(1963)
Overall: MEH
While not his first film, Blood Feast marks ground zero for Herschell Gordon Lewis' legacy as a splatter pioneer. The former teacher-turned-no-budget-filmmaker had already made a good handful of exploitative nudie flicks, but like many lesser talented people have, he took inspiration from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and wondered what it would be like if the murders did not shy away from excessive gore. This is as fine of a jumping-off point as any and considering that the 1960s were a transgressive decade that marked a turning point for various artistic mediums, somebody had to come along and up the crimson blood splatter and tastelessness in order to push cinema further away from its more censored form. This is all that a movie like Blood Feast deserves, which in every technical aspect is a moronic and dull bit of celluloid that resembles countless other Z-grade cheapies from its era. Still, there is a tacky sleaze-ball charm to all of the dreadful cinematography, acting, set design, music, and the story itself which features an eccentric caterer who is obsessed with murder and cannibalism in the name of the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar.
(1964)
Overall: MEH
Easily the least egregious entry in Herschell Gordon Lewis' wretched filmography, Two Thousand Maniacs! boasts a larger enough budget to afford some semblance of professionalism, be it of the low-grade drive-in variety of course. An early example of hicksploitation that sensationalizes redneck stereotypes, the fear of backwoods communities, and the cultural divide that still exists somewhat between the North and the South even a century after the end of the Civil War, it has a bizarre and darkly comedic tone. Incessant and boisterous cackling on the part of the hillbilly bumpkin characters grows insufferably annoying, but it is also in place to exaggerate what is a nightmarish story on paper; namely a disturbing centennial celebration where the South rises up for revenge and lays on the charm while manipulating some Yankees who cross their paths. The set pieces are nasty enough to appease gore fans and Lewis makes sure to show some severed limbs and unrealistic bloodshed whenever appropriate. The movie is still too amateurish to be properly unsettling, but the balancing of goofiness, sleaze, and sadism occasionally works to its advantage and this would spearhead a slew of similar exploitation films over the decades, for better and worse.
(1967)
Overall: WOOF
A rambling, amateur-hour piece of shit, The Gruesome Twosome finds craptacular filmmaker Herschell Gordon Lewis in his usual form. As unwatchably nonsensical and boring as it is, credit must be given to the opening scene which finds two crude dummy heads engaging in mindless, southern-accented chit-chat with each other, before one of them gets stabbed and starts oozing blood. Whether this intro was meant to set a comedic tone or was just the result of Lewis' cinematic ineptitude, (or drug use?), is inconsequential since the rest of the movie needs to be avoided at all costs. It concerns an old lady and her dim-witted son who run a wig shop that specializes in human hair. One can guess what that means and yes, women get murdered by the mommy/son duo in order to get scalped, but moments of such nasty bloodshed are alarmingly sparse. Do not worry though, Lewis makes sure to pad out the run time with college girls in their underwear making endless small talk, a couple of boys also talking, various other characters talking, and a few excruciating musical numbers just to make sure that the whole thing reaches an acceptable full-length running time. Easily the worst movie with a horror angle in Lewis' heyday unless one counts Monster a Go-Go, (which nobody should ever count), this is just garbage, pure and simple.
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