The Godfather of Gore is dead. Long live the king of exploitation cinema!
Just before Lewis kicked off his directing career with 1961's LIVING VENUS, a cinematic experiment had been unfolding across the pond in England. During the second half of the 1950s, Hammer's earliest sci-fi and horror outings, as well as Arthur Crabtree's FIEND WITHOUT A FACE, were pushing the boundaries of graphic blood-letting (and testing the mettle of conservative censors).
Lewis immediately recognised the potential of this new form of exploitation, and it was right in the middle of his early flurry of nudie cuties that he unleashed BLOOD FEAST on the world. And with that, the future of horror and exploitation film was irrevocably changed. TWO THOUSAND MANIACS! and COLOR ME BLOOD RED would follow soon after. The rest, as they say, is history.
So raise a glass to Herschell Gordon Lewis, just as he is surely raising his tonight, with his old buddy David.
Hey there friend. Glad to see this blog is still kicking it. I hope you are doing well. I tried to start Scummified back up, no more music posts though since mediafire deleted my account. Anyways, take care, stay in touch!!
ReplyDeleteHey Doug, nice to hear from you. I link all my music posts to bandcamp these days. It's legit, and a lot of the punk stuff is available for free anyway. Are you posting on Scummified at the moment?
ReplyDeleteyes, scummified is back. did 4 new postsyesterday, posted some more local music, including my bands first full length - check it out! i'm glad yr still doing this. while perusing this blog, i see the standard of quality has never diminished! keep it up!
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