Herschell Gordon Lewis (1929–2016)

How do you possibly rate something like this? It is legendary for its gore, but, of course, unless you saw it in 1963 you wouldn't think too much of it. If you've seen Cronenberg, this won't make much of an impression. The blood is a nice bright red and smeared all over girl's bodies, but the sawing off of limbs and pulling out of tongues doesn't have much impact. And the acting, other than the director's own businesslike voice as a radio announcer, is mediocre at best, but horrible in most cases, with Connie Mason being perhaps the worst. I'm definitely glad I saw it after reading about it for so many years. It is mercifully short, as well. It does make me want to go to Miami, however.… (altro)

Odder, even, than one might expect. Originally published in 1964, the year after HGL's pioneering gore epic Blood Feast was released to theaters, this novelization bears almost no resemblance to the stark, plodding film on which it was based. The major characters (Fuad Ramses, Pete Thornton and Suzette Fremont)--or at least their bizarro world counterparts--are here, but the story has become a screwball detective comedy set in Chicago, with lots of additional players and violence that is at once more extreme and more tongue-in-cheek than anything seen in the film. Suzette is an obscenely wealthy birdbrain; Pete is a lecher trying to get in her pants (and, while he's at it, to identify and arrest the murderer who's been terrorizing the city); and Fuad Ramses, nicknamed "the Elliptical Egyptian," is a practical joker addicted to narcotic cigarettes. If you've seen Blood Feast, this must sound absurdly bizarre...and it is. The novelization gave Lewis the opportunity to do things that couldn't be done in the movie, and is an interesting demonstration of his intelligence and humor, but that humor was much more effective onscreen (particularly in films like The Gruesome Twosome) than on the printed page.… (altro)