Blood Feast (1963), Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964), The Gruesome Twosome (1967), The Wizard of Gore (1970)

When Herschell Gordon Lewis made his first nudie cutie film in 1961, nobody would have expected that he'd become one of the most important names in the history of horror. But with the release of Blood Feast just two years later, Lewis and his producing partner David F. Friedman would invent the gore subgenre and would fundamentally reshape horror as we knew and understood it. And for about a decade after it, Lewis would continue to release gore-obsessed fare to grindhouses and drive-ins across the nation. When those sorts of theaters started to fade away in the 70s, so did Lewis, who went back to his previous career in advertising. But in the 80s and beyond his fame was resuscitated on home video and in the pages of magazines like Fangoria and Deep Red where he became known as The Godfather of Gore.

With some help from Christopher Wayne Curry, author of A Taste of Blood: The Films of Herschell Gordon Lewis, we dive into four of his films and manage to talk about a whole slew of others.

Movies mentioned in this episode:

Bell, Bare and the Beautiful (1963), Blood Diner (1987), Blood Feast (1963), Blood Feast (2016), Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat (2002), Blood Sucking Freaks (1976), Boin-n-g (1963), Color Me Blood Red (1965), Curse of Frankenstein (1957), The Gore Gore Girls (1972), Gruesome Twosome (1967), I Drink Your Blood (1971), Intolerance (1916), Jigoku (1960), Mardi Gras Massacre (1978), Moonshine Mountain (1964), Multiple Maniacs (1970), Night of the Living Dead (1968), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Pit Stop (1969), Polyester (1981), Scream Baby Scream (1969), Scum of the Earth (1963), A Taste of Blood (1967), Tarantula (1955), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), Serial Mom (1994), This Stuff’ll Kill Ya! (1971), Three on a Meathook (1972), Two Thousand Maniacs (1964), Wizard of Gore (1970), Year of the Yahoo! (1971)

The Church Worth Suffering For | Elijah Layfield | October 1, 2023