Herschell Gordon Lewis
Encyclopedia
Herschell Gordon Lewis (born 15 June 1929, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
, U.S.
) is an American
filmmaker, best known for creating the "splatter film
" subgenre of horror
. He is often called the "Godfather of Gore", though his film career included works in a range of exploitation film
genres including juvenile delinquent films, nudie-cuties, two children's films and at least one rural comedy.
, in 1929. His father died when he was six-years-old. His mother re-married a few years later and his family then moved to Chicago, Illinois where Lewis spent the majority of his adolescence
. After attending grade school, Lewis received a Master's degree in Journalism at Northwestern University
in Evanston, Illinois. A few years later, he became a professor of English literature at Mississippi State College. He was lured from his teaching career to be the manager of WRAC Radio in Racine, Wisconsin
, and later then to become a studio director at WKY-TV studio in Oklahoma City
.
In 1953, Lewis began working for a friend's advertising agency in Chicago while teaching graduate advertising courses at night at Roosevelt University
. In the meantime, he began directing TV commercial advertisements for a small production company called Alexander and Associates. Lewis later bought out half of the company with business associate Martin Schmidhofer and renamed it Lewis and Martin Films.
, Living Venus (1961), was a fictitious account based on the story of Hugh Hefner
and the beginnings of Playboy
. Lewis and Friedman's movies were early exploitation films, and its nude scenes, although soft core, were the type not seen in "mainstream" Hollywood pictures because of the censorship imposed by the Production Code issued by the Hays Office.
The two continued with a series of erotic films in the early 1960s. These films marked the beginning of a deliberate approach to filmmaking which each respective party would continue through their production careers- films made solely with the intention of turning a profit. Typical of these nudies were the screwball comedies B-O-I-N-G! (1963) and The Adventures of Lucky Pierre
(1961), a film made for a shoestring budget of $7,500 which would become the duo's first great financial success which made three times its budget upon its first release. Because film restrictions had not yet allowed for sexual depictions in films, the bulk of Lewis and Friedman's early work consisted of nudist camp features like Goldilocks and The Three Bares
(1963), which appropriately billed itself as "the first (and to date the only) nudist musical".
With the nudie market beginning to wane, Lewis and Friedman entered into uncharted territory with 1963's seminal Blood Feast
, considered by most critics to be the first "gore" film. Because of the unprecedented nature of this type of film, they were able to cater to the drive-in theater
market which would have been inaccessible with their prior skin flicks. Two Thousand Maniacs!
(1964) and Color Me Blood Red
(1965) followed the same formula. The full-color gore on display in these films caused a sensation, with horror film-makers throughout the world becoming eager to saturate their productions with similarly shocking visual effects.
Lewis stopped working with Friedman after making Color Me Blood Red
(1965), but continued to make further gore films into the 1970s. His next gore entry wouldn't come until 1967, with A Taste of Blood
, often referred to as the "Gone with the Wind
of Gore" due to its relatively lengthy running time of nearly two hours. The following year would bring a more extreme take on the genre, The Gruesome Twosome
(1967), most notable for incorporating an electric knife used to scalp one of the victims. Lewis's third gore phase served to push the genre into even more outrageous shock territory. The Wizard of Gore
(1970) featured a stage magician who would mutilate his volunteers severely through a series of merciless routines. By 1973, Lewis had taken the gore approach to such a limit that it began to lampoon itself, which is why The Gore Gore Girls
(featuring an appearance by Henny Youngman
as the owner of a topless club) would mark his semi-retirement from film altogether.
By the early 1970s, he decided to leave the filmmaking industry to work in copywriting
and direct marketing
, a subject on which he published several books in the 1980s. He returned to directing in 2002 with the straight-to-video Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat
.
Lewis financed and produced his own movies with funds he made from his successful advertising firm based in Chicago. Always resourceful despite the low budgets he worked with, Lewis purchased the rights to an unfinished film and completed it himself, re-titling the film Monster A Go-Go
(1965). Many years later, the film gained notoriety after being shown on the Mystery Science Theater 3000
television show, where the cast stated it was the worst film they have ever done. Lewis would repeat this formula when he acquired a gritty psychological piece called The Vortex and released it as Stick It In Your Ear (1970) to be shown as a second feature to The Wizard of Gore
. This approach demonstrated Lewis's business savvy; by owning the rights to both features, he knew he would not get fleeced by theaters juggling the box office returns, a common practice at that time.
Outside his notorious gore canon, Lewis pursued a wide gamut of other exploitation avenues throughout the sixties. Some of the more taboo subjects he explored include juvenile delinquency
(Just For The Hell Of It, 1968), wife swapping (Suburban Roulette, 1968), the corruption of the music industry (Blast-Off Girls
, 1967), and birth control
(The Girl, The Body and The Pill
, 1967). He was also not above tapping the children's market, as with Jimmy the Boy Wonder (1966) and The Magic Land of Mother Goose (1967), which were padded out to feature film length by incorporating long foreign-made cartoon
s. Most of Lewis' films are available for purchase through the Seattle-based video company titled Something Weird Video
which finds and restores lost and little seen exploitation movies from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.
Towards the end of the 1960s, Lewis would return to the world of sexploitation
, with regulations now being considerably more lax. Those films quickly vanished into obscurity: Lewis' 1972 film Black Love, apparently an erotic film with an all African American
cast, has completely disappeared
. Also reportedly gone forever are a pair of nudies, Ecstasies of Women (1969) and Linda and Abilene (1969), a lesbian
western
which remains notorious for having been shot on the Spahn Ranch
only months before it became inhabited by the Manson Family. Year Of The Yahoo! (1972) was also believed lost, though a largely complete print is now available on DVD
as a double feature with the semi-gory ode to moonshine, This Stuff'll Kill Ya! (1971).
and founded his own advertising company, Communicomp, a full-service direct marketing agency with clients throughout the world.
In 1991, Lewis's deep voice was sampled on the track Symposium Of Sickness by English
death metal
band Carcass
.
In 2006, Lewis was inducted into the Polly Staffle Hall of Fame. Lewis has a pair of film projects in development with Florida-based feature film production company Film Ranch International. He also made a cameo appearance in the Shock O Rama film Chainsaw Sally, and starred in issue one of American Carnevil, a graphic novel created by Johnny Martin Walters.
"The Wizard of Gore" was remade by writer Zach Chassler and director Jeremy Kasten in 2007.
In 2010, Lewis is releasing The Uh-Oh Show, about a television game show where the contestants are dismembered for each wrong answer. The first screening of this movie was 8 November 2009 at the Abertoir
Horror Festival in Aberystwyth
, Wales and concluded with Lewis' questions and answers about the film. It was also screened at the Cinema Wasteland film convention in Strongsville, Ohio
, with an appearance by, and Q & A with Mr. Lewis, in early October 2010.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
, U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
) is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
filmmaker, best known for creating the "splatter film
Splatter film
A splatter film or gore film is a subgenre of horror film that deliberately focuses on graphic portrayals of gore and graphic violence. These films, through the use of special effects and excessive blood and guts, tend to display an overt interest in the vulnerability of the human body and the...
" subgenre of horror
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
. He is often called the "Godfather of Gore", though his film career included works in a range of exploitation film
Exploitation film
Exploitation film is a type of film that is promoted by "exploiting" often lurid subject matter. The term "exploitation" is common in film marketing, used for all types of films to mean promotion or advertising. These films then need something to exploit, such as a big star, special effects, sex,...
genres including juvenile delinquent films, nudie-cuties, two children's films and at least one rural comedy.
Biography
Herschell Gordon Lewis was born in Pittsburgh, PennsylvaniaPittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
, in 1929. His father died when he was six-years-old. His mother re-married a few years later and his family then moved to Chicago, Illinois where Lewis spent the majority of his adolescence
Adolescence
Adolescence is a transitional stage of physical and mental human development generally occurring between puberty and legal adulthood , but largely characterized as beginning and ending with the teenage stage...
. After attending grade school, Lewis received a Master's degree in Journalism at Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
in Evanston, Illinois. A few years later, he became a professor of English literature at Mississippi State College. He was lured from his teaching career to be the manager of WRAC Radio in Racine, Wisconsin
Racine, Wisconsin
Racine is a city in and the county seat of Racine County, Wisconsin, United States. According to 2008 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, the city had a population of 82,196...
, and later then to become a studio director at WKY-TV studio in Oklahoma City
Oklahoma city
Oklahoma City is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma.Oklahoma City may also refer to:*Oklahoma City metropolitan area*Downtown Oklahoma City*Uptown Oklahoma City*Oklahoma City bombing*Oklahoma City National Memorial...
.
In 1953, Lewis began working for a friend's advertising agency in Chicago while teaching graduate advertising courses at night at Roosevelt University
Roosevelt University
Roosevelt University is a coeducational, private university with campuses in Chicago, Illinois and Schaumburg, Illinois. Founded in 1945, the university is named in honor of both former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The university's curriculum is based on...
. In the meantime, he began directing TV commercial advertisements for a small production company called Alexander and Associates. Lewis later bought out half of the company with business associate Martin Schmidhofer and renamed it Lewis and Martin Films.
Film career
Lewis served as producer only on his first film venture, The Prime Time (1959), which was the first feature film produced in Chicago since the late 1910s. He would assume directing duties on nearly all of his films from then on. His first in a lengthy series of collaborations with exploitation producer David F. FriedmanDavid F. Friedman
David Frank Friedman was an American filmmaker and film producer.-Life and career:Friedman first became interested in entertainment after spending part of his childhood in Birmingham and Anniston, Alabama, traveling carnival sites. He met exploitation film pioneer Kroger Babb during his stay in...
, Living Venus (1961), was a fictitious account based on the story of Hugh Hefner
Hugh Hefner
Hugh Marston "Hef" Hefner is an American magazine publisher, founder and Chief Creative Officer of Playboy Enterprises.-Early life:...
and the beginnings of Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
. Lewis and Friedman's movies were early exploitation films, and its nude scenes, although soft core, were the type not seen in "mainstream" Hollywood pictures because of the censorship imposed by the Production Code issued by the Hays Office.
The two continued with a series of erotic films in the early 1960s. These films marked the beginning of a deliberate approach to filmmaking which each respective party would continue through their production careers- films made solely with the intention of turning a profit. Typical of these nudies were the screwball comedies B-O-I-N-G! (1963) and The Adventures of Lucky Pierre
The Adventures of Lucky Pierre
The Adventures of Lucky Pierre is a 1961 nudie cutie sexploitation film created by exploitation filmmakers Herschell Gordon Lewis and David F. Friedman. The first of its kind to be filmed in color, the film starred comedian Billy Falbo...
(1961), a film made for a shoestring budget of $7,500 which would become the duo's first great financial success which made three times its budget upon its first release. Because film restrictions had not yet allowed for sexual depictions in films, the bulk of Lewis and Friedman's early work consisted of nudist camp features like Goldilocks and The Three Bares
Goldilocks and The Three Bares
Goldilocks and The Three Bares is the thought-to-be-lost second to last nudie-cutie from the legendary exploitation team of Herschell Gordon Lewis and David F. Friedman. The title can be misleading; the plotline has absolutely nothing to do with the famous fable which inspired the title...
(1963), which appropriately billed itself as "the first (and to date the only) nudist musical".
With the nudie market beginning to wane, Lewis and Friedman entered into uncharted territory with 1963's seminal Blood Feast
Blood Feast
Blood Feast is a 1963 American horror film directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis, often considered the first "splatter film". It was produced by David F. Friedman. The screenplay was written by Alison Louise Downe, who had previously appeared in several of Lewis' other films. Lewis also wrote the...
, considered by most critics to be the first "gore" film. Because of the unprecedented nature of this type of film, they were able to cater to the drive-in theater
Drive-in theater
A drive-in theater is a form of cinema structure consisting of a large outdoor screen, a projection booth, a concession stand and a large parking area for automobiles. Within this enclosed area, customers can view movies from the privacy and comfort of their cars.The screen can be as simple as a...
market which would have been inaccessible with their prior skin flicks. Two Thousand Maniacs!
Two Thousand Maniacs!
Two Thousand Maniacs! is a low budget 1964 splatter film directed and written by Herschell Gordon Lewis. It is the second part of what the director's fans have dubbed "The Blood Trilogy", including Blood Feast and Color Me Blood Red...
(1964) and Color Me Blood Red
Color Me Blood Red
Color Me Blood Red is a low budget 1965 horror film directed and written by Herschell Gordon Lewis. Color Me Blood Red is the third part of what the director's fans have dubbed "The Blood Trilogy", including Blood Feast and Two Thousand Maniacs! .-Film synopsis:An eccentric artist is criticized by...
(1965) followed the same formula. The full-color gore on display in these films caused a sensation, with horror film-makers throughout the world becoming eager to saturate their productions with similarly shocking visual effects.
Lewis stopped working with Friedman after making Color Me Blood Red
Color Me Blood Red
Color Me Blood Red is a low budget 1965 horror film directed and written by Herschell Gordon Lewis. Color Me Blood Red is the third part of what the director's fans have dubbed "The Blood Trilogy", including Blood Feast and Two Thousand Maniacs! .-Film synopsis:An eccentric artist is criticized by...
(1965), but continued to make further gore films into the 1970s. His next gore entry wouldn't come until 1967, with A Taste of Blood
A Taste of Blood
A Taste of Blood is a 1967 American film, directed and produced by Herschell Gordon Lewis. It is a horror movie that stars, among others, Bill Rogers, and Elizabeth Wilkinson. The movie was also known as "The Secret of Dr...
, often referred to as the "Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind (film)
Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American historical epic film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer-winning 1936 novel of the same name. It was produced by David O. Selznick and directed by Victor Fleming from a screenplay by Sidney Howard...
of Gore" due to its relatively lengthy running time of nearly two hours. The following year would bring a more extreme take on the genre, The Gruesome Twosome
The Gruesome Twosome (1967 film)
The Gruesome Twosome is a 1967 American exploitation horror movie directed and produced by Herschell Gordon Lewis. It stars Elizabeth Davis, Gretchen Wells and Chris Martell.-Synopsis:...
(1967), most notable for incorporating an electric knife used to scalp one of the victims. Lewis's third gore phase served to push the genre into even more outrageous shock territory. The Wizard of Gore
The Wizard of Gore
The Wizard of Gore is a 1970 film directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis. It stars Ray Sager and Judy Cler. According to crew member Daniel Krogh in his book The Amazing Herschell Gordon Lewis , the film was shot in Chicago, Illinois and a number of surrounding suburbs during the early summer of...
(1970) featured a stage magician who would mutilate his volunteers severely through a series of merciless routines. By 1973, Lewis had taken the gore approach to such a limit that it began to lampoon itself, which is why The Gore Gore Girls
The Gore Gore Girls
The Gore Gore Girls is a 1972 horror film directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis. It was his final film for the next 30 years, and is particularly infamous for its scene of a woman's nipple being severed.-Plot:...
(featuring an appearance by Henny Youngman
Henny Youngman
Henry "Henny" Youngman was a British-born American comedian and violinist famous for "one-liners", short, simple jokes usually delivered rapid-fire...
as the owner of a topless club) would mark his semi-retirement from film altogether.
By the early 1970s, he decided to leave the filmmaking industry to work in copywriting
Copywriting
Copywriting is the use of words and ideas to promote a person, business, opinion or idea. Although the word copy may be applied to any content intended for printing , the term copywriter is generally limited to promotional situations, regardless of the medium...
and direct marketing
Direct marketing
Direct marketing is a channel-agnostic form of advertising that allows businesses and nonprofits to communicate straight to the customer, with advertising techniques such as mobile messaging, email, interactive consumer websites, online display ads, fliers, catalog distribution, promotional...
, a subject on which he published several books in the 1980s. He returned to directing in 2002 with the straight-to-video Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat
Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat
Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat, also known as Blood Feast 2: Buffet of Blood, is an exploitation-style splatter film written by W. Boyd Ford and directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis as a sequel to Lewis's cult classic exploitation film Blood Feast...
.
Lewis financed and produced his own movies with funds he made from his successful advertising firm based in Chicago. Always resourceful despite the low budgets he worked with, Lewis purchased the rights to an unfinished film and completed it himself, re-titling the film Monster A Go-Go
Monster A Go-Go
Monster A Go-Go, is a 1965 science fiction horror film directed by Bill Rebane and Herschell Gordon Lewis . It's considered one of the worst films ever.- Production :The film had an unusual production history...
(1965). Many years later, the film gained notoriety after being shown on the Mystery Science Theater 3000
Mystery Science Theater 3000
Mystery Science Theater 3000 is an American cult television comedy series created by Joel Hodgson and produced by Best Brains, Inc., that ran from 1988 to 1999....
television show, where the cast stated it was the worst film they have ever done. Lewis would repeat this formula when he acquired a gritty psychological piece called The Vortex and released it as Stick It In Your Ear (1970) to be shown as a second feature to The Wizard of Gore
The Wizard of Gore
The Wizard of Gore is a 1970 film directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis. It stars Ray Sager and Judy Cler. According to crew member Daniel Krogh in his book The Amazing Herschell Gordon Lewis , the film was shot in Chicago, Illinois and a number of surrounding suburbs during the early summer of...
. This approach demonstrated Lewis's business savvy; by owning the rights to both features, he knew he would not get fleeced by theaters juggling the box office returns, a common practice at that time.
Outside his notorious gore canon, Lewis pursued a wide gamut of other exploitation avenues throughout the sixties. Some of the more taboo subjects he explored include juvenile delinquency
Juvenile delinquency
Juvenile delinquency is participation in illegal behavior by minors who fall under a statutory age limit. Most legal systems prescribe specific procedures for dealing with juveniles, such as juvenile detention centers. There are a multitude of different theories on the causes of crime, most if not...
(Just For The Hell Of It, 1968), wife swapping (Suburban Roulette, 1968), the corruption of the music industry (Blast-Off Girls
Blast-Off Girls
Blast-Off Girls is a 1967 American exploitation film directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis.- Plot :In Herschell Gordon Lewis's take on A Hard Day's Night meets Wild Guitar, a ruthless and greedy talent manager named Boojie Baker "discovers" then exploits unknown rock bands...
, 1967), and birth control
Birth control
Birth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent fertilization or to interrupt pregnancy at various stages. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception , contragestion and abortion...
(The Girl, The Body and The Pill
The Girl, The Body and The Pill
The Girl, The Body and The Pill was a film made in 1967 and directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis.-Plot:Always in search of uncharted exploitation territory, Lewis turns his attention this time to the then-controversial topic of birth control. Given the nature of the film, it is surprising that it...
, 1967). He was also not above tapping the children's market, as with Jimmy the Boy Wonder (1966) and The Magic Land of Mother Goose (1967), which were padded out to feature film length by incorporating long foreign-made cartoon
Cartoon
A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...
s. Most of Lewis' films are available for purchase through the Seattle-based video company titled Something Weird Video
Something Weird Video
Something Weird Video is an American publisher of video tapes and DVDs, based in Seattle, Washington. They specialize in exploitation film, particularly the works of Harry Novak, Doris Wishman, David F. Friedman, and Herschell Gordon Lewis. SWV videos are available on demand to Comcast subscribers...
which finds and restores lost and little seen exploitation movies from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.
Towards the end of the 1960s, Lewis would return to the world of sexploitation
Sexploitation
Sexploitation, or "sex-exploitation", describes a class of independently produced, low-budget feature films generally associated with the 1960s and serving largely as a vehicle for the exhibition of non-explicit sexual situations and gratuitous nudity. The genre is a subgenre of exploitation films...
, with regulations now being considerably more lax. Those films quickly vanished into obscurity: Lewis' 1972 film Black Love, apparently an erotic film with an all African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
cast, has completely disappeared
Lost film
A lost film is a feature film or short film that is no longer known to exist in studio archives, private collections or public archives such as the Library of Congress, where at least one copy of all American films are deposited and catalogued for copyright reasons...
. Also reportedly gone forever are a pair of nudies, Ecstasies of Women (1969) and Linda and Abilene (1969), a lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
which remains notorious for having been shot on the Spahn Ranch
Spahn Ranch
Spahn Ranch, also known as the Spahn Movie Ranch, was a movie ranch used for filming generally Western-themed movies and television programs. With mountainous terrain, boulder-strewn scenery, and an 'old Western town' set, Spahn Ranch was a versatile filming site for many scripts...
only months before it became inhabited by the Manson Family. Year Of The Yahoo! (1972) was also believed lost, though a largely complete print is now available on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
as a double feature with the semi-gory ode to moonshine, This Stuff'll Kill Ya! (1971).
Career highlights and recent activities
During his retirement from filmmaking, Lewis wrote and published over 20 books during his long business career in advertising, including "The Businessman's Guide to Advertising and Sales Promotion" in 1974, followed by "How to Handle Your Own Public Relations" in 1977. A slow but steady stream of books followed, which seemed to turn into a torrent in the 1990s. Lewis settled in Fort Lauderdale, FloridaFort Lauderdale, Florida
Fort Lauderdale is a city in the U.S. state of Florida, on the Atlantic coast. It is the county seat of Broward County. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 165,521. It is a principal city of the South Florida metropolitan area, which was home to 5,564,635 people at the 2010...
and founded his own advertising company, Communicomp, a full-service direct marketing agency with clients throughout the world.
In 1991, Lewis's deep voice was sampled on the track Symposium Of Sickness by English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
death metal
Death metal
Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. It typically employs heavily distorted guitars, tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, blast beat drumming, minor keys or atonality, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes....
band Carcass
Carcass (band)
Carcass are an extreme metal band from England, who formed in 1985 and disbanded in 1995. A reunion was enacted in 2008 without one of its original members, drummer Ken Owen, due to health reasons....
.
In 2006, Lewis was inducted into the Polly Staffle Hall of Fame. Lewis has a pair of film projects in development with Florida-based feature film production company Film Ranch International. He also made a cameo appearance in the Shock O Rama film Chainsaw Sally, and starred in issue one of American Carnevil, a graphic novel created by Johnny Martin Walters.
"The Wizard of Gore" was remade by writer Zach Chassler and director Jeremy Kasten in 2007.
In 2010, Lewis is releasing The Uh-Oh Show, about a television game show where the contestants are dismembered for each wrong answer. The first screening of this movie was 8 November 2009 at the Abertoir
Abertoir
Abertoir is an annual horror and horror film festival held in the Aberystwyth Arts Centre in Ceredigion, Wales in November. Currently in its sixth year, the festival began as a 3-day event and has grown since to its current 6-day schedule. Abertoir is currently Wales' only horror festival and is a...
Horror Festival in Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth is a historic market town, administrative centre and holiday resort within Ceredigion, Wales. Often colloquially known as Aber, it is located at the confluence of the rivers Ystwyth and Rheidol....
, Wales and concluded with Lewis' questions and answers about the film. It was also screened at the Cinema Wasteland film convention in Strongsville, Ohio
Strongsville, Ohio
As of the census of 2000, there were 43,858 people, 16,209 households, and 12,383 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,779.6 people per square mile . There were 16,863 housing units at an average density of 684.2 per square mile...
, with an appearance by, and Q & A with Mr. Lewis, in early October 2010.
Selected filmography
| Director | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Film | Role | Other notes |
| 1960 1960 in film The year 1960 in film involved some significant events, with Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho the top-grossing release in the U.S.-Events:* April 20 - for the first time since coming home from military service in Germany, Elvis Presley returns to Hollywood, California to film G.I... |
The Prime Time | ||
| 1961 1961 in film The year 1961 in film involved some significant events, with West Side Story winning 10 Academy Awards.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:* Atlantis, the Lost ContinentB... |
Adventures of Lucky Pierre | ||
| Living Venus | |||
| 1963 1963 in film The year 1963 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* June 12 - Cleopatra starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison and Richard Burton premieres at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City.... |
B-O-I-N-G! | ||
| Blood Feast Blood Feast Blood Feast is a 1963 American horror film directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis, often considered the first "splatter film". It was produced by David F. Friedman. The screenplay was written by Alison Louise Downe, who had previously appeared in several of Lewis' other films. Lewis also wrote the... |
Voice of the Radio Announcer | ||
| Goldilocks and the Three Bares Goldilocks and The Three Bares Goldilocks and The Three Bares is the thought-to-be-lost second to last nudie-cutie from the legendary exploitation team of Herschell Gordon Lewis and David F. Friedman. The title can be misleading; the plotline has absolutely nothing to do with the famous fable which inspired the title... |
|||
| Scum of the Earth! Scum of the Earth! Scum of the Earth! aka Devil's Camera is a 1963 American exploitation film directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis and produced by David F. Friedman. It is credited as being the first film in the "roughie" genre.-Synopsis:... |
Voice of the Narrator | ||
| 1964 1964 in film The year 1964 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 29 - The film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is released.... |
Two Thousand Maniacs! Two Thousand Maniacs! Two Thousand Maniacs! is a low budget 1964 splatter film directed and written by Herschell Gordon Lewis. It is the second part of what the director's fans have dubbed "The Blood Trilogy", including Blood Feast and Color Me Blood Red... |
Sings the title song | |
| Moonshine Mountain | |||
| 1965 1965 in film The year 1965 in film involved some significant events, with The Sound of Music topping the U.S. box office.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:... |
Monster A Go-Go Monster A Go-Go Monster A Go-Go, is a 1965 science fiction horror film directed by Bill Rebane and Herschell Gordon Lewis . It's considered one of the worst films ever.- Production :The film had an unusual production history... |
||
| Color Me Blood Red Color Me Blood Red Color Me Blood Red is a low budget 1965 horror film directed and written by Herschell Gordon Lewis. Color Me Blood Red is the third part of what the director's fans have dubbed "The Blood Trilogy", including Blood Feast and Two Thousand Maniacs! .-Film synopsis:An eccentric artist is criticized by... |
|||
| 1966 1966 in film The year 1966 in film involved some significant events.-Events:Animation legend Walter Disney, well known for his creation of Mickey Mouse, died in 15 December 1966 of acute circulatory collapse following a diagnosis of, and surgery for, lung cancer... |
Jimmy, the Boy Wonder Jimmy, the Boy Wonder Jimmy, the Boy Wonder is a 1966 children's musical film about a boy who successfully stops time. The film is one of a handful of children's features directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis, better known for gory horror films. It was described as a "glorious bomb" by the Scarecrow Video Movie... |
Voice of the Narrator | |
| 1967 1967 in film The year 1967 in film involved some significant events. It is widely considered as one of the most ground-breaking years in film.-Events:* December 26 - The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour airs on British television.... |
A Taste of Blood A Taste of Blood A Taste of Blood is a 1967 American film, directed and produced by Herschell Gordon Lewis. It is a horror movie that stars, among others, Bill Rogers, and Elizabeth Wilkinson. The movie was also known as "The Secret of Dr... |
The Limey Seaman | |
| The Gruesome Twosome | Voice of the Radio Announcer | ||
| Something Weird | |||
| The Girl, the Body, and the Pill | |||
| Blast-Off Girls Blast-Off Girls Blast-Off Girls is a 1967 American exploitation film directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis.- Plot :In Herschell Gordon Lewis's take on A Hard Day's Night meets Wild Guitar, a ruthless and greedy talent manager named Boojie Baker "discovers" then exploits unknown rock bands... |
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| 1968 1968 in film The year 1968 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* October 30 - The film The Lion in Winter, starring Katharine Hepburn, debuts.* November 1 - The MPAA's film rating system is introduced.-Top grossing films :- Awards :... |
She-Devils on Wheels She-Devils on Wheels She-Devils On Wheels is a 1968 American exploitation film about an all-female motorcycle gang called The Man-Eaters, directed and produced by Herschell Gordon Lewis.-Plot:... |
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| Just for the Hell of It | |||
| How to Make a Doll | |||
| Suburban Roulette Suburban Roulette Suburban Roulette is a 1968 American film by Herschell Gordon Lewis. In a surprisingly engaging drama that stars, among others, and who are involved in wife swapping to overcome the boredom of living in the suburbs. It was produced as an independent film by Herschell Gordon Lewis and was shown in... |
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| 1969 1969 in film The year 1969 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Last year for prize giving at the Venice Film Festival until it is revived in 1980... |
Linda and Abilene | ||
| 1970 1970 in film The year 1970 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 9 - Larry Fine, the second member of The Three Stooges, suffers a massive stroke, therefore ending his career.... |
The Wizard of Gore The Wizard of Gore The Wizard of Gore is a 1970 film directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis. It stars Ray Sager and Judy Cler. According to crew member Daniel Krogh in his book The Amazing Herschell Gordon Lewis , the film was shot in Chicago, Illinois and a number of surrounding suburbs during the early summer of... |
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| 1971 1971 in film The year 1971 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*February 8 - Bob Dylan's hour long documentary film, Eat the Document, premieres at New York's Academy of Music... |
This Stuff'll Kill Ya! | ||
| 1972 1972 in film The year 1972 in film involved some significant events.-Top grossing films :- Awards :Academy Awards:*Avanti!, directed by Billy Wilder, starring Jack Lemmon and Juliet MillsB... |
Year of the Yahoo! | ||
| The Gore Gore Girls The Gore Gore Girls The Gore Gore Girls is a 1972 horror film directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis. It was his final film for the next 30 years, and is particularly infamous for its scene of a woman's nipple being severed.-Plot:... |
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| 2002 2002 in film The year 2002 in film involved some significant events. The first significant releases of sequels took place between The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Men in Black II, Analyze That, Spy Kids 2: The Island of... |
Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat, also known as Blood Feast 2: Buffet of Blood, is an exploitation-style splatter film written by W. Boyd Ford and directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis as a sequel to Lewis's cult classic exploitation film Blood Feast... |
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| 2009 2009 in film The year 2009 saw the release of many films. Seven made the top 50 list of highest-grossing films, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that as of this year, their Best Picture category would consist of ten nominees, rather than five .- Highest-grossing films :Please note... |
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| The Uh! Oh! Show The Uh! Oh! Show The Uh! Oh! Show is a 2009 gore horror comedy movie by director Herschell Gordon Lewis. The film revolves around a game show called the Uh Oh Show where contestants can win lots of money by answering trivia questions, but for every wrong answer the contestant must face a wheel of misfortune... |
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| 2010 2010 in film The year 2010 saw many new films released worldwide. 2010 saw a dramatic increase and prominence in the use of 3D-technology in filmmaking and film releases after the success of Avatar in the format, with releases such as Alice in Wonderland, Clash of the Titans, Jackass 3D, all animated films and... |
Seven Deadly Sins: Inside The Ecomm Cult | ||
External links
- Herschell Gordon Lewis Official website
- Herschell Gordon Lewis @ THE DEUCE: Grindhouse Cinema Database
- Filmography and biography
- The Cinema of Herschell Gordon Lewis
- Interview with Herschell Gordon Lewis on BrightLightsFilm.com
- Horror Garage Interview with H.G. Lewis on horrorgarage.com
- An interview with Herschell Gordon Lewis on Greencine.com
- Interview with Herschell Gordon Lewis on Totalscifionline.com
- Biography on (re)Search my Trash
- Real audio/written interview with Herschell Gordon Lewis for F-News Magazine (a publication of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago)
- Herschell Gordon Lewis Cult activity website