In addition to being Lewis’s last film before he (essentially) invented the gore genre with David F. Friedman, Scum Of The Earth is touted as the first “roughie.” I’m not sure if that’s a valid claim, considering just how rough people like the Findlays and Doris Wishman took things in some of their work, but it’s definitely sleazy enough that audiences in 1963 were probably left with a dirty feeling after watching it. The story centers around a porn / exploitation ring run by a man named Lang and the business’ associates such as his assistant, Larry, a sex-crazed goon named Ajax and their hired photographer, Harmon. We also meet one of the models, Sandy. She’s tired of this line of work, especially after being attacked by Ajax on a shoot (resulting in highly desirable pictures that go far beyond the usual solo girl fare), and decides she wants out—fast. Lang, being the uber-sleazy businessman that he is, says no problem. As long as she can recruit new girls to take her place. Oh, and failure to do this will only ensure more photo shoots with Ajax. Almost immediately she and Harmon (played excellently by longtime Lewis actor Bill Kerwin) find Kim, a girl about to start college in the fall and in desperate need of cash. Harmon coaxes her into the game innocently enough with leg, shoe and bikini modeling. He pays her well, but leaves her hanging for more work after a few weeks telling her there are plenty of other girls out there who’ll do… well, we never hear what he actually says, but Kim appears appalled by whatever she heard. After finding out the photos would net her a $500 payday however—which just so happens to be what she needs for a tuition down payment—she agrees. During the shoot, she’s humiliated by Larry taking quickie Polaroids, and further humiliated when the prints start to show up around town. Now Kim decides she wants out and threatens to squeal. This nets her a beating (and possibly an off-camera sexual assault) and, later, a stern lecture from Lang. (Which is probably the best part of the film; as his rage increases, the camera gets tighter and tighter on his mouth until you can practically see bits of food between his teeth.) As her secret life begins to spiral further and further out of her control and threaten to collide with her regular, conservative home life (she still lives at home with her very straight laced, god-fearing father), Lang offers her an out - one more shoot in exchange for a year’s college tuition. No questions asked. If only it were that easy. The shoot ends up being the catalyst for the last quarter of the film and sets off a chain of events that encompasses multiple murders, cover-ups, blackmail and suicide; truly an action-packed final reel, and one that I’m sure was considered shocking in it’s day. Although there’s an ending that might be considered “happy” (and that’s certainly really a relative term here) in some people’s eyes, it’s more like those who survive make it out unscathed or less scathed (I know that’s not a word, but I’m hoping you get my point). While the action that helps to categorize a roughie takes place just out of the cameras range, the audio leaves little (or, possibly, a lot depending on your perspective) to the imagination. I’m not sure just how much of a door-buster or taboo-breaker Scum was when it was released. But it still holds up remarkably well as a truly sleazy slice of sinema worthy of multiple viewings.
—the Kommandant

Accompanied by a sinister sounding soundtrack (mainly featuring a booming drum or some other sort of percussive instrument) we see a pretty blond returning home, possibly from a hard day’s work. She pauses in front of the mirror and switches on her radio, which offers a prophetic piece of bad news concerning another woman found murdered and mutilated somewhere in the vicinity of this young lady’s home. (The term another, obviously, meaning this isn’t the first such killing.) Our listener is suitably shocked and horrified by this news but, as she is safely locked inside her apartment exactly how the radio suggested she should be, she clears this worry from her mind with a flick of the on / off dial, undresses and settles in for a nice relaxing bath. Little does our would-be heroine know that she is about to become tomorrow night’s news bulletin, as well as the killer’s next victim; but, of course, we the viewer got the feeling this was gonna happen cause we can hear the music and recognize that it’s getting more and more percussive with every passing second, indicating some sort of climactic something or other lurking on the horizon. Despite this plot leading rhythm, when the first shadowy image of the man we’re soon to know as Fuad Ramses appears on the bathroom wall, the viewer also gets the distinct feeling they’re in for something a little different than the standard shocker flick. (AKA the kind of movie that makes you wait until the end to see something shocking.) And they are right. Moments later, when the wild-eyed and bushy-eyebrowed killer looms over his victim with pointy object in hand, thrusts said pointy object towards the cranial area of the screaming girl in the bathtub and comes back with some red gelatinous icky looking crap that I think is supposed to be an eye, or an eye lid, or maybe some kinda severed optical nerve (judging from where the point of injury appears on her face during the following frames), the viewer has witnessed the birth of the gore film. In case you’re wondering what that means, it means in the next scene he’s gonna hack off her leg, wrap it in a blue towel while we get a good look at the bloody legbone protruding from the bloody stump and run off with his ill-gotten appendage, while we watch the poor lass’ lifeless bloody hand slowly smear more blood on the outside of the bathtub as it slumps towards the floor. When all this kind of nonsense goes down prior to the credit roll, I think - or, at least, I hope - you know exactly what you’re in for as far as the rest of the film goes. So I will not detail every other killing. Suffice it to say, by the time the movie ends, pretty much every pretty young girl that crosses the screen will meet some of form of un-pretty death. (Except Connie Mason, the Playboy model who plays the role of Suzette; the honoree of a party planned by her mother to be catered by Ramses’ company, the aptly named Fuad Ramses’ Exotic Catering.) And Ramses very well may have harvested enough body parts to say, revive an ancient Egyptian goddess through a non-sensical blood ritual. And perhaps he will. You’ll just have to find out for yourself. In addition to being credited as the first gore film, Blood Feast is also credited by producer David F Friedman and director Herschell Gordon Lewis (in the accompanying commentary track) as the duo’s most successful collaboration and it marked a whole new era of exploitation movie making; one that continues to dispatch young girls and ooze a ton of goopy red stuff to this day.
—Bunny

Every genre has certain films that not only help define it but also transcend the genre and become part of our collective cultural consciousness. 2000 Maniacs is one of those films. If you’re only going to see one Herschell Gordon Lewis movie, this should be the one; you’d be hard pressed to make an argument that this ISN’T the crowning achievement of his long and storied career. This was the first Lewis film I saw, a little over 20 years ago (thank you, Mr. Punyverse), and it made me a fan for life. The gore is less raw than Blood Feast but it isn’t necessarily any more polished either. Considering this was shot in late 1964, it’s pretty ahead of it’s time; and if there ever was brighter red blood in a movie, I’ve yet to see it. The theme song, which many of you have probably heard (“Yeeeee-hawww! The South’s gonna rise again!”), sets the groundwork for a crazy tale of bloodthirsty revenge from beyond the grave. For those of you who have yet to experience the splendor that is 2KM, I won’t spoil everything that you can expect to soak in but, rest assured, you can look forward to four absolutely over-the-top kill scenes that helped to further define the gore genre. (Whose doors Lewis and Friedman had kicked open only months earlier with Blood Feast.) Here’s a rundown of the plot: a pair of local yokels trick two random cars (with Northern plates, thank you) into visiting rural Pleasant Valley on the occasion of it’s Centennial. (The state is carefully never mentioned, although it’s generally assumed to be Georgia or South Carolina.) The lucky six people - two couples in one car and a third couple in the second car - are the guests of honor. And when the town’s mayor tells them that, you just KNOW that’s not a good thing. The car containing two couples (David & Bev and John & Bea) is the first to arrive, and the group is separated almost immediately, as each is latched onto by a rather friendly member of the community. Soon after, the second car (with Tom & Terry; who actually aren’t a couple, just traveling companions thrown together by circumstance) rolls into town just as the first carload of people are being led off, and are quickly escorted to the hotel. The action shifts back to the first two couples and before you know it, Bea’s a goner and we’re down to a couple and a half. Somehow, during the party around the bonfire where a curious looking piece of “meat” is rotating on a spit, Tom figures out what’s going on and makes plans with Terry to split. Almost immediately after they sneak away from the bonfire, David meets his untimely demise. The next day, while John & Bea are on the unfortunate receiving end of the guest of honor treatment, Tom and Terry find their car and get outta dodge as fast as they can. Naturally they go to the police, who of course have no record of a town named Pleasant Valley ever existing. And as the local cop is being showed around the edge of the dirt road by the surviving couple, where all that remains of their wild adventure are some tire tracks, the good folk of Pleasant Valley disappear into the mists of time. See y’all in 2065 for the Bicentennial!!
—the Kommandant

Although HG Lewis is most often associated with the copious amounts of stage blood and disembodied limbs that were the hallmark of his gore films (and rightfully so), like any filmmaker who truly loves his craft, he liked to stretch out a bit and try his hand at other tried-and-true exploitation topics. Over the course of his illustrious career he made forays into - among others - the realm of juvenile delinquency (Just For The Hell Of It; filmed either right before or right after She-Devils and featuring some of the same actors); suburban sin (Suburban Roulette); political satire (The Year Of The Yahoo); and, one of my most favorite B-movie subjects, bikers. To that end we have She-Devils On Wheels, one of his most widely distributed films and the first Lewis movie to be viewed by an impressionable young Miss Bunny Fontaine. To get back to the movie though, as was his way, Herschell put his own twist on the oft told tale of those who live hard and ride free, opting to make his biker gang, the Man-Eaters, a group of women. Which makes total sense. Assuming he came up with the gang name first; cause if it was a gang of male bikers who went by the Man-Eaters, we’d have a whole other film. Anywhoo, these rowdy biker babes behave very much like their stereotypical male counterparts - spending their days riding / racing their machines and hassling folks at the local strip mall, and their nights getting loaded and fooling around with an appropriately sleazy group of biker groupies of the opposite sex. But I’m getting ahead of myself. First we meet Karen, a lovely young suburban lass, as she sweetly kisses her mother good-bye and climbs into her shiny red automobile. As far as mom knows she’s off to spend the weekend at a friend’s house but, as the viewer will come to know very shortly, that BS story is total BS. Karen might be spending the weekend with some gal pals but there sure won’t be any pillow fighting, nail polishing or prank phone calling at this gathering; more like actual fighting, polishing off a few cases of beer and phonecalls to the police - made about the girls, not by them. Before any of that can happen though, she’s gotta trade in her four wheels for two and ditch her civilian clothes in favor of a yellow-ish green hot pants & t-shirt ensemble, accessorized by black go-go boots and, of course, her colors. (Which, oddly, in the case of these girl’s vests are all of different colors.) After her Batgirl-esque re-emergence from the garage she - and we - are off to meet the rest of the gang. And what an assortment they are! There’s Whitey, the largest of the bunch, who sports braided pigtails and has a bit of a penchant for beat poetry; Honey Pot, the group’s adorable and extra enthusiastic mascot; and then there’s Queen, the loudmouthed leader of the gang and owner of some of the most outrageous outfits ever seen on film. (Literally; in the commentary Lewis said actresses were each responsible for supplying their own wardrobe.) After a brief respite of bike fixing, dues collecting and lighthearted shit talking, the gang takes off for a routine race to determine the pecking order of the evening’s festivities. (First place gets first pick of the available men, second place gets second, and so forth.) Everything seems to have gone off according to plan but, after the evening’s carousing is complete, the girl’s notice - due to Queen pointing it out - that Karen seems to have chosen the same stud repeatedly, a faux-pas according to the gang’s rules. Later that day they challenge Karen to drag her favorite boy toy behind her bike (in order to prove she does not in fact favor him) which she does. As we’re soon to find out however, losing her old man is the least of Karen’s troubles; similarly, having a chick favor a dude is about to be the least of the Man-Eaters’ problems once they learn an all-male gang is trying to take over their racing turf. At this point things really start getting rough for our rough and tumble heroines. Who will prevail in this battle of the sexes? Will the Man-Eaters live to ride another day? Will Karen find true love in the arms of the nosy ex-sweetheart from her pre-biker days? And, more importantly, can you really sever a man’s head with some thin wire strung between two trees? Naturally, I can’t answer any of these questions but I can, and do, encourage you to seek out the answers on your own.
—Bunny

The Gore Gore Girls was Lewis’ last movie (prior to his 2002 return to filmmaking, Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat) and probably the goriest of all of his gore films. (Or maybe I’m just particularly adverse to eye ball squeezing and nipple snipping.) Others have also referred to this one as “misogynistic” (see above!) but I don’t know I’d agree with that part. If you’re making a movie about a series of go-go girl murders and in the process of telling the story you show scenes of go-go girls being murdered, is that misogyny? Would it be less offensive to beat a man’s ass bloody and raw with a meat tenderizer and season it with Accent? Ooops, sorry, I’m giving away the whole movie. To backtrack a bit, as I mentioned earlier, the plot revolves around a series of murders - the first of which we see take place in the first few minutes of the film. (In short, a mannequin head is repeatedly bashed into a table top mirror before being stabbed with a butcher knife and hacked with a meat cleaver.) Shortly after we’re introduced to a reporter, Nancy Weston, who has been given the unusual assignment (at least based on what I know about being a reporter from friends of mine who have actually been employed as newspaper reporters) of bribing a famous private detective to investigate the murder and let her follow him around, thus affording her and her paper an inside track to this scandalous story. The private dick in question, Abraham Gentry, is an appropriate mix of jaded hack and sleazy opportunist so, obviously, he takes the job, and the money, and sets off to do some not so private detecting down at ye olde local strip club. Here we start to become acquainted with the still living strippers, as well as some of the club’s employees, patrons and assorted weirdos, like the feminist protesters who regularly picket the bar’s doorway. And then, of course, some more strippers get killed. The next unfortunate lass is attacked in her home while she’s undressing / admiring herself / fondling herself in front of a mirror; this time the causes of death include skull bashing, throat slitting and face mutilation. After the throat slitting but prior to the mutilation - I think - the victim is seen lying on her bed with a freshly blown blood filled bubble gum bubble still perched on her lips; and I bring this up because it’s a scene which has since inspired many a renegade photographer with a willing hot Goth chick and penchant for blood and nudity. (And no, I’m actually not indirectly referencing recent c14 interviewee Ward Boult with that comment, although he may have, in fact, shot some photos like that; it was more of a general reference.) Following that we get the aforementioned meat tenderizer ass beating, as well as a whole mess - and I do mean mess - of other creative and disgusting killings before Gentry finally devises a half assed plan to see Nancy half naked. Uh, I mean solve the murders. He arranges an amateur go-go contest at the club, then arranges to get Nancy drunk and jealous enough to get up on the stage herself, then arranges to sit on his ass and wait for the murderer to come and try and kill her. Which is just what happens; and they even manage to work in one last violent death, plus one last really bad joke, before rolling the credits. Overall I’d say this is a fitting end note to the cycle and seems to deliver the most bang for your buck out of all of them as far as ickiness goes.
—Bunny