Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat

Blood Feast 2 (2002)

*** (out of 4)

Thirty-nine years after the original film comes this sequel that has the grandson (J.P. Delahoussaye) of the famous killer moving back into the small town to butcher more women and serve them as food at a wedding. Even though I'm a fan of the director and the original film I held off watching this one expecting something really horrible. I mean, Lewis hadnt made a film in thirty-years so how in the world would he come back with anything good? Well, he did somehow but I'm sure those expecting something like his older films are going to be disappointed because this is a very polished and rather good looking film unlike previous ones, which were usually low budget and ugly. There's no doubt that this film has a sense of humor, which really comes across with the two detectives played by John McConnell and Mark McLachlan. These two men do a great job together and their comic timing with one another really makes for some great laughs. There's an entire running joke about McConnell constantly eating, which works very well. Delahoussaye is also very good in his role as the maniac. We've also got several hot girls getting naked, which is something the early Lewis films couldn't show. John Waters even shows up as a pedophile priest. Then there's the gore, which is certainly over the top but the one thing people will be coming for. Lewis gets credit for bringing gore to movies but all of his previous movie's gore put together can't top one single sequence here. We have eyes being ripped out, guts pull out, scalpings and various other things including one woman having her face ripped off while she is alive. If you're a gore hound then there's plenty of stuff on hand here. The one negative is that the film runs 99-minutes, which is way too long as some more editing would have helped the film.

Finally an official sequel to Blood Feast (Blood Diner was an unofficial one, not having seen it yet, i can't say if it's better or worse though). JP Delahoussaye (man, that's a mouthful) plays Fuad Ramses, the grandson of the original Istar worshiping nut-zoid. Anyways he re-opens the old place & before long he's in his own grandfather's nut-zoid footsteps. The film plays for high camp. Some of the jokes are inane, the acting....well it IS a B horror movie, & it's a tad long(could have been trimmed by about half an hour). But the blood, gore and nudity doth flow & John Waters cameos.

My Grade: 6 out of 10 bloody machetes

DVD Extras: Disk 1: stills gallery; Trailers for Zombie 5: Killing Birds, Zombie 2, Demons 3: The Orge, Lizard in a Woman's skin, Flesh for the Beast, & theatrical trailer Disk 2:On the set with Hershell Gorden Lewis; Behind the scenes; behind the gore; 3 deleted scenes

Eye Candy: pretty much all the female cast besides Misty & Mrs. Lampley get topless at the least

I had waited and waited for this movie to come out, back when it was being hyped up in '99 (then as Blood Feast 2000), and heard absolutely nothing about this movie. Then on Halloween eve, I saw the double dvd in the video shop for $30, and I snatched it off of the shelf like a 5 year old snatches a lollypop out of his little brother's hand. I was so excited to see a new H.G. Lewis film (who has been one of my admitted "heroes"). All in all, I wasn't disappointed...but I do agree with the other reviewers that say it does tend to drag on a little long. But the blood and gore effects...oh man! I was in absolute gorehound heaven! I think Joe Castro needed to work on a movie like this to up his fx career a little bit, because usually his effects are pretty decent, but I talk about him to other horror fanatics, and they say, "who's that?". But he REALLY outdid himself on this movie, because there's a couple scenes that would make Dahmer himself a little queasy, including one of THE best throat-slashing scenes I have ever witnessed on film. I honestly think that after this movie, Joe Castro could very well become the new Tom Savini (if you will) of the blood'n'guts video scene.

And another thing...alot of reviewers have said that this is very cheap, exploitive, bad, and somewhat grueling to sit through...but come on, people! this is Herschell Gordon Lewis! that's what the man is KNOWN for, for crying out loud! The overall sleaziness and exploitive nature of this film are his M.O.! And this definately has all the sleazy overtones and feel of his past films from the 60's and 70's.

But anyway, you can tell that the killing scenes are the primary focus of this movie. Each one goes on for an excessive amount of time, until you find yourself saying "Come on, dude! she's dead already!" But then again, that's the point of exploitive horror. And H.G. Lewis has definately proven that he is still "the man" when it comes to his style of film-making. If you're looking for an over-the-top gorefest, then you should really check this one out...

Blood Feast 2 is a welcome treat to fans of campy black comedy (as long as they can handle large amounts of blood and gore). If you liked the first one (or even if you didn't), you should check this out. It's a big improvement over the original. The gore looks great. I haven't laughed out loud this much in years. You can't ask for a better film from H.G. Lewis.

9/10

Well, well, well...what can I say for the long-awaited(?) sequel to Blood Feast except that I have never laughed so hard in my life!! Back when the original was released, my father went to see it at a local drive-in. As he would later tell me, it was the last gore film he ever saw. The thing that stood out most in his mind was the sound of Fuad Ramses walking, dragging his bad leg behind him. Lo and behold, after the festvities begin, his grandson injures himself and spends the rest of the movie walking in the exact same manner. C'mon people, that's funny! Even by H.G. Lewis standards, it's got a serious case of tongue-in-cheek (then removed and dumped into soup). It's not Shakespeare, people, it's the Godfather of Gore. And having John Waters as a priest?? It gets funnier and funnier each time I watch it. Granted, the new Ramses is no Mal Arnold, and the acting won't make you forget Connie, but for your rental or purchase price, it's definitely a bargain!! I give it two bloody severed thumbs up!!

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