(1970)
Overall: WOOF
Starting out the 1970s with one of the worst movies you could possibly make, (and it would only get worse), Herschell Gordon Lewis's The Wizard of Gore is powerless against its technical obstacles and almost mind-numbingly boring and asinine plot. It of course would not be a HGL production without abysmal cinematography and acting, (both of which are leisurely present), but this could also be the most poorly edited movie yet made at the time. The fact that the special effects are especially terrible only makes matters worse, but only from a technical level as you are bound to laugh at how clueless the entire production comes off, nearly pushing it into surreal territory. The experience would be enhanced if it was just a non-stop mesh of scatterbrain cuts, several seconds of pitch blackness on screen, non-existent set design, unconvincing, bloody guts and dummy heads, every character repeating the exact same information in every scene that they are in, and a drunk cameraman. Yet the combination of all of the above is an unforgiving chore to endure. In all fairness, you could skip past the entire movie after the first ten minutes and miss absolutely nothing of importance. You may not get an occasional chase of the chuckles that way, but at least you will not fall asleep either.
(1971)
Overall: WOOF
Poor Tim Holt, (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Magnificent Ambersons), finished off his film career staring in This Stuff'll Kill Ya!, a Herschell Gordon Lewis movie that boldly tries the viewers patience like never before. With only mere sprinklings of the director's trademark disgusting gore and just a thinly veiled "thriller" plot at best, the rest of the man's many exasperatingly awful cinematic stamps are given free reign to make the movie practically unwatchable. This of course includes dialog that you can barely understand because no one is miked, the lifeless camera not being able to keep anyone in frame, and the cheapest possible set design. Jeffery Allen is endlessly cringe-worthy as a con-man preacher who cannot get through a sentence without quoting the bible and at the same time making all his yee-haw squawking minions howl with atrociously fake laughter at his near every utterance. The story could have made for an interesting one if any other filmmaker was handling the material since Lewis does not inject nearly enough of his charming ineptitude. Oh it is inept alright, but instead of being in on its own bad joke while being loaded with enough vile, blood and guts drenched visuals to keep you invested, it is wretchedly dull and pointless at best and incredibly obnoxious at worst.
(1972)
Overall: WOOF
Herschell Gordon Lewis put a lid on his filmmaking career that would stay shut for thirty years afterwards with The Gore Gore Girls, arguably the most deliberately terrible movie out of his many terrible ones. Adding to the mix of unattractive actors who are embarrassing themselves with every utterance of atrocious dialog that they are given and of course the hilarious technical incompetence, the "movie" fills up close to half of its ninety-five minute running time with strippers performing with the type of enthusiasm that comatose victims would easily one-up. Thankfully though, Herschell Gordon Lewis seems to know how terrible of a movie he is making this time and plays it as a comedy first and foremost, with the forth-wall breaking and casting of Henny "Take my wife..please" Youngman being pretty hard to miss. This is not to say that the film is remotely funny of course, at least in the intentional sense. If anything, it is just as awkward as any of the Godfather of Gore's other works, but at least the combination of really ghastly violence and a story so shamefully dumb that it is inconsequential makes for a trainwreck of an experience and one that honestly gets so stupid that it is amusing here or there. Which to begin with, is really the "best" you can hope for when it comes to a Herschell Gordon Lewis movie.
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