BLOOD FEAST (1972)
aka NIGHT OF A THOUSAND CATS
Directed by Rene Cardona, Jr.
Academy VHS
Reviewed 01.07.05
Review by Joseph A. Ziemba

THE FILM
Finally! I’ve figured out an absolute, sure-fire way to make the most beautiful women swoon with ecstasy. Are you ready? Buy a helicopter. Seriously, the babes LOVE IT.

Get ready for the most economical plot recap that I can muster. Hugo swoops around in his helicopter, entices big-bosomed women back to his castle, and with the help of his gimpy butler, Dorgo, feeds their strangled bodies to his one thousand pet cats (well, maybe fifty or so). After mucho awkward love-making, of course. But what of the heads?! Glad you asked. Hugo places the heads of his victims in glass boxes, which are located in his taxidermy dungeon. Repeat a few times and you’ve got yourself 60 whole minutes! Marvelous.

That’s really it. However, the true magic of this rare Mexican treasure hurdles far beyond the confines of a ridiculous plot. For instance, take the prologue; a random block of various people making love in a pool, on a beach, and in a boat, complete with a few lingering shots of bare butts and breasts. Who are they? Where are they? Do they even like each other? From there, we begin our brief journey through the trick bag of Mr. Cardona Jr. (son of Sr., he of Night Of The Bloody Apes, Santa Claus, etc.). I hope you enjoy erratic zooms, nonsense jump cuts, and conversations that are sliced sentence by sentence into different locations. Remember that helicopter? Bare down for some white-knuckled action: close to a third of the runtime finds us in the copilot seat with Hugo.

If you’re catching my drift, you can tell that Blood Feast aka Night Of A Thousand Cats (Academy added the Faud Ramses rip for their home video release) is a cracked experience. Just when you thought it was safe to continue laughing heartily, out pops the oft-repeated raw meat feeding scene or another dose of kitty-cat violence. There’s a dirty little interior to this film’s seemingly tame looks; the random shot of birdie death via rifle, the baffling under-the-skirt slo-mo shot, and Hugo’s maddening stalker methods. Not to mention the hilariously mindless notion of women-as-sex-objects, which seems to be the obvious focal point of the script. We never get an explanation as to why anything is happening and sometimes the film defers dialogue for hand gestures and facial expressions. The glass encased heads look incredibly bad and the ending was actually quite suspenseful. What just happened?!

This film is a lunatic asylum. I’m glad to be visiting.

AUDIO AND VIDEO
Hilarity at its finest. The full frame and ultra-cropped print is stretched beyond belief during the opening credits. VHS craftsmanship that you’ll only find in the 80s. Topping it off, the mono sound appears to have been recorded under the kitchen sink with a slap-back delay attached. Combine this special feature with the already terrible dubbing and you’re off for a zoom around the moon.

EXTRAS
Now I’m impressed. Immediately following the feature is a shoddy video trailer for David L. Hewitt’s (Monsters Crash The Pajama Party, The Mighty Gorga) long lost Gallery Of Horrors! It’s got John Carradine, Lonny Chaney Jr., and a swell Radio Shack voice-over to boot.

FINAL THOUGHTS
If you chance upon an old copy of Blood Feast, don’t be a cheapskate. It’s weird horror heaven, unique and unfathomable. Too dumb to be taken seriously, too bizarre to be ignored -- just believe it.

Charmed, I'm sure


Two barreled beauty


What you paid for


Just the two of us