The Gore Gore Girls

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

Aside from the familiar cinematographic style and manditory gore, this film exceeds the sophistication of any of Herschell Gordon Lewis's previous films by leaps and bounds. The gore effects are sicker and more unnecessarily blatant than ever, and are quite convincing even by today's special effects standards (how many contemporary horror films have the villain squeezing the contents of a REAL eyeball until the juice squirts in all directions, just for show?). Many of my friends, who have seen all of the Faces of Death videos without a flinch, cannot keep from turning away from the extreme sickness of some of these sequences. The acting is at least on par with that of more acclaimed films of the time such as Shaft of French Connection; in particular, Frank Kress, though perhaps not the most photogenic actor, delivers an impressively competent and smooth performance as Abraham Gentry, the all-knowing hero. The soundtrack, written by Herschell, is effectively sleazy in an upbeat way, with the eerily out-of-tune guitar and sax reminiscent of Arch Hall Jr.'s music. And it is this juxtaposition of lighthearted music, comedy ranging from subtle to beyond-toilet-humor, and extreme gore that make Gore-Gore Girls so mind-blowing. And Henny Youngmann's appearance in the film is the best $500 HG could have spent; it takes this opus over the top. Also, as a visual arts student, I especially appreciate the entrancing aesthetic value of the title cards (I know, what does that have to do with anything? But it's my favorite part of the movie.

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.

SPOILER: The last gore film of Herschell Gordon Lewis is perhaps one of his goriest and remarkably one of his funniest..intentional and unintentional. Lewis has eyeballs squeezed, nipples cut off of breasts with scissors(one breast has white liquid flowing while another has chocolate), a woman's rump bludgeoned and then salted, a host of throats slit, a woman being run over by a truck, and a woman having her face shoved in a boiling bowl of french fries(you might have noticed in this scene that the pot was tall and not very wide in the first shot prior to the actress having her face embedded in the pot then in the close-up the pot is short and wide to accomodate her face). No question about it, the film definitely has a misogynistic edge to it. Women are beaten and killed senselessly(isn't that every Lewis film?). The story about an amateur detective being paid by a newspaper to solve the crime was not THAT bad...certainly better than most plot constructs used in other Lewis vehicles. Frank Kress as Abraham Gentry certainly also is one of the best actors ever used in a lead in a Lewis film. His acting style was fresh and he could convey irony and wit. The rest of the cast was so-so, with lots of naked girls jiggling(none of them particularly attractive and looking in that sleazy, has-been 70's kind of fashion). Henny Youngman, the only big name to grace any of Lewis's horror films, stars as a night club owner and talks so fast you will have trouble hearing what he says! Lewis wants to sicken you in this film, but he also goes for the laughs and some of them work. The photographers in each murder scene are hilarious as is the general mood of the film when some poor girl isn't losing appendages, skin, or having her eyes gouged out. The score is like some sleazy jazz theme and Lewis even has the temerity to use pieces of classical music and opera such as the Anvil Chorus. Despite all the twisted killing, the film kind of grew on me. Now, maybe I am the sick one. Watch out for the ending...it is Lewis having some more fun...and the revelation of the killer is one of the most ludicrous explanations put on film. Look fast too because the killer meets his/her end so fast you'll have to rewind it to see what happened.