There are far too many movies released to keep track of, let alone watch. As often as I try my best to view things in a timely manner, a few will slip through the cracks. In 2016, German filmmaker Marcel Walz delivered a remake of the beloved H. G. Lewis classic Blood Feast. The cast is made of genre favorites, including Robert Rusler, Caroline Williams, Sadie Katz, and a cameo from Lewis himself. The movie has come and gone, but the folks over at Synapse Films have made it a point to preserve the film in the best possible way by releasing it on 4K. Better late than never. It’s time for me to give this a whirl.
Fuad Ramses (Robert Rusler) and his family leave the U.S. for France to run an all-American diner. With business not where it should be, Fraud begins to pull double duty and works the night shift at a museum that caters to Egyptian culture. Night after night, he’s drawn to a statue of the Goddess Ishtar until it turns into obsession. He can’t withstand its power and soon finds himself having visions of her until she completely consumes his consciousness.
Fuad begins to go through changes, and he develops a taste for human flesh, very well-prepared and garnished human flesh, innards, etc. As he falls deeper under the spell of Ishtar (Sadie Katz), no one is safe from his dementia, not even his family.
Robert Rusler has been a film staple since the early ’80s and appeared in cult classics like A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985) and Vamp (1986), so his lead role in Blood Feast is very much welcome. He plays it straight with a ferocity we’ve never really seen from him before. It’s really a showcase for Rusler with solid support from the rest of the cast, especially Williams, Monk, and Katz.
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This isn’t high art and wasn’t meant to be taken too seriously; it’s about being entertained, and I was. The reason Lewis’ original film is so revered is because there really hadn’t been anything like it gore-wise at that time, so the question is, was it gory enough? A resounding yes: the late Ryan Nicholson (Gutterballs) and his team go to some pretty nasty extremes, making sure the movie lives up to its predecessor. The castration scene is particularly gnarly, I could certainly feel the pain.
Marcel Walz directs with confidence, obviously having a good time in this playground. The 4K transfer is definitely sharp and vivid, making sure the audience is able to see the bright, red crimson flowing from every neatly sliced slab of meat.
In addition to the new transfer, it’s also presented unrated, which is the only way to watch it. Special features include an Indiegogo promotional teaser, the theatrical trailer, a ‘making of’ featurette, Chilli Con Curtis’s “Tonite” music video, a Blood Feast scare cam, and footage from the 2018 premiere.
There seems to be a lot of hate for the film online, which I just don’t understand. The original classic is touted as being the first splatter film and deserves the moniker. It’s a beloved classic, and many people (me included) love it. The fact of the matter is, it’s campy, silly, gory, and, by mainstream standards, probably not considered a good movie, but it’s just so much fun.
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