If you’ve ever been thrilled by the ruby red splatter of blood or gasped in glee at images of sinewy guts, then there’s a strong chance you owe a debt of honor to Herschell Gordon Lewis.
A towering figure in the pantheon of fright, Lewis has been hailed by many as “The Godfather of Gore,” and it’s a title he’s earned every right to hold. Though blood and violence onscreen existed long before the audacious auteur hit the scene, it was with a veritable sense of sleaze that Herschell Gordon Lewis literally upped the ante of the horror genre to the visceral level it exists at today.
Declared by John Waters to be one of “the greatest filmmakers of all time,” Herschell Gordon Lewis began his legacy in fright films for the rather simple reason of needing to make a quick buck. In the late 50s, Lewis was working as a humanities teacher and ad man in Chicago, directing commercials in his spare time to supplement his income. After buying out the advertising studio he produced commercials for, Lewis turned his attention to larger projects: Film.
In 1959, Lewis joined forces with producer and distributor David Friedman (a veritable legend in his own right) to create Prime Time, the first of many collaborations, and also the first film produced in Chicago since the early 1900s. Although Lewis didn’t direct this initial foray into film, it was at this point he began to cut his teeth in the world of cinema, and it was the experience of shooting Prime Time that informed all that would follow.
“I just listened to too many people,” Lewis said of the experience in an interview with The Onion’s AV Club. “It cost far more than it should have, and it was kind of useless, which I realized even as we were making it.”
Constantly learning and ever the economist, when Lewis next stepped on set, he was determined to not make the mistakes of his previous outing. With 1961’s Living Venus, Lewis took on the mantle of director for the first time, and exploitation cinema has never been the same.
Throughout the early 1960s, Lewis and Friedman launched an all-out sleaze attack on the drive-in, crafting not horror films, but sex cinema and nudie cuties. Inspired by the work of Russ Meyer, the duo took advantage of the blooming sexual revolution by offering up a buffet of filmic lust. With features like The Adventures of Lucky Pierre, Nature’s Playmates, and Goldilocks and the Three Bares, Lewis and Friedman introduced a grittier side of sex films, and the audiences who were hip to the cause ate it up.
However, in 1963, the course of Lewis’ career would change forever. With the swinging world of sex cinema slowing waning, Lewis and Friedman looked to other markets to continue to develop their craft. Their sights landed on the cinematically dubious genre of horror, and thus, Blood Feast was born.
“We intended it as a specialty film that we might show on Halloween, that type of limited showing, to be euphemistic.” Despite all intent, Lewis and Friedman had no idea what they were about to unleash.
A landmark film, Blood Feast became instantly notorious. The story of a caterer who uses body parts of victims for his meals (all the while sacrificing to an Egyptian goddess) was unlike anything that audiences had ever seen. Hailed by many as the first true gore film, Blood Feast was violent, blood-soaked, and left viewers equally revolted and engaged.
In a retrospective review, AllMovies referred to Blood Feast as one of “the important releases in film history, ushering in a new acceptance of explicit violence that was obviously just waiting to be exploited.” Lewis, to his credit, calls it something much simpler: “A watershed.”
Following the drive-in success of Blood Feast, Lewis and Friedman were able to hit the newly found gore market hard. In the short time span following, the team released two more instant icky classics: 1964’s Two Thousand Maniacs and 1965’s Color Me Blood Red. Audiences marveled as Lewis and Friedman pulled back the curtain to reveal to them crazy southern cannibals and blood-thirsty artists in shocking situations never before seen on the silver screen. Horror directors and international auteurs the world over were scrambling to emulate this newly found visceral style.
Following the completion of what fans dubbed the “Blood Trilogy,” Friedman and Lewis parted ways, Color Me Blood Red being their swan song as a team, their legacy all but assured. However, never one to rest on his laurels, Herschell blazed forward in the world of film.
Bouncing back and forth between gore and the sexploitation films that started his career, the now solo Lewis continued to thrive. With a near consistent output, Lewis released cult gems like 1967’s Gruesome Twosome and 1968’s She-Devils on Wheels, proving he was just as prolific as ever.
One notable entry that came in 1967 was Lewis’ epic, A Taste of Blood. Occasionally referred to as “The Gone With the Wind of Gore,” A Taste of Blood, about a salesman turned vampire, clocks in at over two hours, making it Lewis’ longest running film to date. In a genre where films usually are no longer than 90 minutes, Lewis’ lengthy approach was unheard of, but achieved in a way only a true master could execute.
Other notable films of the following decade included Lewis’ tale of crazed street gangs, Just for the Hell of It, and 1970’s Wizard of Gore (this is the movie Jason Bateman and Ellen Page watch together in Juno). Still celebrated by many, Wizard of Gore, about a magician with a less than credible stage act, remains one of the most cited gore films of a generation. Frequently referenced by this generation’s violence aficionados like Quentin Tarantino and Eli Roth, Wizard of Gore was later remade in 2007 into a film of the same name starring Crispin Glover.
In 1972, Lewis entered relative retirement with The Gore Gore Girls (a personal favorite of this writer). The film, featuring comic legend Henny Youngman, shows a master filmmaker going out on top. The film, about a rash of stripper murders, is easily one of Lewis’ best. Acerbic and sassy, The Gore Gore Girls mixes humor and horror together in a delicious blend long before it was a chic thing to do. So beloved is this particular film here at Midnight Mass HQ, it was the point of reference Peaches Christ herself used in her opening song for the All About Evil stage show, titled Gore Gore Girl. It’s no secret that my dear ghoulfriend and I are both whores for the gore because of the great Herschell Gordon Lewis.
With nearly forty film titles to his credit, the legacy of Herschell Gordon Lewis endures. In 2002, the director returned to the set for the first time in 30 years to direct a sequel to Blood Feast (titled Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat) and crafted an original work in 2009 called The Uh-Oh Show. The return of Lewis to the silver screen was celebrated by fright fans the world over, and with just cause. The genre was forever changed by this auteur’s sense of cinematic bloodlust, and the very look of horror was forever altered in his wake.
Perhaps the most shocking fact about Lewis, however, is the life he lives outside of the world of scares. As proven by his economical approach to filmmaking, Lewis is a master of business. To a whole other community, Lewis is known as one of the foremost experts in direct marketing. In the three decades between directorial efforts, Lewis carved out a career for himself in the world of high powered advertising, becoming an advisor to the elite and one of the world’s most trusted experts on copywriting and marketing.
Whether for carnage or copyright, Lewis is a trusted source who is celebrated by many camps the world over. His legacy was recently documented in Frank Henenlotter’s documentary The Godfather of Gore, and Lewis recently told his own tale by way of a similarly titled autobiography, The Godfather of Gore Speaks. His work is still constantly discussed, dissected, and scrutinized by academics and fans alike.
In fact, in a major discovery of the last year, three previously lost films of Lewis’ early days (The Ecstasies of Women, Black Love, and Linda and Abilene) were found and restored, allowing a whole new generation of fans to discover works by a master that were originally thought forever gone. For those in the know, this discovery is tantamount to finding a lost recording by The Beatles. Such is the legacy of Herschell Gordon Lewis.
I’m going to level with you, my dear children of the popcorn. When this column was started, the entire purpose was to introduce to this generation and celebrate some of the very best cult filmmakers the world of shock cinema had to offer. I would be remiss if I did not say that, of all the entries thus far, Herschell Gordon Lewis may, in fact, be the most important Cult Filmmaker You Should Know. So important is his legacy, I can say without hesitation that, if not for Herschell, modern horror as it stands would not exist today. From John Waters to Troma, John Carpenter to Eli Roth, all of the greats of the last fifty years bear the mark of Herschell Gordon Lewis and the world of weird he left behind.
If you’re a modern monster kid living in the world today, think of Herschell Gordon Lewis as your grandfather in gore, or, as previous Cult Filmmaker honoree Amy Lynn Best said, “At the least, your grandma [in gore’s] creepy fun friend.”
So, if you’re previously unfamiliar with the work of this icon, do yourself a favor: Indulge in your bloodlust.
We salute you, Herschell…for being all that you are, and for making us all “whores for the gore.”
Until next time.
