Herschell Gordon Lewis Movies List
Herschell Gordon Lewis Movies ListBlood Feast Story
A series of gruesome murders has brought Miami to a screeching halt as women are being viciously mutilated by a homicidal madman. Strangely missing from the victims are certain body parts or limbs. The police remain baffled as they search for clues to stop this brutal killer while across town Mrs. Fremont (Lyn Bolton) enters the shop of one, Fuad Ramses (Mal Arnold), exotic cater. Looking to surprise her daughter Suzette (Connie Mason), Ramses promises to provide Mrs. Fremont with an authentic ancient Egyptian feast, one that he has been planning for a long time.
As the murders continue, Connie and her would-be boyfriend Detective Peter Thornton (William Kerwin) attend a lecture being giving on Egyptian cults. Thereee they learn the grime details of an ancient blood ritual performed to celebrate the goddess, Ishtar, 5000 years ago. As they prepare to depart news blares across the airwaves regarding a possible survival from this murderous rampage. Peter races across town to the hospital hoping for a clue only to hear the dying words of the victim, repeated “Etar, Etar”.
As Mrs. Fremont makes final preparations for her daughter’s party, the violence strikes closer to home as Suzette’s friend Trudy mysteriously disappears. All the while Ramses continues to prepare for the feast. Finally, Peter puts the pieces together, but will he arrive in time to prevent Suzette from becoming the main course??
After a successful run of nudie cuties, Lewis and his partner David Friedman were itching for a change of pace. In 1963 born out of the tradition of the “Grand Guignol”, 19th-century theater rooted in a gore-filled desire to shock and repulse its’ audience, came to the release of a little gem called, “Blood Feast”, which would alter the face of cinema as the world would know it.
Variety magazine offered its own review of the film calling it “incredibly crude and unprofessional from start to finish, (and) an insult even to the most puerile and salacious audience”, but the joke was on them as “Blood Feast” would go on to establish a new genre (splatter or gore) while taking exploitation filmmaking down a new and exciting path and forever shaping the impressionable minds of millions of budding filmmakers.
All modern filmmakers, horror and mainstream alike, owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the chances that a film like “Blood Feast” took in breaking down the barriers of the 50’s McCarthyism way of thinking. This film is a definite requirement for any inspiring horror fanatic!
Two Thousand Maniacs Story
A simple detour down a backwoods road leads six unsuspecting Yanks into the little town of Pleasant Valley (Pop. 2000), where a centennial celebration of some sort is taking place. As they pull into town, the massive party spills around them and Mayor Buckman (Jeffery Allen) declares that the “guests of honor” have finally arrived and the festivities can now begin.
After being put up in the best (and only) hotel in town, bizarre events start happening. First, the frisky Bea Miller (Shelby Livingston ) meets her gruesome demise when she sneaks off for a lover’s stroll with the debonair Harper (Mark Douglas).
Later her equally promiscuous husband John (Jerome Eden) is quartered after a night of feasting on a strangely tasty barbeque. Tom White (William Kerwin) and his traveling companion Terry Adams (Connie Mason) starts to become suspicious when they are unable to make contact with the outside world and stumble upon a plaque marking the historic ramification of this celebration of blood. The carnage reaches new heights when a teetering rock and a barrel roll are introduced into the mix.
Following in the highly successful footsteps of “Blood Feast” a year earlier “Two Thousand Maniacs” became the second film in Herschell Gordon Lewis List of Movies’ Blood Trilogy. Built on a stronger storyline, a combination of “Brigadoon” meets the Mansion Family, a larger budget (3 times that of “Blood Feast”), and superior acting (featuring the fine citizens of the now extinct St. Cloud, FL), “Two Thousand Maniacs” is by far my favorite H.G. Lewis film.
The wildly outrageous ways in which this town of bloodthirsty maniacs disembowels their unsuspecting “guests of honor” is truly a goremiester’s wet dream and comes in a close second only to Lewis’ own “Wizard of Gore” on the entrail scale when the truth is finally revealed, Tom and Terry attempt to make a mad dash for freedom. They solicit the help of local bad boy Billy to recover their car, but will they be able to escape this town bent on bloodthirsty revenge or is the South gonna rise again???? Check it out in Herschell Gordon Lewis List of Movies!
Color Me Blood Red Story
When struggling artist Adam Sorg’s (Don Joseph) girlfriend pricks her finger on a knife, he discovers the secret to his paintings that he has been missing, crimson red, blood red that is. Adam soon finds himself making masterpieces like that he has never made before and his creative juices are flowing. The only problem he is having is he has already cut his fingers to shreds and he needs another source of blood.
A remedy is quickly found after he decides too bash the skull of his girlfriend in and using her head as a glorified paintbrush. Soon he finds himself becoming a minor success in the local art scene and he begins to feel the need to make more paintings only again to find himself lacking the one resource he truly needs blood.
Adam now having the key to the perfect painting style begins stalking the beachfront in front of his house for other unwitting victims or paint supplies as he so fondly puts it. His plan seems to be going just fine until he stumbles across a young beauty named April, who does not want to be part of his paintings.
“Color Me, Blood Red” is the third and final installment in H.G. Lewis? ?Blood Trilogy? and despite the fact that the gore level is quite lower than the previous installments “Blood Feast” and “Two Thousand Maniacs” it has a chilling resonance to it. Much darker in its story, “Color Me, Blood Red” is a step into a psychopaths mind, the early predecessor to the modern slasher film.
Perhaps the most compelling thing about the movie is the over the top yet deadly serious performance of Don Joseph as Adam Sorg, who has a way of turning the comedic dialogue of Lewis into maniacal ranting. In fact that the only break from the movie we get is when we are shown the soon to be victims of Sorg’s goofing around on the beach, exchanging the ultra-hip sixties style dialogue. “Color Me, Blood Red” is a fascinating journey into the mind of the early prototype of a movie serial killer, laden with great gore and entertaining dialogue
