The Tagline boasts "Nothing so Appealing in the Annals of Horror", and back in '63 this was probably not Hyperbole; but how does it stand up now, more than 45 years later?
The plot involves Fuad Ramses, An Egyptian caterer and Author (of the hilariously titled "Ancient Weird Egyptian Rites") who worships the Goddess Ishtar (actually a Babylonian god, but Egyptian for purposes of the film) and appears to have painted his hair and eyebrows a greyish blue...
We learn (through a night-school lecture) that Ramses intends to make the goddess flesh by preforming a cannibalistic ritual that while allow her to inhabit a human body - in this case the body of our heroin, Birthday girl, Suzette.
Coincidence is the order of the day here - Suzette just happens to be interested in Egyptology, and so her mother is open to the idea of an 'Authentic' Egyptian feast when she just happens to go to Fuad Ramses' Exotic Catering to organise her birthday party.
This week's lecture at the night-school she attends just happens to be about the feast of Ishtar, and the male student she is dating just happens to be the lead investigator on the case of the spate of girls being murdered (by Ramses) in the area - not that the police have no idea that there is an Egyptian theme to the murders - the officer just happens to attend the lectures in his spare time...
Speaking of the Police, the "office" that the Homicide department work out of is clearly a very small corner of a very large, otherwise very bear, room - every time we see this room it is from the same, fixed, vantage point, and the budget clearly didn't stretch to re-dubbing the dialogue, as the voices in all the homicide office scenes are ridiculously echoey.
I wouldn't want you to think that the poor writing and acting in those to clips was typical for the whole movie by the way... Most of it is FAR worse:
So, the plot, acting and direction are all piss poor, but that's okay - this movie exists for one reason -as an excuse to get gory death on screen! in 1963!
Back then, this would doubtlessly have been incredibly shocking - unfortunately some 45+ years later, to our jaded eyes, it looks like what it is - a bunch of bright red paint, offal and shop-dummy parts.
Alas, although this is (in its own small way) an 'important' film, there is nothing to recommend it to a modern audience - go watch Lewis' "Two Thousand Maniacs" or "Wizard of Gore" instead (they're not exactly masterpieces either, but they're better than this).
By the way - at the end of the movie, is the hint of a sequel; it took 39 years, but it Lewis made it happen!
Body Count: 6
Animal Body Count: 0
Boob count: 1 pair (plus several gratuitous bikini shots)
Most Memorable Death: None - to be honest, they all bleed together (no pun intended) Please use the comments bellow only to comment on this post - to write your own review, please comment on the "Reader Reviews" post for this movie.
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