The Godfather of Gore Speaks - Herschell Gordon Lewis Discuss... by Herschell Gordon Lewis

'The Wizard of Gore' (1970) - by the Godfather of Gore.Ĭultpix has almost all of Herschell Gordon Lewis’ films, starting with the early nudist-camp nudie cuties such as 'The Adventures of Lucky Pierre' (1961), made for a show-string budget of $7,500 and grossing three times that, 'Nature's Playmates' (1962), 'Daughter of the Sun' (1962), 'Goldilocks and the Three Bares' (1963), which was promoted as the “first (and to date the only) nudist musical, 'Boin-n-g!' (1963) where Lewis sends up both himself and the entire sexploitation movie business, and 'Bell, Bare and Beautiful' (1964), with burlesque legend Virginia Bell. 'What kind of films do you want to make?' Friedman asked, semi-seriously. Friedman, by then an ex-publicist at Paramount Pictures (and subject of his own Cultpix theme week), hitting ot off immediately: Lewis’ career and film history changed when he met David F. His future in gore can be traced back to a public service announcement (PSA) short film he did in 1959 called “Carving Magic”, an instructional film for housewives about “How to Cut and Serve Various Slabs of Meat” made for for the Dearborn Department of Libraries. Lewis started out in journalism before moving to radio and TV advertising. He was not so much a great director as he was a marketing genius, in that he was able to come up with ideas for films and marketing campaigns to go with them that guaranteed that they would make money. Without him there might never have been films like “Basket Case” (1982), “Re-Animator” (1985), “Serial Mom” (1994), “Saw” (2004) or “Terrifier 2” (2022), because Lewis single-handedly invented the gore and splatter horror genre and then milked it for all it was worth. There are many great exploitation directors, a large number of them already featured on Cultpix, but few as influential as Herschell Gordon Lewis. 'I see filmmaking as a business and pity anyone who regards it as an art form.' HGL

The Godfather of Gore Speaks - Herschell Gordon Lewis Discuss... by Herschell Gordon Lewis