Screenwriter Diablo Cody probably
thought she was being clever, or ‘indie’, when she oh-so casually named-dropped two visionary horror film directors in her
script for Juno (2007). The off-beat
comedy about a teen pregnancy inundated with not-so-subtle pop culture
references comes off more pretentious than anything else, so it’s with at least
a touch of irony that the names of Dario Argento and Herschell Gordon Lewis pop
up. Especially so, in the case of the latter.
Argento seems a bit more at home in
a film that presents itself as both impossibly nerdy, yet too cool for school. His
films, such as Suspiria (1977), have
a tendency towards the grandiose, and that kind of flair certainly pairs well
with Cody’s brand of self-important hipster-ism. Juno’s dialogue is so wordy, it’s amazing the actors don’t
constantly trip over their lines. At times it seems like the film is
pretentious simply because it can be, which is why it’s such a laugh when Ellen
Paige and Jason Bateman take a break from arguing over forgotten 80’s punk
bands to sit down and watch The Wizard of
Gore (1970). It’s all the more amusing when Paige declares the film to be
“better than Suspiria”, which is a clear sign that Diablo Cody probably hasn’t
ever seen either one of those films. And of course, no one probably got a
better kick out of Cody’s failed attempt at pop-savviness than the Godfather of
Gore himself, H.G. Lewis.
Lewis was never a man concerned with
art, and that is perhaps why his films have such a lasting appeal despite being
completely inept on any technical level. Nevertheless, it’s hard to overstate
the influence his films have had on horror cinema. The aforementioned Wizard of Gore is, in fact, on of his
later and better efforts; the
culmination of nearly a decade of… uh… refinement.
Prior to Montag the Magnificent chain-sawing volunteers in half in front of an
audience, the director treated moviegoers to a veritable cornucopia of inspired
lunacy that included homicidal twins (The
Gruesome Twosome [1967]), psychotic hillbillies (Two Thousand Maniacs! [1964]), psychics battling witches (Something Weird [1967]), and even a
crazed painter in search of the perfect shade of red (Color Me Blood Red [1965])! All of this insanity began with Blood Feast (1963), a weird little movie
born of a fleabag motel and the need to make a buck…
Before we get ahead of ourselves, it
would be a bit of fun to look back at how the Godfather of Gore got his start
in show biz. Herschell Gordon Lewis began his professional life as a high
school English teacher. It’s especially amusing that the man credited with
inventing the gore film, and therefore contributing to the moral decay of
society on a grand scale (at least, according to Mom and Dad, and your local
street corner preacher), was well-acquainted with the giants of Western
Literature and their works. But this is a key piece to understanding the
curious success his films garnered. H.G. Lewis not only directed his films, but
produced them, photographed them, wrote the screenplays, and in many cases even
composed the score! In a very real sense, he was a cinematic auteur, albeit of
the trash bin variety…
Lewis left academia to become a
marketer in advertising, and this is where his story begins in earnest. During
the course of this career-change, he bought out a small film production
company, and set about producing a film. That picture, The Prime Time (1959), was a racy little thing that was deemed
pretty sexy for the era. Nowadays, it appears quaint, especially by the
standards of such television behemoths like Game
of Thrones. Perhaps the only really lasting impact this first venture had
was introducing Lewis to David F. Friedman, a producer and distributor who
would be responsible for getting the fledgling filmmaker’s products onto
theater screens.
It was about this time that a very
different filmmaking personality released a naughty picture of his own. Russ
Meyer’s The Immoral Mr. Teas (1959)
is widely considered the flashpoint (if not the very first) for a genre known
as the “Nudie Cutie”. Exactly what they sound like, nudie cuties featured
plenty of naked women doing various activities, none of which were sexual in
any way. Since it was sexuality that was deemed obscene, and not simply nudity
per se, these films centered around bare breasts and butts in perfectly normal,
everyday situations. Nude volleyball, nude at the swimming pool, nude at the
beach, nude in the kitchen, nude on the trampoline… No full frontal, no sex,
but nevertheless, no clothes.
Always one to recognize a cash-cow
when he saw one, Lewis decided he would make his own flesh flick, and with a
crew that consisted entirely of himself and Friedman, he managed to turn out The Adventures of Lucky Pierre (1961).
The film (if several scenes of naked women with the same goofy man making faces
can be so called…) was a financial success and Lewis was in business. The
marketer-turned-director seized the opportunity and produced a slew of similar
films in rapid succession, including the likes of Daughter of the Sun (1962), Boin-n-n-g!
(1963), Bell, Bare, and Beautiful
(1963), and even Goldilocks and the
Three Bares (1963) – a curiosity billed as “the first – and to this date
the only – nudie cutie musical!”
In short order, Lewis and Friedman
began to realize that the grindhouse market was becoming saturated with this
particular brand of soft-core smut. By 1963, the money was drying up. The
question then became a matter of finding something new, sensational, and above
all, sellable. Enter Blood Feast.
Lewis decided to make the same sort of pictures he had been, except nudity
would be replaced with gore. Instead of clothes being removed from actors, it
would be limbs! Instead of boobs and butts, it would be blood and brains! The
set-up was simple, yet inspired. In a successful nudie cutie, the audience
expected bare flesh every few minutes or so. Herschell Gordon Lewis’ gore films
would take the same approach, except every few minutes he would show a scene of
extreme violence – in living color!
Blood
Feast is often considered the first true gore film. This, of course, does
not mean that graphic violence in cinema didn’t exist before 1963. Filipino co-directors
Eddie Romero and Gerry De Leon showed a snippet of uncensored surgery in their Dr.
Moreau adaptation Terror is a Man! (1959),
and French filmmaker Georges Franju’s Eyes
Without a Face (1960) boasts an infamously grisly facial operation. Even as
far back as silent cinema, where Luis Buñuel graphically mutilated an eyeball
on camera in Un chien andalou (1929),
gore has been part and parcel of the silver screen. The stark difference
between these earlier films and the brainchild of Herschell Gordon Lewis lies
not in what is shown, but how it is
shown.
Graphic gore may have been present
in horror films long before Blood Feast,
but it was always brief. The camera would tease a glimpse, and then cut after
just a few seconds. Some of these exploitation pictures would even rely on gimmicks
to enhance the shock for audiences. The previously-mentioned Terror is a Man! employed a ringing bell
to warn moviegoers of what they were about to see (to afford the squeamish the
opportunity to close their eyes… heh…) In any case, the guts and grue were
always brief. Lewis decided to go the other route. His films would linger on
the violence. Nothing would be left to the imagination. And that’s exactly what
happened.
When Blood Feast opened in the summer of 1963, patrons were assaulted by
just over an hour of exposed brains, dismemberments, nude flogging, and even a
ripped-out tongue! Watching the film now, it seems hilarious in an
unintentional way. The blood is clearly a bright red paint, the acting is
beyond atrocious, and the editing is worse than a middle school project. It’s
hard to believe that even audiences in the 60’s found this terrifying. Yet,
there is something of a charm to the film that can’t be duplicated – except by
the man himself, that is.
The success of Blood Feast inspired Lewis to expand his newly created genre into a
series of films. Together with the first, Two
Thousand Maniacs and Color Me Blood Red
make up what is commonly called ‘The Blood Trilogy’. And naturally, who can
forget Wizard of Gore? It all
culminated with The Gore Gore Girls
(1972), the director’s last film before returning to marketing. He wouldn’t
grace the screen with gore again until the new millennium, when fans would
finally convince him to make Blood Feast
2: All U Can Eat (2002).
Unlike
Juno, Blood Feast is honest and unpretentious (and, at least it didn’t
unleash Michael Cera on the world). It doesn’t pretend to be bigger or more
important than it is. Like Mr. H.G. Lewis himself, it is frank,
straight-forward, and unconcerned with what others may think. While there
certainly are plenty of splatter flicks to choose from (most infinitely better
made), there’s nothing quite like Lewis’ patented brand of hillbilly ingenuity
and unbridled enthusiasm. Perhaps this is why horror fans still search out the
Godfather of Gore’s work over fifty years later?
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