Blood Feast review
Blood Feast is a remake of the 1960 cult classic of the same name. It gained notoriety as the oldest film on the infamous UK video nasties list compiled by the Director of Public Prosecutions in the early 1980s. This remake arrives with very little fanfare and will be considered moderately tame. We’ve seen it all by now and Blood Feast 2016 does nothing to change that.
The film opens with a foreboding voice over telling us how shocking the film will be. It’s a nice nod to the producer of the original David F. Friedman, a man who generated publicity stunts including taking out injunctions against his own film in certain states to create buzz elsewhere in the US. Shifting the action from Miami to Paris, we follow Faud Ramses (Robert Rusler), an American with Egyptian blood, who struggles to run his American diner and put his daughter Penny (Sophie Monk) through college. To make ends meet he works nights at a museum as a security guard, where he encounters the spirit of an Egyptian goddess, Ishtar (Sadie Katz). Ishtar wishes for Faud to sacrifice and eat humans in order to bring her back so the two can live as lovers. However, Faud is also on medication which he has not been taking, so could it be that all this is in his head?
Blood Feast review
The set-up is delightfully corny, especially the first time we start seeing Egyptian spirits calling for blood. It’s an old-fashioned plot that harbours some charm. Unfortunately the film has little else to offer. The Parisian setting adds nothing besides a few shots of the Paris skyline, and scenes around cute locations, which you can probably guess without seeing the film. The idea of looking at the madness of the protagonist is also a pleasant addition, while also mixing in the paranormal. It’s open to interpretation and that’s certainly a plus.
With a warning at the beginning and a legacy to live up to, the gore is fittingly vile and distasteful, but at the same time feels tame. Fortunately is always feels and looks real, with very few effects seeming fake or unprofessional. Director Marcel Walz, who has made many nasty little features, clearly cares for the material, and sets about developing and maintaining characters, even if the performances don’t always hold up. You can look at it as a plus or a negative that what is essentially a splatter film actually generates more interest in the story of an American family trying to make their way in France while the father struggles with mental health issues. It’s doubtful that’s what the audience will be wanting to champion though.
Blood Feast review
Not exactly memorable, and quite slow in places, Blood Feast is just another horror film in a very crowded genre. It succeeds where it probably didn’t intend to, and can’t quite balance the silly with the sickening. A video Faud watches early on says about Ishtar’s first love murdering all the children in a village and serving them to the unsuspecting parents at a feast. That alone is scarier and more unsettling than anything Faud’s actions can achieve, and perhaps could have made for a much darker and chilling feature had Faud tried to replicate such a meal. Instead, his pick of victims just leaves us hungry.
Blood Feast forms part of this year’s Frightfest programme.
