Critical Reception
Variety's 6 May 1964 review termed the film a "totally inept shocker", "incredibly crude and unprofessional from start to finish" and "an insult even to the most puerile and salacious of audiences". The review labeled the entire production a "fiasco", calling Louise Downe's screenplay "senseless" and the acting "amateurish". Of Lewis' direction, camerawork and musical composition, the review judged that he had "failed dismally on all three counts".
In response to Variety's criticism of the film, Friedman said, "Herschell and I have often wondered who told the Variety scribe we were taking ourselves seriously."
In Allmovie's contemporary review of the film, the website wrote, "The plot is threadbare, the acting is on a par with the clumsiest of high school plays and the direction is static and uninvolving. Nevertheless, this is one of the important releases in film history, ushering in a new acceptance of explicit violence that was obviously just waiting to be exploited". On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes the film currently has a 36% approval rating, based on 11 reviews, and is certified "rotten".
Read more about this topic: Blood Feast
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