I seemed to have misjudged Herschell Gordon Lewis. After viewing his Blood Feast (1963), widely considered to be the very first "splatter" film, I miscast him as an incompetent fool. But now, having seen the sequel to that seminal film, Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat, I have a totally different opinion of Mr. Gordon Lewis. The man is nothing more than a master of comprehending what fringe audiences want and giving it to them. In the first Blood Feast, he gave audiences that had subsisted on Hammer Horror and cheap monster movies what they had always wanted: scenes of non-stop, graphic gore with barely more than an absurd pretext of a plot. The first film was half stag reel, half police procedural that followed an entire police force (comprised of two, maybe three, cops) hunting down a madman named Fuad Ramses who killed several women in order to cook them for a sacrificial feast for the goddess Ishtar. Blood Feast 2 picks up several decades later when the hapless Fuad Ramses III inherits his grandfather's catering business, immediately becomes possessed by the statue of Ishtar in the back room, and embarks to finish his grandfather's work. Just like his grandfather in the first film, he uses the catering business as a front and disguises his "blood feast" as the catering for a wedding reception. Here's the thing, though: instead of being a proper sequel, Blood Feast 2 is a brilliant parody and satire of the splatter genre. And believe me, it is a parody. Everything from Fuad Ramses III's hammy performance to the fact that the bride-to-be's bridesmaids decide to celebrate by throwing a "lingerie party" to the self-aware police officers investigating the slew of fresh murders (one of whom is played by the legendary John McConnell) is carefully manicured. It's quite brilliant, really. Oh, it runs out of steam near the end...but one can't help but love such a ridiculous tribute to such a ridiculous genre.
8/10
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