‘Tis the season to be thankful. The dust has settled on Halloween, and November brings colder temps and the dreaded time change. As the holidays loom, many people take stock of their lives and express gratitude for what they have. As for horror movies, Thanksgiving gives our favorite genre a chance to explore themes of thankfulness while dishing up some delectable gore and practical effects. With John Grissmer’s Blood Rage and Herschell Gordon Lewis’ Blood Feast, which isn’t technically a holiday horror, it’s a season of family time and delicious bloodshed. We should be so grateful.
Blood Rage, written by Bruce Rubin, throbs with the coarseness of a claw hammer. Its mangled, DIY body parts are as essential to its charm as the grisly bursts of violence. Mark Soper plays double duty as two identical twins, Todd and Terry. As young boys, Terry slaughters two young teens in mid-coitus and frames his brother Todd, who is then institutionalized for 10 years. The trauma of that ill-fated night does a real number on his mental state, particularly in knowing the darkness harbored inside his brother. Meantime, Terry goes on to lead a seemingly normal, idyllic suburban life.
Their mother Maddy (Louise Lasser) does the best she can. She gives Terry a loving, warm home, while also showing support for Todd’s mental recovery. For a decade, Todd carries around Terry’s dark, horrifying secret, and his claims that his brother committed the murders fall on deaf ears. The doctors suggest he undergo more tests to dig below the surface and uncover what truly ails poor young Todd. Maddy objects to the poking and prodding, believing that it’ll do more harm than good. Despite everything, she still cares deeply for her two sons.
When Maddy announces her engagement to Brad (William Fuller), Terry snaps and goes on a murderous rampage on Thanksgiving. He’s immediately yanked back to that night so many years ago when Maddy’s romantic entanglement caused him to go over the ledge. His relationship with his mother is a disturbed one, fraught with an Oedipus complex undertone. He clutches tighter to his love for Maddy, and Brad isn’t the only one to fall under Terry’s bloodthirsty gaze. Numerous friends and acquaintances meet a tragic end, and it’s an absolute slaughterhouse – Brad’s death is of particular note here for its maddening display of practical effects. With Todd’s recent escape from the mental institution, Terry takes his opportunity to once again frame his brother. However, things quickly go off the rails when Todd shows up and throws a wrench into Terry’s diabolical plans, finally standing up to his brother. He’s the only one capable enough to destroy unspeakable evil.
‘Blood Rage’
Rubin and Grissmer pulverize the audience with bloody images and give the outlandish premise a tremendous amount of weight. It’s equally silly and serious, often playing it straight with pinches of dark humor thrown in for good measure. Standout moments – including one where Maddy sits on the kitchen floor and scarfs down Thanksgiving leftovers – make for a jolly good time. These seemingly random scenes anchor the film in a way many slashers fail to achieve. It’s a blenderized version of your classic ‘80s slasher that has subtext steeped in family ties and breaking vicious, traumatic cycles.
Blood Rage makes great use of genre conventions, a transgressive piece of cinema that preys upon an audience’s willingness to suspend disbelief for 82 minutes. Coming so l late in the slasher boom, it was a hard ask to somehow break through the noise and stand on its own two feet. But the film manages to emerge as a relic of a different time when blood-soaked sex was all the rage (pun intended) and the characters paid the price for their parent’s sins.
A similar case can be made for Blood Feast, which isn’t technically a Thanksgiving movie but does contain identical themes, neatly wrapped up in a deranged killer’s desire to pay tribute to the god Ishtar. Released in 1963, and coming in the aftermath of Psycho, Blood Feast was a slasher before slashers were cool. Wielding a stylistic meat cleaver, it chopped right into the sanctity of innocence in a way that deconstructs the youth culture of the era. There’s a particular naivety that comes with the Silent Generation, one beholden to keeping one’s eyes and ears closed, and lips completely sealed. What you don’t see, hear, or speak doesn’t actually exist, right?
‘Blood Feast’
The story follows a young, wide-eyed Suzette (Connie Mason), who plans a dinner party with her friends. Her mother Mrs. Dorothy Fremont (Lyn Bolton) decides on an Egyptian theme at the urging of a local caterer named Fuad Ramses (Mal Arnold). Little do they know, Ramses moonlights as a serial murderer who targets young girls and uses their body parts as offerings to Ishtar. He plots to resurrect the ancient Egyptian goddess and will stop at nothing to make a sacrifice of all the women in the neighborhood.
Throughout the film, director Herschell Gordon Lewis, who co-wrote the script with Louise Downe and David F. Friedman, slots together jagged storytelling pieces. From the harsh lighting to the wiry practical effects, the film’s stylistic approach is purposely rough around the edges, giving the story a bit of a thorny texture. But there’s always intention behind every moment, as grotesque as some of the slayings might be.
Cops are unsurprisingly inept, as they fumble through phony leads and mistake obvious clues for mere coincidences. They eventually stumble upon Ramses and pinpoint him as the prime suspect. Upon ransacking Ramses’ shop, they discover an unholy scene – smatterings of blood and guts cover the walls of the backroom, and bodies are tied up and stretched out in pools of their own sick.
It’s in the nick of time when the cops show up in the third act moments after Ramses nearly murders Suzette at her own dinner party. The bumbling fools chase him into the street, where Ramses hops into the back of a passing garbage truck; a half-witted decision that leads him to be crushed by the metal compactor. It’s a fitting end to a murderous rampage that left the town in shambles.
Blood Feast is even more transgressive than Blood Rage. It not only celebrates the exploitation of women but casts them as hapless victims ready for the slaughter. Suzette is helpless, naïve, and completely unaware of her surroundings. Despite a serial killer running loose in the streets, she takes very few precautions to keep herself safe. When Ramses arrives at her dinner party, and seemingly has no food prepared, she is clueless as to his true intentions. He wears them on his sleeve, yet she fails to even recognize the signs of a true psychopath. Suzette is the very epitome of every foolish character we ever see in a horror movie. Perhaps she’s even the archetype by which every mindless victim should be judged.
Blood Rage and Blood Feast (emphasis on the blood) are quite a smorgasbord of guts and gore when paired together. For Thanksgiving, make it a double feature you won’t soon forget and that’ll leave you totally stuffed. It’s tasty; it’s deranged; and it may even make you paranoid to keep your doors locked at all times. Enjoy, and come back for seconds – if you dare.
‘Blood Feast’
Double Trouble is a recurring column that pairs up two horror films, past or present, based on theme, style, or story.