Monday, October 19, 2009

Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat



(2002)

I'm a huge fan of Herschell Gordon Lewis because he treaded new horror ground in the 60's. Dawn of the Dead special effects wizard Tom Savini took more than a cue from the explicit envelope pushing gore that as far as I can tell, began with the original Blood Feast from 1963. The mind numbing acting and rudimentary plots of Lewis's films were more than compensated by the groundbreaking splatter. But by 1973, his shtick had seemingly run it's course and he retired from filmmaking until this very film.

As far as comebacks go, Blood Feast 2 is disappointing. The acting is purposefully(?) abominable. The plot is well, the same as the original except that Fuad III has taken over his grandfather's cannibalistic catering shop. Two incompetent cops (ok, they started to grow on me) can't piece together the fact that Fuad III is as insanely obsessed with the blood craving god Ishtar as his serial killer grandfather was.

The gore is positively revolting, over the top and plentiful but nothing about this film can be taken seriously. I liked that I was able to identify Lewis's unique personality stamp on the movie. However, because it was released 39 years after the original, the poor acting and special effects can no longer be deemed charming or even acceptable.

* BF2 also had the unlucky distinction of following up Martyrs, which still has me questioning my very existence.

2 comments:

Octopunk said...

From Johnny's review of Gruesome Twosome:

"The college girls are a little worried about the missing girls but dancing on the bed seems to put their mind at ease."

From Johnny's review of Blood Feast:

"When he’s not hacking limbs and gouging out young women's eyeballs, he can be found having lengthy, incoherent conversations with his slutty gold statue."

Ah, Johnny. You do good work.

Johnny Sweatpants said...

I did like the fact that Fuad's religion is completely made up and ravign mad.

Malevolent

 2018  ***1/2 It's 1986 for some reason, and a team of paranormal investigators are making a big name for themselves all over Scotland. ...