appearance by HG Lewis himself can save this one from condemnation.
And that’s enough said about that.
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Film
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