Scum of the Earth

I watched "Blood Feast" last weekend - also included on the same blu ray is the film "Scum of the Earth!" - another Hershall Gordon Lewis, which I decided to watch this weekend. It's a tawdy affair, and quite slow moving.

Having reached the end of her rope, Sandy (Sandy Sinclaire) begs pornograhpher Lang (Lawrence Wood) to let her go. He decides that he will stop shooting with her, provided she brings in her replacement, the naïve Kim (Vickie Miles). Harmon (Thomas Sweetwood) who takes the photographs slowly convinces Kim to reveal more, until they have enough to blackmail her to continuing. Then they introduce Ajax (Craig Maudsley Jr) a brutal thug who has no concerns about the girl's willingness to perform with him, in front of the camera.

Much like "Blood Feast" were in the realm of low budget exploitation films here. As a result of that, the actors, some of whom are using pseudonyms for the film, are again not particularly strong. The film does, somewhat, try to have its cake and eat it too by having the pornographers as the villains, but also by showing you it's female leads topless. That said, I didn't find any of those moments sexy as, we know that the characters have been tricked, blackmailed or threatened into it. Not since "Three Billboards" have a seen a character so underserving of his heroes turn at the end of the film

My main flaw though was that it was slow.

Tough to recommend for anyone but the Lewis completists.

"Sandy Sinclair" (Sandra Sinclair) is a pretty blonde who, for unspecified reasons, feels forced to model in the nude for a photographer named "Harmon Johnson" (William Kerwin). Likewise, Harmon also feels somewhat trapped into photographing her because another man by the name of "Ajax" (Craig Maudslay Jr.) has threatened to destroy his studio if he doesn't cooperate. However, since both Sandy and Harmon are getting paid for their efforts, they reluctantly continue. Then one day, Sandy is told by the overall boss, "Mr. Lang" (Lawrence J. Aberwood), that she can essentially retire provided that she finds her replacement. She then recommends an attractive teenager by the name of "Kim Sherwood" (Allison Louise Downe) who is currently in high school but needs money for college in the fall. At first, she is told that the pictures will be relatively modest. However, as she continues, each session becomes more and more risqué to the point that she soon finds herself being blackmailed by another accomplice named "Larry" (Mal Arnold) to pose entirely nude. Fearing that her father might find out, she does as she is told, which then results in even further degradation from both Larry and Ajax. Now, rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it, I will just say that this was a relatively mild "exploitation" picture which leaves much to the imagination. Of course, the fact that this was produced in the early '60s probably has much to do with that. The acting was okay, but in any case, this was a very basic type of film which certainly won't appeal to all viewers. That said, I recommend it for mature audiences only.

Directed by, according to the opening credits, a one Lewis H.Gordon. No fooling any student of horror or exploitation cinema, this of course was actually the legendary Herschell Gordon Lewis, famous for his gore movies. His former wife, Allison Louise Downe, stars as a naïve young woman who earns some much needed cash posing for photographs but eventually finds herself posing nude, with the threat of blackmail hanging over her. And indeed there is some nudity here, breasts and bottoms. Which is probably the purose behind this film, rather than the moral message. Acting is bad, as to be expected with a HG Lewis. One character, Larry, is meant to be a minor but was actually 30 years old when this was filmed. One nice touch is that although filmed in black and white there is a split second red blood splat on screen. I only watched this film because it was an extra on a blu ray of another Lewis film but I'm glad that I did. Turned out to be reasonably entertaining.

While this was the, as yet, uncrowned Godfather of Gore's final film shot in B/W it was later said to have been one of the first 'Roughies' and proved so financially successful that many similarly deranged films would muckily follow in its wonderfully mucky footsteps! While probably a tad naive and quaint when seen today, 'Scum of The Earth' nonetheless maintains a strange fascination outside of it merely being a crusty ol' museum piece of celluloid history. Fans of fearless filmmaker, H. G Lewis will be only too aware of the inordinately likable, more than robust character actor, Bill Kerwin's place in the triumphantly bloody pantheon of proto-splatter history by his memorable performance in the iconic cannibal opus 'Blood Feast' (1967), so it is doubly thrilling to see future Ishtar idolator, Fuad Ramses (Mal Arnold) in his earlier guise as, Larry, the blithely abusive lackey to odious Lang (Lawrence J. Aberwood), the porcine head of this sordid, photographically reprehensible flesh-pot factory.

Ostensibly a cheaply made, moderately lurid morality tale, or to be pedantic, an 'immorality tale', this grubby-fingered monochrome 'expose' of crass female exploitation highlights the desperate plight of a guileless,Sherilyn Fenn lookie-likie, Kim Sherwood (Louise Downe) as she is crudely coerced into the unwilling role of 'glamour model' by arch manipulator, serial groomer of young women, Harmon Johnson (William Kerwin), erstwhile photographer, and full-time Heel! The grimily unsophisticated narrative very rapidly plunges ever deeper into the darkling mire of smut, since the fourth abject member of these insidious flesh wranglers is the vicious, over-muscled thug, Ajax (Craig Maudsley Jr.) who takes enormous pleasure in psychologically and physically assaulting these poor women into tearful submission in order to momentarily sate his openly sadistic lusts, perhaps, the estimable Mr. Lewis might have had some additionally powerful effects on future creators of extreme Japanese Pinku as well as single-handedly inventing the splatter movie genre! 'Scum of the Earth' simmers stagnantly to a marvellously melodramatic, all hellz' a poppin' climax, being tritely bookended with a pleasingly earnest voice-over from the mercurial mondo mastermind himself!

Appearing somewhat rudimentary in style and content, 'Scum of The Earth' is most certainly not without dramatic interest, since one can't help but readily sympathize with our ingenious protagonist's increasingly desperate plight, and there's an amusingly broad, almost pantomime-esque quality to her abusers nastiness! These sleazy smut-rakers and their outrageous machinations remain consistently fun to watch, perhaps a few years earlier these dastardly sinister archetypes of cartoonish despotism would have no less callously tied shrieking damsels to the train tracks whilst repeatedly swirling oily moustaches with hubristic aplomb!

Initially released on VHS by psychotronic curators 'Something Weird Video' many loons ago, it is certainly no small joy to view this formative example of H. G Lewis's trope-inventing filmmaking in much improved HD quality, perhaps not one of the more essential works from his inimitable cannon of kaleidoscopic, crimson-soaked lunacy, and while not the best place to begin investigating H. G Lewis's exhilaratingly orgiastic oeuvre but undoubtedly an important, hugely influential trashy B-Picture in its own right. Without belabouring the point, one can plainly see how utterly essential the charismatic, Bill Kerwin's myriad acting contributions have been to the continued relevance of H. G Lewis's extraordinary, convention-baiting, sin-suppurating, epoch-defining, heroically hyperbolic, celluloid freight train of midnight movie madness!

A naive and innocent teenage girl (Allison Louise Downe) is blackmailed into modeling in the nude for a photographer who is in league with a teenage gang whose boss illegally sells photos of teenage girls being abused and degraded.

First of all, let's get it out of the way: the father (Edward Mann) is possibly the worst actor who ever lived. Downe, on the other hand, does a great job, and it is interesting that she transitioned from nude victim to one of Lewis' longest collaborators.

Allmovie wrote, "Unintentionally funny and poorly photographed, this film certainly has its moments for connoisseurs of bad cinema, but others will find it tawdry and dull." This may be true, but to put it in the context of H. G. Lewis, it is actually one of his better-made movies and the film quality has held up well. Most of his films have awful prints, but not this one. Even the score seems pretty decent.