The Gore Gore Girls

Now, just what are you expecting from the director of The Wizard of Gore, Blood Feast, and Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat. Herschell Gordon Lewis can certainly pile on the gore. There is so much gore that you quickly forget what that naked woman looked like before the killer got started.

There is actually a story here. Abraham Gentry, played by Frank Kress in his only role, is hired by The Globe to investigate a stripper's death. He is accompanied by cub reporter Nancy, played by Amy Farrell, whose had a couple of TV roles, but only one other movie role, a stew on Airport 1975.

The strippers are typical 70s. They wore pasties, didn't have a pole, and danced to cheesy music. The customers were typical for the time, too.

Now, I was an Argento fan long before Juno discovered him, and I was a Lewis fan before Justin Bateman brought him to light in the same film. It's schlock, and the gore is not going to be to everyone's taste, but it is campy fun.

Herschell Gordon Lewis' movies are an acquired taste, and 'The Gore Gore Girls' is a perfect example of this. Many people find the combination of silly humour with extreme gore shots involving the torture and murder of women difficult to get a grip on. I don't have a problem with that so much. HGL doesn't take the material seriously as a film maker, and doesn't expect the viewer to either. Many regard this as his best movie. It certainly gorier than 'Blood Feast' or '2000 Maniacs', and has slightly more sophisticated production values, but overall I found it a little repetitive and dull, and nowhere near as entertaining as those two or 'Color Me Blood Red'. The plot involves a "gentleman detective" investigating the bloody murders of go-go dancers. The detective is played by the unknown Frank Kress who is fairly amusing. Veteran Henny Youngman appears briefly as a club owner and is not amusing at all. I suggest you only watch this if you have seen and enjoyed earlier Lewis efforts, otherwise give it a miss. Apart from the infamous meat tenderizer, face-frying, and nipple scenes there's not all that much to recommend this one. Plus the DVD commentary is one of the most tedious and uninteresting I've ever heard.

Gore-Gore Girls is on of my favorite H.G. Lewis films. But the film has a sleazy, old school porn quality and feel to it. The director giving Henny Youngman lines that were mostly one liners was an interesting touch. However whenever he strayed from his one liners the lack of acting showed big time. The set pieces were interesting but everything else had a cheap aura. Like most of H.G. Lewis' films, no one takes it seriously and that's what I enjoy about this movie.

Recommended for campy horror film fans.

B

Herschell Gordon Lewis achieved his own entry on the list of the pulp gore exploit or whatever genre. The nudity of the strippers looks today rather comical and grotesque (than anything I would call erotic) and the gore effects are delicious bad and pure extraordinaire dilettantism (for the expert eye of today's well trained audience regarding special effects).

The Gore Gore Girls - a mix of a crime/detective story with elements of gore and some nudity, all in all only watchable if you are really into bad taste "style"and you like to breath pulp - not his best but still a funny watch.

When the go-go dancers from a chain of strip clubs start turning up horrifically mutilated, a newspaper, hoping to land a scoop, sends pretty reporter Nancy (Amy Farrell) to hire the services of genius private eye Abraham Gentry (Frank Kress). Together, Nancy and Abraham set out to solve the case.

The last of H. G. Lewis's infamous 'classic' gore movies, The Gore Gore Girls is another low budget piece of trash featuring shoddy acting, technically poor direction, and buckets of unconvincing gore. That said, the film does have a certain period charm (check out those strippers groovy dance routines!), an 'engaging' performance from Kress as the pompous P.I., and a fun tongue-in-cheek vibe that makes the nastier moments more palatable.

Fans of movie-kitsch will no doubt revel in the trashy strip-club scenes, the swinging soundtrack, and the nasty fashions, whilst gore-hounds will go ga-ga as the killer slashes and mashes his victims' features to a messy pulp, tenderises a woman's butt, sticks another's head in boiling oil, and, best of all, irons a girl's face before snipping off her nipples with a pair of scissors. None of this looks real, but it's still shocking stuff, particularly considering the time this was made.

Unfortunately, in between the 'fun' there is some dreadfully dull padding (several desperately unfunny comedy scenes featuring inept cops and some crap about womens-libbers) and anyone expecting anything other than 80 minutes or so of pure cheesy schlock will most likely be sorely disappointed.