HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS

The world of cinema owes so much to The Godfather of Gore. Without Herschell Gordon Lewis it is unclear if our films would be as exciting as they are today. But I doubt they would.

After earning a masters degree in journalism, Lewis began making films in 1960. He worked outside of Hollywood and was able to play by his own rules. He spent a few years making sexploitation films, but it didn't take long before Lewis did the unthinkable and decided to focus on blood and guts instead of sex. With a 15-page script and a $25,000 budget, Lewis changed the history of films forever with the first and best gore movie of all time - "Blood Feast."

The film centered around serial killer Fuad Ramses, who owns an Egyptian catering business. Fuad proceeds to chop off body parts in the name of religion to bring ancient goddess Ishtar back to life. Special effects of today could blow this film out of the water, but there’s more to this movie than gore. “Blood Feast” plays as part campy, part shocking, part voyeuristic in an almost pornographic way and one hundred percent original. The lurking dark humor in this film almost seems accidental like an Ed Wood movie, but after you expose yourself to more of Lewis’ work, you realize the guy just has a really great twisted sense of humor.

 The gory redneck-Olympics film with a crazy theme song called "Two Thousand Maniacs" followed. A painter that created masterpieces in his own unique way in "Color Me Blood Red" then completed what has become known as "The Blood Trilogy." Joe Bob Briggs said it best, "Herschell Gordon Lewis is the man who put red meat into the American cinematic diet. Ultimately Herschell made Quentin Tarantino possible." 

Over a period of twelve years, Lewis made 35 movies. He wrote, directed, produced, edited, performed the music, photographed, handled the special effects and sometimes cameoed in his films. You wouldn't ever know this from the opening credits though. He never wanted his audiences to feel they were watching a one-man show, so he had more than 10 aliases he would sometimes use. Sheldon Seymour seemed to be one of his favorites.

 Other gore films that highlighted his career were "The Gore Gore Girls," "The Gruesome Twosome," and "The Wizard of Gore." "Gore Girls" received an X-Rating by the MPAA and featured strippers bring murdered in various bizarre ways such as deep frying their faces and bashing their behinds with meat tenderizers. "The Wizard" was a magician that murdered in front of packed audiences through hypnosis. One of my personal favorites, "The Gruesome Twosome" was about an elderly woman running a wig shop with the help of her mentally handicapped son, who scalps women for their hair.

 Though gore is what he is mostly known for, other highlights from his career include the political statement "Year of the Yahoo" about a country singer running for the senate, the hillbilly delight "This Stuff'll Kill You" about a cult who's religion is all about making and drinking moonshine and "Something Weird, " which centered around a witch, ESP and LSD. He also explored blackmail in the pornography business in "Scum of the Earth," teenagers out of control and terrorizing their neighbors in "Just for the Hell of It" and an all female motorcycle gang in "She-Devils on Wheels." He has also been credited with being the pioneer of product placement. Colonel Sanders himself appeared in "Blast Off Girls,” serving chicken in a scene in exchange for a week's worth of lunches for the cast and crew.

 Some downplay Lewis' skills as a filmmaker, but I would have to disagree. He was basically mass producing creative films, one after the other without a crew on a shoe-string budget. He was Robert Rodriguez before Rodriguez was born. Rodriguez has always said he uses the school of thought that you have to be creative to get yourself out of situations while filming as opposed to throwing money at the problem. In doing so, you finish with a better product because of the creativity. In a sense, this is what Lewis did. He didn't have the name recognition or money of say Alfred Hitchcok, who made "Psycho" on a budget of $800,000 in 1960. So in order to get people in the theater to see his movies he had to bring something new and exciting to the table and do it as cheap as possible. "One benefit that we had — and it's a mixed blessing, obviously — we were not part of the Hollywood establishment," Lewis was quoted in an interview on Reel.com. "We had to live on our wits, we had to get out and scrabble for playing time with theaters that otherwise would play major company product(s) with known stars. And how does one compete in that kind of ambiance? The answer is to make the kind of motion picture that the major companies either could not make or would not make. And today, of course, there's nothing that falls into that category at all! [Laughs] But in those days, nobody had ever made a movie where people died with their eyes open — and certainly they never made a movie where somebody sawed off somebody's leg or pulled out a tongue!" In an interview with Bright Lights Film Journal, Lewis said all he ever did was provide the people what they wanted. "I think bloodlust is ingrained in the human psyche," Lewis said. "And one benefit these films bring to the psychological arena is providing a passive out."

 However, by 1969 Hollywood started to catch on. They become more lenient with what they could show and by 1972 Lewis decided he could not compete and left the world of cinema behind. As his official site points out, Lewis went on to become a master of direct marketing, the "world's best-known copywriter," and a professor of mass communication at Roosevelt University in Chicago. In 2001, he made his return to directing with "Blood Feast 2: All You Can Eat," but I personally do not view it as a true Lewis film. The humor is too forced, Lewis didn't score it and he didn't photograph or edit it. If he does other films in the future, my hope is that he takes more control over the final products.

 To my knowledge, Herschell Gordon Lewis has never won an award for his work in cinema. He is a member of the Direct Marketing Association Hall of Fame, but I don't think he has ever been acknowledged or nominated for any of his work as a filmmaker. So this year, Herschell Gordon Lewis is being named the first inductee into the Polly Staffle Hall Of Fame. Maybe the Academy Awards will realize how deserving he is of a lifetime achievement award sometime in the future. But probably not. And in the mean time, can't someone get to work on a biopic or at least a documentary about him?

-- CCF, March 2006

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Polly Staffle Hall of Fame
	Herschell Gordon Lewis
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