The Blood Feast budget was $24,000.

The Sphinx seen during Blood Feast's opening and closing credits was a feature of Miami's Suez Motel, where Herschell Gordon Lewis and David F. Friedman were staying when they conceived and shot the film.

H.G. Lewis recalled in an interview with Re/search that "The Suez Motel was typical of a whole string of motels that line that north beach [of Miami]. It's a so-so kind of place: not particularly fashionable, but it's not a fleabag. But, outside the Suez Motel, in all its glory, standing about 5 or 6 feet high is a pyramid and a sphinx! Which is why they call it the "Suez Motel." If it were called the "Gotham," they'd probably have a fake Empire State Building."

"The film opens," Lewis said, "with a shot of that fake sphinx outside the Suez Motel. And then we start pouring blood all over the place. There again I proposed to do that with an optical effect, and every optical house in the business said, "You can't do that. If you're going to have an optical in color, you have to shoot it against a blue background." I said, "Not true! If you make a mask, the mask will be black; therefore I'll give you the mask for it." And we did it, and it was perfect - accidentally, perhaps, but it turned out that way."

The blood dripping on the main titles was poured by Friedman.

There was no actual shooting script for Blood Feast and most of the dialogue in Blood Feast was improvised from notes.

Most of the Blood Feast cast was ported over from Bell, Bare and Beautiful (1963).

Scott H. Hall was a grip on the set of Blood Feast and wound up playing the Police Captain because the professional actor hired for the role never showed up.

Allison Louise Downe was given screenplay credit for Blood Feast because it was her idea to have Fuad Ramses sacrifice his victims to the goddess Ishtar.

Because they considered Mason to be such a terrible actress, Lewis and Friedman dubbed her "Friedman's Folly."

Astrid Olson, who plays Blood Feast's infamous tongue victim, was also a bunny at the Miami Playboy Club and was chosen for the role because of the size of her mouth.

Interiors of Fuad Ramses catering shop were filmed on Sundays in a Syrian grocery store.

The tongue used in Blood Feast was a sheep's tongue, transported over from Tampa. During a power outage at the Suez Motel, the tongue started to spoil and was soaked in Pine-Sol and covered in cranberry sauce.

Lewis considered commercial stage blood to be too purple and struck a deal with a Miami cosmetics company to mix a shade to his satisfaction.

A key ingredient of Lewis' custom-made stage blood was Kaopectate, an anti-diarrheal medication.

Regarding his film, Lewis told Re/Search interviewer Boyd Rice, "Blood Feast was a recapitulation of a bloodletting ritual of bygone days. Yes, blood is the ultimate symbol. It's the one symbol everyone understands. You squash a bug - if it happens to be a mosquito that has recently gorged itself; instead of being just a yellow mess there will be some blood in there and you'll recoil. There is power to blood. It has emotional impact unlike any other substance on earth."

The snake seen in the beach attack belonged to David Friedman and was only on camera because it escaped during shooting. The snake also hated sand.

The actress in the Egyptian sacrifice flashback could not hold her breath when playing dead, forcing Lewis and Friedman to pay for a film laboratory freeze frame.

Blood Feast was given its world premiere in Peoria, Illinois rather than in Chicago, so that any potential bad press would spread less quickly.

"When we opened Blood Feast," Lewis recalled in Incredibly Strange Films, "we had vomit bags, and all that was printed on them was "You may need this when you see Blood Feast!" And people would come just to get the bags! It's astounding what motivates people. So, yes, I regard all of that as showmanship, and I'm very much in favor of it, because it preconditions someone to accept what you're going to show him before he sees a foot of film."

compiled by Richard Harland Smith

Sources:
Herschell Gordon Lewis interview by Andrea Juno, Mark Pauline and Boyd Rice, RESearch: Incredibly Strange Films
Herschell Gordon Lewis interview by Bill Kelley and M. J. Simpson, Video Watchdog No. 60, 2000
Herschell Gordon Lewis interview by John Wisniewski, Bright Lights Film Journal, 2001
Herschell Gordon Lewis/David F. Friedman audio commentary, Blood Feast DVD (Something Weird Video)