Fifty-two years ago, independent filmmaker Herschell Gordon Lewis shocked audiences with BLOOD FEAST, in which he responded to the subtlety of Alfred Hitchcock’s PSYCHO by splashing blood and gore across the screen – a sight its 1963 viewers had never seen before. BLOOD FEAST went on to become the oldest film on the UK’s Video Nasties list.
Lewis shot BLOOD FEAST in four days, on a budget of $24,000, but its impact is still felt, and its popularity still endures to this day.
German filmmaker Marcel Walz is now embarking on a Lewis-sanctioned remake of BLOOD FEAST. His version has the following synopsis:
Fuad Ramses and his family have moved from the United States to France, where they run an American diner. Since business is not going too well, Fuad also works night shifts in a museum of ancient Egyptian culture. During these long, lonely nights he is repeatedly drawn to a statue representing the seductive ancient goddess ISHTAR. He becomes more and more allured by the goddess as she speaks to him in visions. Eventually he succumbs to her deadly charms. After this pivotal night, Fuad begins a new life, in which murder and cannibalism become his daily bread. He starts to prepare a ritual FEAST to honor his new mistress, a lavish affair dripping with BLOOD, organs, and intestines of human victims. As butchered bodies are heaped upon the Altar of Ishtar, Fuad slowly slips further into madness, until he is no more than the goddess’s puppet; and she thirsts for the blood of Fuad’s wife and daughter too…
To bring this updated take on the subject matter to the screen, Walz has assembled a cast that includes Robert Rusler, Caroline Williams, Sophie Monk, and Sadie Katz. No offense intended to them, they’re all great, but the most important element in a BLOOD FEAST movie is the gore, and Walz has hired an excellent special effects artist to provide that, GUTTERBALLS director Ryan Nicholson.
The remake is set to start filming in Europe on September 1st.
To help make the movie the best and bloodiest BLOOD FEAST it can be, Walz is currently running an Indiegogo campaign, which you can check out here. The goal is a number in the range of the original’s budget: $22,222.
Although I’ve never seen any of Walz’s previous work, as a fan of the original BLOOD FEAST I am very much looking forward to seeing what this new cast and crew does with the return of Fuad Ramses.
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