Fuad Ramses and his family have moved from the United States to France, where he loses his mind and sets to stage a cannibalistic meal for an Egyptian goddess.
I love the idea of revisiting a story that maybe didn’t get the best shot the first time around. It could even be considered a romantic thought to revisit the most reviled and ridiculed pieces in cinema in search of the good idea that was never given a fair shake. Manos Hands of Fate would have been a weird Twilight Zone episode in the right hands. I’m sure Gigli had a fun mobster thread in there if there weren’t so much romance. Even still, Troll 2 could have worked if it were called Goblins and the stilted dialogue played for laughs. I mean maybe.
So it was with great anticipation that I sat down to soak up the new remake of the Herschell Gordon Lewis gore-sploitation film Blood Feast. This time around the action is moved from the 1960’s suburbs of Miami to Paris, France. It is here that American entrepreneur Fuad Ramses (Robert Rusler) along with wife Louise (Caroline Williams) and daughter, Penny (Sophie Monk) have opened up an American-style diner. Let’s forget the implausibility of it for a second. We are, after all, watching a remake of something with wobbly source material to begin with.
“…decides to go on a killing spree to collect victims for his blood feast so that he can be with her forever.”
To make ends meet, Fuad works the night shift at one of the many museums in Paris. It is on this plot point that the change in location services the story nicely. One night during his mundane rounds in the darkened museum, Fuad comes under the spell of a statue. The Goddess Ishtar (Sadie Katz) to be exact. In a gruesome scheme, Fuad decides to go on a killing spree to collect victims in order to serve during his blood feast to Ishtar so that he can be with her forever.
It might help if I mentioned that writers Philip Lilienschwarz and the film’s director Marcel Walz, attempt to infuse a bit of explanation in all the mayhem. Fuad suffers from delusions and mania. He’s fine when taking his pills and staying on top of it but when he accidentally drops his pills down the drain, he decides to go without and, well, BOOM. Psycho killer.
As he picks off Penny’s friends, one by one, he collects all of the meat he will need for his sanguine banquet. Meanwhile, Penny, suffering from a dwindling number of companions, takes to Officer Fatih (Roland Freitag) who is investigating the disappearances.
“…original score by Klaus Pfreundner…perfectly captures the silly yet gritty feel of this new movie.”
While not all that great, there is quite a lot to enjoy in this version of Blood Feast. We can start off by mentioning them original score by Klaus Pfreundner. It perfectly captures the silly yet gritty feel of this new movie. It’s also a joy to see Williams do her horror thing and camp it up. However, it’s Rusler’s take on Fuad is the most enjoyable thing here as he turns the Fuad character into a sympathetic villain with a nasty sense of humor. The Blood Feast at the end of the film, too, is an interesting new take on the idea of the climactic scene. Can’t give it away, but I actually thought it was pretty clever.
Okay so, no, not the best thing I have seen. CERTAINLY not the worst. I’m not exactly sure why the story was moved from the states to France. It’s not that it brought much of anything new to the already shallow material. In fact, aside from the fact that Fuad needed to be working at a museum in order to run into his new lover, there is really no story-driven element to that alteration.
It’s no matter. This was probably done on a fraction of the budget that the recent atrocity, Truth Or Dare was made, but with a hell of a lot more passion to create something truly effective. Blood Feast had nowhere to go but up, and well, they went there; Up that is.
Blood Feast (2018) Directed by Marcel Walz. Written by Marcel Walz, Philip Lilienschwarz. Starring Robert Rusler, Caroline Williams, Sophie Monk, Roland Freitag
4 out of 10
