Blood Feast

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

"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. 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.

Tropes used in Blood Feast include:


  • 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: Errrr, duh.
    • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.