''Blood Feast'' ( Spanish: ''La noche de los mil gatos'', ''Night of a Thousand Cats'') is a 1972 Mexican

exploitation Exploitation may refer to: *Exploitation of natural resources *Exploitation of labour **Forced labour *Exploitation colonialism *Slavery **Sexual slavery and other forms *Oppression *Psychological manipulation In arts and entertainment *Exploita ...

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...

written and directed by

René Cardona Jr. René Cardona Jr. (11 May 1939 – 5 February 2003) was a Mexican filmmaker and actor, son of Mexican director René Cardona, and the father of René Cardona III (also an actor and director). Biography Cardona Jr. began by acting in his f ...

It was released in the United States in 1974.

Plot

Hugo, a playboy serial killer (

Hugo Stiglitz Hugo Stiglitz López, better known simply as Hugo Stiglitz, (born August 28, 1940, in Mexico City) is a Mexican actor. Stiglitz is perhaps most well known for his film roles in the 1970s and 1980s in Mexico in such horror films as '' Tintorera' ...

), stalks beautiful women in his helicopter, seducing them under false pretenses and inviting them to his castle estate. There, he kills them in various gruesome ways with the help of his groundskeeper, Dorgo. He then uses their flesh to feed a plethora of cats that he keeps in a fenced-in pit, and preserves their pickled heads as trophies inside glass jars. A doctor who stops by the castle and eventually even his groundskeeper also become meals for the cats. Finally, one brave woman defies death and miraculously escapes his clutches, accidentally making a hole in the fence around the cat pit (which eventually allows the cats to escape). During the fight, Hugo gets hit in the face. Sensing his injury, the cats gang up, descend upon Hugo, and finish him off, allowing the woman to escape.

Cast

Release

The film was released under the title ''Night of a Thousand Cats'' in Tampa, Florida on 1 November 1974.

Critical response

''Shock Cinema Magazine'' deemed ''Blood Feast'' possibly "the worst film ever made about killer felines", and said it was very silly with little entertainment value and bad acting, although still better than Cardona's later films. ''The Terror Trap'' gave it 2 stars, calling it "rather unimpressive", "mild", "drab", and "uninspired". ''Tars Tarkas'' suggested that cats are intrinsically not very scary, even when there's a thousand of them, rating the film 2/10. ''Aggressions Animales'' reckoned it one of René Cardona Jr's worst films, and said that aside from a few of its ideas, there was nothing interesting.

Home media

VCI Entertainment issued a double-feature Blu-ray in June 2022 which also features ''

Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary ''Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary'' is a 1975 horror film directed by Juan López Moctezuma, written by Malcolm Marmorstein, and starring Cristina Ferrare, David Young, and John Carradine. Its plot follows an American artist who discovers she is in fact ...

'' (1972).

Technical details

''Blood Feast'' was shot in color. It was released in the US in 1974 with an 'R' rating by the MPAA. Unedited, it runs 93 minutes; the American version, however, runs 63 minutes. The movie was filmed in Spanish, but has been dubbed in English.

Legacy

''Blood Feast'' has a very small fan base, but has made a home for itself among exploitation film fans. At its release, the film caused mild controversy due to its seemingly cruel treatment of cats. One scene depicts Hugo violently grabbing a large white cat and tossing it over a high wall into its pen. The camera does not cut away, indicating that the real cat was thrown.

References

External links

* *
Night of a Thousand Cats, Cats in Film
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blood Feast 1972 films English-language Mexican films 1972 horror films 1970s exploitation films 1970s serial killer films Mexican slasher films Films about cats Films set in castles 1970s English-language films 1970s Mexican films