It’s a curious sensation when cheap, willfully base trash attains a sense of real poignancy. Who could have known back when Arrow Video first announced this mighty Herschell Gordon Lewis box set back in the summer that the man himself would not live to see its release? Still, as sad as Lewis’s recent death was, it was a pleasant surprise to see that it did not go unmarked by the broader reaches of the mainstream media. After all, in his own way Lewis was one of the most significant figures in late 20th century cinema, as the first filmmaker to bring full-on graphic gore to the screen. And it wasn’t just the red stuff that was the revelation; looking back through Lewis’s movies, we can identify motifs that horror has continued to fall back on in the fifty-plus years since. Not that any of this means we can necessarily class Lewis as a ‘great’ filmmaker; indeed, he himself seemed to shun any such labels right to the end, refuting any accusations of artistry and insisting he treated filmmaking purely and simply as a business. And after watching the 14 films in this box-set more or less back to back in fairly rapid succession, I can certainly confirm the vast majority of this is in no danger of being mistaken for high art; but as a snapshot of the type of movies that history would often prefer to brush under the carpet, Lewis’ body of work is certainly an eye-opener.
The opening scene alone from 1963 groundbreaker Blood Feast feels like a blueprint for decades of slasher/splatter movies to come: pretty blonde girl ignores radio report about a killer on the loose, strips down for a bath, and shortly finds herself getting savaged to death by a madman with a knife. The camera slowly pulls away, giving the audience time to take in the sight as she lies dead in the tub, blood gushing from her eye socket, naked body largely exposed. There you have it: gore and tits, in full colour. Hitchcock may have pioneered the hot blonde bathroom murder scene three years earlier, but Lewis wasn’t interested in suggestive editing for psychological impact; instead, he was a pioneer in showing the audience exactly what they came to see. And he was already accustomed to such an approach, having previously directed a handful of the first ‘nudie cuties’ (none of which are included in this set, which may disappoint completists).
Blood Feast remains perhaps Lewis’s definitive work, although the man himself stressed that he regarded his next gore movie, 1964’s 2000 Maniacs!, to be his finest film. There’s a lot to be said for that, as 2000 Maniacs! is a far more ambitious and plot-driven production with a far larger ensemble cast, and again it’s notable for establishing a set-up which would become a genre staple: the backwoods hillbilly horror, in which big city out-of-towners stumble unwittingly into a death trap at the hands of cannibalistic, most likely inbred hicks. It’s certainly his most well-rounded and genuinely witty film, with underlying hints of social commentary which still resonate today. Still, I rather feel that the more simplistic approach of Blood Feast, with its delugue of still quite nauseating blood, guts and brain shots in juicy close-up bridged by goofy scenes loaded with stilted acting and piss-poor storytelling, amounts to a better representation of Lewis overall. And of course, Mal Arnold’s Fuad Ramses – the maniacal caterer gathering the ingredients for his EGYPTIAN FEAST! – is the most memorable Lewis killer.
In any case, the highlights of this set are without question the gore-driven movies. Color Me Blood Red and The Gruesome Twosome both balance lame-brained comedy with occasional moments of outrageous evisceration, whilst his later films push the envelope that bit farther. 1970’s The Wizard of Gore was the first HGL movie I saw, and it definitely feels a cut above the rest thanks to a wonderfully hammy central turn from Ray Sager as the titular magician Montag, the second most iconic Lewis antagonist. 1972’s The Gore Gore Girls – the last film Lewis directed until his 2002 comeback Blood Feast 2 (also omitted here; ditto 2009 follow-up The Uh-Oh Show) – is particularly notable as, beyond that opening scene in Blood Feast, it’s the only HGL film that really combines bloodshed with nudity. Indeed, given their uber-sleazy reputation, it is surprising how mild many of HGL’s films are in terms of sexuality, with sex only ever alluded to and exposed flesh rarely getting further than bathing suit level. Not so The Gore Gore Girls, which as the title might suggest centres on a strip club whose dancers start getting targeted by a vengeful killer whose victims meet increasingly more absurd ends; most notably, one stripper has her bare arse beaten to a pulp with a meat tenderizer (then literally marinaded), whilst another gets the tips of her nipples snipped off with scissors, resulting in a squirt of milk. Eye-openers indeed.
However, beyond the aforementioned six films, the remainder of this 14-film set isn’t really gore-driven at all – and, in all honesty, the other films are of considerably less interest. 1968’s She Devils in Wheels was reportedly the first all-girl biker movie, and as bad girl exploitation goes it’s quite good fun, but not on quite the same level as its predecessor Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, or the Jack Hill bad girl movies that would follow in the 70s. Again, it’s surprisingly mild sexually (the tagline ‘riding their men as viciously as they ride their motorcycles’ doesn’t quite ring true), but it does boast at least one unforgettable gore shot in the final act’s slo-mo decapitation. 1967’s A Taste of Blood is the greatest oddity of the bunch, a surprisingly sober and slow-paced contemporary take on Dracula which is very low on gore and stretches out to almost two hours in length; a misguided attempt on the director’s part to go respectable, I think.
Beyond that, we have the original ‘roughie’ in 1963’s Scum of the Earth, a morality tale about young women unwittingly coerced into posing naked for sleazy photographers (in other words, a thinly veiled excuse to show tits and ass, making it all the more surprising Lewis largely avoided that in his later movies); 1967’s suitably entitled Something Weird, a tale of ESP and witchcraft which is largely forgettable beyond a wonderfully hammy central witch; 1968 teen rebellion movie Just For The Hell Of It, a largely plotless montage of over the top juvenile delinquency; 1968’s How To Make A Doll, something of a forebear to Weird Science in which a nerdy scientist uses a super-computer to create beautiful women (and like Weird Science, it’s not as racy as you’d expect); and a duet of hicksploitation in Moonshine Mountain and This Stuff’ll Kill Ya!, both of which centre on degenerate country folk being all country and degenerate.
There does seem to have been a spot of the old controversy among collectors over the price tag on this limited edition set, currently going for £92.99 on Amazon. Whether it warrants this asking price, I will leave to readers to judge for themselves. The films have no doubt never looked better, and each disc features an abundance of features including many new interviews with Lewis shot in the last months of his life, plus interviews with many of his key collaborators; we also have Frank Henenlotter and Jimmy Maslon’s engaging 2009 documentary Herschell Gordon Lewis: The Godfather of Gore, which gives a good overview of his career.
Still, as this is a set that’s clearly targeting die-hard HGL fans, many may disappointed by the absence of at least some of the other 20-odd films he directed between 1961 and 1972, not to mention the two he made in the 2000s. Speaking for myself, I’ll also admit I’m unlikely to revisit many of these beyond the six core gore movies; God’s honest truth, a lot of these are really pretty dull films. Then again, they were never really designed to be watched attentively at home in a high-definition format; they were simple, undemanding fodder for the drive-ins and grindhouses, largely background viewing for audiences who would invariably find other ways to keep themselves entertained, and this no doubt remains the best way to watch the bulk of these movies. Still, as archaeology has long demonstrated, the line between trash and treasure gets ever blurrier as time passes; and it pays not only to be mindful of the true artistic masterpieces of years gone by, but also the bog standard populist entertainment which, in many respects, tells you more about what the world was really like in those long lost times. As such, The Herschell Gordon Lewis Feast is without doubt an essential purchase for dedicated pop culture historians; for everyone else, we can but hope that Arrow Video see fit to release at least some of these films individually down the line. For now, though, this is a fine tribute to a man who, whether he thought so or not, made a major impact on the art of filmmaking. Yes, I said art.
Arrow Video’s limited edition (2,500 copies) Herschell Gordon Lewis Feast dual format Blu-ray/DVD boxset is available on 24th October, exclusively via Amazon. (The more lavish and even more limited edition Box of Gore (500 copies) is already out of stock at boxofgore.com.)