15 June 1926 — 26 September 2016
"He seen somethin' different. And he done it."
A seminal force in the world of trash filmmaking, he is
considered the inventor of the modern gore film. (In theory, a position he
holds with David F. Friedman,
but when the partnership ended Friedman's true interest proved to be
sexploitation.) To use his own, favorite words: "I've often compared Blood
Feast (1963) to a Walt Whitman poem; it's no good, but it was the first of its
kind." And a truly fun gore film, too — which makes it "good" in
our view.
Unlike Blood Feast and his "better movies", many
of the projects he worked on are unbearable cinematic experiences; but more
than enough of the others are sublime, otherworldly, like the best of Ed Wood,
Juan Piquer Simón
or John Waters. Were it not for innovators like him, A Wasted Life probably
wouldn't be.
One of the truly great has left the building.
The films below are not necessarily presented in the order
they were made and/or released.
Go here for Part I: 1953-60.
Go here for Part V: 1969-72.
Go here for Part VI:
1973-98.
(2009, writ. & dir. H.G. Lewis)
German title: The Splatter Show. Shot in beautiful St.
Petersburg, Florida, USA where our parental units once built a beach-front
house in the days of JFK, but sold it way before we ourselves even had peach
fuzz. But we remember the liking it as wee child.
Trailer to
The Uh-Oh Show:
The Uh-Oh Show:
On their HG Lewis page, Worldwide Celluloid Massacre
rates the movie as "Of Some Interest", claiming: "This has got
to be the only splatter movie made by an 80 year old. Not only that, but it's
great fun. [...] For the first 20-30 minutes, this may be his best work, but
then it becomes the usual Lewis campy so-bad-its-good stuff. This is a silly
satire on TV by way of a game show that dismembers its contestants when they get
an answer wrong. A spin of the wheel decides what organ will be chainsawed off
by Radial Saw Rex (Broward 'Eclipse' Holsey), and it's time for the audience to
cover themselves with plastic. Uh-oh! Don't worry though, they will get their
body parts re-attached later, or will they? When the executives decide to take
it to the next level, the weary host of the show (Brooke McCarter), and
a reporter (Nevada Caldwel) who got her boyfriend's head chopped off in the
show, fight back. Think Network (1976 / trailer) by way of Wizard of Gore (1970 / see Part V)
and Running Man (1987 / trailer).
[...] Kaufman makes an amusing appearance as a pushy pimp with tips for his
hookers, Lewis himself appears as a man who tells gory stories to children, and
the splatter is over-the-top and all in the name of silly, bad, cheaply
provocative fun. We wouldn't want it any other way from you Herschell."
Brooke McCarter
(22 April 1963 — 22 December 2015), some of you might remember — but
probably not — was the former Ford Agency model who had a sizable part as one
of the teen vamps in the "classic" vamp flick The Lost Boys (1987 /
trailer)
and then sort of disappeared. We imagine Nevada Caldwel is a housewife by now.
Broward 'Eclipse' Holsey
has a day job; one wonders if his father was a boxer. The
production of the movie is credited to both Film Ranch International, which
went on the make gore-heavy Brainjacked (2009 / trailer),
and Lion's Kill Productions, which made the documentary Herschell Gordon Lewis
and the Making of the Uh-Oh Show (2011).
Trailer to
Herschell Gordon Lewis & the Making of the Uh-Oh Show:
To say that The Uh-Oh Show got limited distribution would be
an understatement, and while it has yet to garner a broader DVD audience, most
of the few who saw it and wrote about it seemed to have liked it. One vocal
exception, however, is Nick Cato at Cinema Knife Fight,
who called the movie a "celluloid atrocity". His cohort of the
evening, L.L. Soares, was just as unimpressed, and points out something we tend
to agree with but would hardly let bother us: "[The] plot twist makes
absolutely NO SENSE. They've got a hit game show. So they go on another network
and instead of doing another violent game show, which is what people obviously
want, they do a fairy-tale show where that annoying corporate slimebag, Fred
Finagler, with his sidekick Coco (Lauren Schmier), reads from a book while
horror versions of fairy tales are reenacted. What do fairy tales have to do
with a game show? Looks to me like Herschell might have started making Grim Fairy Tales, stopped half-way through, and then combined that story with The Uh-Uh Show for some bizarre reason. The two plots have absolutely nothing in common
except for Fred and Coco. And if there was a real Uh-Uh Show, and I was a fan
(which I probably would be), I’d be pretty annoyed if my show went off the air
and was replaced by a lame fairy tale show!"
Capitalism: A Love Story
(2009, writ. & dir. Michael Moore)
"I sincerely believe... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies."
"I sincerely believe... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies."
Thomas Jefferson
(Deist, Slave Owner & Founding Father)
(Deist, Slave Owner & Founding Father)
Considering all the people who have given "Special Thanks" to HGL somewhere amidst the credits of their film projects, is it really all that surprising that one of America's most intelligent, entertaining and divisive documentary filmmakers does likewise? Well, actually, yeah — unless, of course, you consider the fact that as one of the leading experts of "direct advertising", HGL is linked to capitalism far beyond his exploitation movies. In any event, HGL does not appear as a talking head.
Trailer to
Capitalism – A Love Story:
Super Undead Doctor Roach
Capitalism – A Love Story:
Super Undead Doctor Roach
(2009, writ. & dir. Chad Clinton Freeman)
We watched about half of this short — a bit beyond the green
love pillows (Laura Moore)
— and almost decided to skip including it here since HGL is but one of many pop,
low-culture names given special "inspirational" thanks, but we then
we figured, "What the fuck." The star of the short, the director's
nephew Derek Houck, who's losing his hair nowadays, went on to play a zombie in
Silent Night, Zombie Night
(2009).
Full Snore:
Over at Vimeo,
they say: "Edited, written, produced and directed by Chad Clinton Freeman,
Super Undead Doctor Roach is the story of a scientist obsessed with bugs,
becoming an accidental super hero. It was originally a seven-minute 48 Hour
Film Project produced in April of 2009. The project, edited by Michael Su, was
a runner up for the Las Vegas 48 Hour Film Project Audience Award. Doctor Roach
was then expanded to its 13-minute length and went on to screen at the Arizona
Underground Film Festival in November 2009 and played at the bondage convention
Xanadu Las Vegas 2010. [...]"
Chad
Clinton Freeman, by the way, went on to be an "executive
producer" of Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver (2011 / trailer).
Smash Cut
(2009, dir. Lee Demarbre)
We gave this movie a precursory look a few years ago in our
R.I.P. career review of the always memorable cult actor David Hess,
who plays the lead in this HGL homage. Other names of note include Michael
Berryman and HGL (over)actor Ray Sager appearing as the familiarly named
Reverend Boone. Our terse entry way back then was as follows: "Another
intentional cult film by the intentional cult-film maker Demarbre, who also
made the less professional cult film Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter (2001 /
trailer).*
Hess stars as film director Able Whitman, who will do anything to complete his
latest film. Smash Cut also features the eternally hot Sasha Grey — but not enough of her, going by what Dr Gore has to say in his review of the
film found here."
Trailer to
Smash Cut:
Smash Cut:
HGL, in any event, is there: he graces the film as a radio
announcer, "Fred Sandy". The movie is also "dedicated to the
life and art of" the old guy. Over at good ol' Worldwide Celluloid Massacre,
which rates the film as "Of Some Interest", they say: "A pretty
good homage to Herschell Gordon Lewis featuring the man himself as the
presenter. The story is about a b-movie, gore and horror director (Hess) that
breaks after being harshly put down by his audience, and starts creating more
realistic gore movies in the only way he can imagine: By creating his own real
dead bodies and body parts out of the people he knows and dislikes. The campy,
cheap, silly but entertaining feel of the movie is almost just right, the gore
at first is surprisingly lacking, but delivers some cheap and over-the-top
scenes in the second-half featuring dismembering and eye-gouging."
* As of April 2016, we can never refer to Jesus in any of
our texts without drawing your attention to our intensely enjoyable Short Film
of the Month, Fist of Jesus
(2012). Watch it, now.
Psycho Holocaust
(2009, writ. & dir. Kristopher "Krist" Rufty)
Featuring Raine Brown, the star of the 2013 non-masterpiece,
Kung Fu and Titties (trailer),
and filmed in Wisconsin, famous for being the home of cheese and a cultural icon,
and not much else. Big Falls, Clintonville, Green Bay, and Marion — but not one
scene in Plainfield? All locations used, in any event, are less than two hours
away from Plainfield as the crow flies. Considering how much the influence of The
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974 / trailer)
on Psycho Holocaust is visible, it's surprising they didn't make a nod to the
flick's distant inspiration. (If you don't know who we're talking about, you're
a loser. Stay after school and watch the following two movies: Ed Gein
[2000] and Deranged
[1974], the latter starring Roberts Blossom.)
HGL has but a small function in this film by independent
horror author and director Krist Rufty, the second of four movies Rufty has
written and directed so far: HGL's voice pops up as a radio news broadcaster —
so, in other words: if you didn't know in advance, you probably wouldn't
notice.
Women In Prison,
which deigns to say "an interesting, if shaky, effort to retread well-worn
territory," has the plot: "When six happy-go-lucky youngsters in
their late-30s take the mini-van out for a quiet weekend getaway in the sticks
they happen upon a trio of Iraq War vets who are, say, creatively dealing with
their PTSD. Hijinx (mutilation, torture, rape, dismemberment, near-miss wire
hanger abortions, political commentary, necrotic folk art) ensue…"
Trailer to
Psycho Holocaust:
7 Deadly Sins: Inside the Ecomm Cult
(2009, dirs. Michelle Bolvox & Kay Kayos)
A mockumentary produced and starring Alexia Anastasio.
Written by Kevin Sean Michaels, director of the documentary Vampira: The Movie (2006
/ clip).
As far as we can tell, neither director — assuming the names are real — have
done anything else since.
The trailer to 7 Deadly Sins: Inside the Ecomm Cult is out
there, but not much more. Herschell Gordon Lewis plays a "retired
detective" who, going by the trailer, narrates the tail. And how did he
get involved in this project? Over at Media Mikes,
Mike Gencarelli asked HGL about 7 Deadly Sins and this is what he had to say:
"This is a strange one. The folks producing this project — whom I hadn't
known before — negotiated a deal with me to appear on-camera, reading
pre-written lines. We shot my sequence in about half an hour, in a field next
to the building in which I live. I was the only actor for that scene and had no
notion that a campaign would be built around my strange appearance. I have to
salute the ingenuity of the filmmakers."
Trailer to
7 Deadly Sins: Inside the Ecomm Cult:
HGL's scenes were the only ones shot in Fort Lauderdale,
Florida, USA; the rest were done in Santa Monica, California, USA. According to
imdb's credit list, the great auteur Ted V. Mikels also appears in the movie
somewhere. (Ted V. Mikels, by the way, died slightly less than a month after
HGL on 16 Oct 2016. Mikels's death slipped under our radar, or we probably
would've begun a career review for him as well.)
Nightmare Alley
(2010, writ. & dir. Laurence Holloway & Scarlet Fry
[aka Walther Reuther])
HGL is given "Special Thanks" somewhere in the
credits, who knows why. This movie is not based on William Lindsay Gresham's
1946 eponymously named classic shock noir novel that was filmed a year later
with Tyron Powell in the lead (trailer).
Naw, this is a piece of low budget regional trash from Arizona featuring seven
short segments and a bunch of local bands and music. Over at Horror Society,
Walther Reuther nee Scarlet Fry gushes, "It's like Blood Feast meets Pink
Flamingos. It provides a debut for a lot of young new talent in very funny
roles. [...] If you're looking for meaning, look elsewhere!"
Trailer to
Nightmare Alley:
Nightmare Alley:
Movies Made Me Do It
was not impressed: "Yes, with its series of awards and praise from the
godfather of the American-made splatter-film, Herschell Gordon Lewis, pasted
excitingly on the cover, I was expecting some amazing work with no budget to
fill my face with sweet, horror-god love. This was not what I got. Instead, I
got what appeared to be a series of near-goreless horror-comedy shorts someone
kept from posting on YouTube, in hopes of making a movie with them, reaching
feature-length and plugging a few unknown local-bands in the mix. In between,
we have a fellow doing his best TV series Crypt Keeper impression with
interlocking jokes and all, 'telling' us these ham-handed tales of bore. Fuck
you, HGL."
Over at Hayes Hudson's House of Horror,
Zombie Hayes would probably say "Fuck you, MMMDI!" Zombie liked the
direct-to-video anthology, claiming, "I didn't know what to expect when I
put this DVD in... the box art and screenshots on the back of the DVD case let
me know that this was going to be a very low budget horror film. Sometimes that
can be a good thing, but more often than not you end up with a horror film that
falls flat. Luckily with Nightmare Alley, we get a low budget horror film that
is just as entertaining if not more so than many other bigger budget features."
Crank Up
(2010, writ. & dir. In-chun Oh)
Shot in Seoul, Korea, Crank Up gives "special
thanks" to H.G. Lewis — as they do to George A. Romero, John Woo, David
Cronenberg, and Clive Barker. According to Korean Film Biz Zone,
"During his time at the Korea National University of Arts, Oh In-chun was
a prolific short-film maker focusing on genre cinema, including horror, sci-fi
and action films. Some of his early credits include A Moment (2010), Crank Up (2010)
and particularly Metamorphoses (2011), a 25-minute action film that
demonstrated his knack for combining tight action choreography and technique
with a droll sense of humor. Soon after, OH got his chance to take a stab at a
feature-length project with the comedy horror, Mourning Grave, released in the
summer of 2014 (trailer).
In regard to the plot of this short here, over at imdb, they
say: "In this film, the victim who is dragged, beaten with a bat, and then
beheaded by the killer is played by the director." The short can be watched here at imdb.
The Chainsaw Sally Show
(2010, writ. & dir. Jimmy Burril, aka JimmyO)
In HGL RIP Part VII,
we took a look at the Chainsaw Sally (2004) movie, in which HGL had a small
part; here, he's merely an "executive producer". In any event, if you
wanna know about the movie and its maker, go there. The Chainsaw Sally Show is
a DVD of the cult killerette's first season, 11 episodes in all. (It was
followed by The Chainsaw Sally Show Season 2 two years later in 2012.)
McBastard's Mausoleum
has the essentials: "Are you fed up with the philistine who takes a full
shopping cart through the express checkout lane? What about the one who parks
in handicapped spaces? Sally (April Monique Burril) is and she's not going to
stay quiet! With the hum of her trusty chainsaw to announce her return, she is
picking up where the movie of the same name left off, repurposing the use of
power tools for every disgruntled member of society!"
The Worldwide Cinema Massacre
says the compilation DVD is "Of Some Interest", explaining: "[…]
the executive producer is none other than H.G. Lewis and he definitely makes
his mark, especially in the beginning of the series. Somehow he always makes
his gore into very fun dumb camp and exploitation that doesn't feel stupid, and
he takes the mean sadism out of bloodthirstiness no matter how gratuitous it
is. Chainsaw Sally is a serial killer with a goth brother who assists her, and
who also cooks her victims, or at least the nutritious ones. She works in a
library because she likes books, but had to get rid of the previous librarian
to get there. […] Features creative torture and messy killings of people that
'deserve it', with the occasional splatter over-the-top aftermath of intestines
and brains, but it's not as gory as you'd expect. […] Altogether, a fun idea
with the right people at the helm, although of course limited by its low level
of wit."
2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams
(2010, dir. Tim Sullivan)
In 2005, forty-one years after the release of HG Lewis's
classic 2000 Maniacs (1964; see Part III),
the film was remade without the involvement of HG Lewis as 2001 Maniacs (see PartVII).
Five years after that, the direct-to-DVD sequel of the remake, in turn already (partially)
existent in comic book form, finally got made — with the same director and
writer, a few of the same actors, and HG Lewis as the "executive producer".
One person noticeably missing this time around is Robert Englund, who played Mayor
Buckman in the remake: absent due to "scheduling conflicts", he was
replaced by the less costly cult actor Bill Moseley (of The Convent
[2000], House of 1000 Corpses
[2003], The Haunted World of El Superbeasto
[2009], and more, more, more). It was shot over a 12-day period on location in the
not very Southern state of Iowa.
Trailer to
2001 Maniacs – Field of Screams:
2001 Maniacs – Field of Screams:
The Last Thing I See
explains the plot: "Mayor George W. Buckman […] he has a problem. No
Yankee scum are showing up to this year's Guts N' Glory Jamboree, and the folks
are disappointed because there is no one to kill. So Buckman does what any good
revenge-minded public servant does when his constituency becomes restless, he
improvises. If no Northerners will come to the South then they will take the
South to them. The Maniacs (in reality there are only eleven, not 2001) pile
into a school bus and hit the road. In Iowa they encounter the cast of a
reality show called 'Road Rascals' […]. The cast is full of vapid LA socialites
who are famous simply for being famous, not from actually doing anything, and
their hangers on who want to be famous for their proximity to famous people. As
you can imagine, carnage and mayhem ensues."
Curiosity of a Social Misfit
says, "2001 Maniacs starring Robert Englund was a great slice of
completely over the top and politically incorrect fun. In fact, it was a
great throwback to the 1970s and 1980s slasher movies. Fast forward to 2010,
and there's a sequel that was written and directed by the same folks. Personally, I didn't know that this one even existed yet I was excited to
check this one out despite the knowledge that Englund himself hadn't returned. After
watching this one, I have to admit that I kind of wish I hadn't discovered it
existed. I'm pretty easy going with my horror movies but this one has got
to honestly be one of the worst ones that I have seen in a very long time."
In general, the social misfit's opinion is shared by the
masses: during our quick search, we couldn't find one website that said
anything nice about the movie. So it must be good.
The Gainesville Ripper
(2010, writ. & dir. Josh Townsend)
HG Lewis appears somewhere in this movie that almost no one
has seen. It purports to tell the true story of Daniel Harold Rolling (26 May 1954 — 25 Oct 2006), better known as the Gainesville Ripper. A US serial killer,
Rolling murdered five students in Gainesville, Florida, as well as three others
in Shreveport, Louisiana. Rolling was executed
by lethal injection in 2006, and confessed to killing a total of eight people.
As we mentioned in Part IV of our RIP career review of Wes Craven, screenwriter Kevin Williamson's script to
the 1996 hit slasher Scream (trailer)
was inspired by Rolling's murders.
Trailer to
The Gainesville Ripper:
The Gainesville Ripper:
On September 24, 2010, Drew Harwell of the Tampa Bay Times
wrote "Josh Townsend, a Gainesville High School student during the
murders, spent $200,000 producing a schlocky horror film he called The
Gainesville Ripper. Rolling is played by the star of local barbecue
commercials. Townsend feverishly advertised last month's premiere at Gator
Cinemas, posting hundreds of fliers downtown and on University Avenue. 'When I
went around that weekend promoting it, 98 percent of people I talked to had no
idea who Danny Rolling was,' Townsend said. 'I talked to 400 or 500 people.' The
premiere was attended by 120 people, half of whom were on the guest list. There
was no second showing."
The name of the "star of local barbecue commercials"
is Zachary Memos; the name of HG Lewis's part we do not know.
Over at Irate Films,
one of the few people we could find that saw the movie, wrote: "[…] I'm
afraid that not even a brief cameo from Herschell Gordon Lewis (best known for
creating the 'splatter film' subgenre of horror) could save this flick — in the
end, it ended up stinking like a rotting corpse."
All About Evil
(2010, writ. & dir. Joshua Grannell)
W.&D. Jushua Grannel "is a popular drag performer in
the San Francisco bay area" named Peaches Christ, and also a filmmaker.
This feature-length splatter flick is supposedly based on an earlier short film
of hers entitled Grindhouse (2003). According to imdb, somewhere amidst
the credits of All About Evil "the producers wish to thank HGL" —
indeed, the first murder of this movie transpires during a screening of Blood
Feast (1963) and not, as one might imagine by the title, at a screening of All About Eve (1950 / trailer).
Trailer to
All about Evil:
All about Evil:
In general, the film has been well received, but over at Daily Film Dose,
some guy named Greg Klymkiw was not amused and says, "There are some
movies you want to love — especially if you're a lover of movies, and most
notably, a lover of genre movies. However, it ultimately matters very little
how well-intentioned, how securely the movie's heart is in the right place, how
much its filmmaker shares your love for all the same things, the bottom line is
always a heartbreaker — if the movie stinks, the movie stinks, and there's not
too much else to be said. All About Evil is such a picture."
Herschell Gordon Lewis: The Godfather of Gore
(2010, dirs. Frank Henenlotter & Jimmy Maslon)
HGL gets a whole documentary all to himself! Directed, for Something Weird,
by the filmmaker extraordinary Frank Henenlotter, the warped talent that has
brought us Basket Case
(1982 / trailer), Brain
Damage (1988 / trailer),
Frankenhooker (1990 / trailer)
and Bad Biology (2008 / trailer),
among other movies. For his first documentary project, Henenlotter was assisted
by the less-renown Jimmy Maslon, the producer or co-producer of such fun stuff
as Jackie Kong's
Lewis-inspired Blood Diner (1987 / trailer),
her comedy The Under Achievers (1987 / full movie),
H.G. Lewis's Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat
(2002 / trailer)
and the remake of The Wizard of Gore (2007 / trailer).
Trailer:
Under the Scares
(2010, dir. Steve Villeneuve)
Under the Scares can be procured over the film's website. This
documentary, written by Villeneuve and William Dio, was even nominated for a
Rondo; it is the first of a planned series of three — a series that seems to
have stalled, as the remaining two have yet to see the light of day.
H.G. Lewis is one of the talking heads,
alongside other people of varying levels of note including George A. Romero (Nightof the Living Dead
[1968]), Maurice Devereaux (End of the Line [2007 / trailer]
& Slashers [2001 / trailer]),
Frank Henenlotter, Lloyd Kaufman (aka Troma Films), Robert Kurtzman (Wishmaster
[1997]), Debbie Rochon (Nikos the Impaler
[2003 / trailer]),
Brinke Stevens (Necromancy
[1972]), Trent Haaga and more.
Trailer 1:
As Horror News
explains, "The movie discusses the trials and tribulations of making your
own film and offers tips on how to get your movie distributed."
Trailer 2:
American Grindhouse
(2010, dir. Elijah Drenner)
Directed by Drenner and written by Drenner and Calum Waddell
actually translates into "edited together by": both Drenner and
Waddell are productive progenitors of short documentary fillers for DVDs. This
feature-length doc is the first of two "feature" docs that Elijah
Drenner has made to date, the second being That Guy Dick Miller (2014 / trailer);
Calum Waddell has also done dozens of DVD fillers — almost all within the sphere of low culture
films of the kind we like. Between the two, enough experience to guarantee a
watchable documentary — with HGL present as one of the many talking heads.
Trailer to
American Grindhouse:
American Grindhouse:
TCM
keeps their film description short: "[American Grindhouse] explores the
hidden history of the American exploitation film. Despite being an often
overlooked genre, exploitation cinema has left an indelible mark on American
culture. Here, the shameless and occasionally shocking origins of the genre are
revealed as well as its principles and popularity that endure to this day."
DVD Talk
adds, "American Grindhouse contains such a wealth of footage and eager
interviewees, it's easy to get wrapped up in the excitement of recollection and
scholarly dissection, exploring a colorful history of film and motion picture
distribution. Drenner assembles an amusing and revelatory documentary, piecing
together a line of cinematic influence that every movie fan should take the
time to admire. Grindhouse itself goes beyond the monstrous and titillating,
revealed to be a vital foundation of moviemaking, carrying a profound influence
that deserves the affectionate spotlight this documentary provides."
Narrated by Robert Forster — of many great (i.e., Alligator
[1980]) and bad (i.e., Uncle Sam
[1996]) and overlooked movies (Outside Ozona [1998 / trailer])
— American Grindhouse is actually best watched on DVD, for all the
"extras" ("Outtakes", "Extended Interviews", "Deleted
Interviews", "From the Vaults", "The Amazing Colossal
Trailer Collection!", "Old Photos You Actually Want to Look At!",
etc.) are like icing on the cake.
Go here for Part IX.
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