Customer Reviews

The Gore-Gore Girls

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Ladies and gentlemen! H.G. Lewis, the Godfather of Gore, proudly presents an amazing shockfest of striptease slaughter! Released in 1972, the "Gore Gore Girls," a stomach-churning and brain-twisting follow-up to Lewis's infamous "Wizard of Gore," is one of the first horror films ever to be rated X! While assembled upon a generous budget of $63,500, "The Gore Gore Girls" is a cult masterpiece of blood, black humor, and burlesque. With its smart dialogue, laughable acting, and plenty of bare exposure, this movie will entertain and nauseate even today's audiences. Best of all, despite the slightly crude subject matter, the overall content manages to stay risque without excessive raunch.
Actor Frank Kress adapts the role of Abraham Gentry, a snobbish and arrogant private eye who is offered $25,000 to investigate a series of gruesome murders. He's hired by an attractive Globe reporter named Nancy Weston (Amy Farrell), who will do anything for a scandalous story. Thinking that Nancy is merely a novice in solving crimes, Kress doesn't want anything to do with her, and he doesn't make that obvious just by whipping his cane around. Thanks to his charms, poor Nancy spends the entire second half of the movie drunk on zombies and tequila shots (not to mention the winner of an amateur strip contest). Still, the two manage to travel from one strip bar to another. Audiences will be given the pleasure of watching several voluptuous women in their tassels and pasties...up, close, and personal. Eventually, Abraham and Nancy gather enough clues to target four suspects:
Joseph - a shy student who was seduced and jilted by the killer's first victim, Suzy Creampuff.
Grout - a sadistic ex-marine who crushed and disfigured the faces of several Viet Cong soldiers.
Mary - a radical feminist who thinks that topless dancers are degrading to women.
Marlene - a fuming barmaid who was once a famous female wrestler, only to have her perfect figure horribly disfigured in a fire.
A lot of dark and sexual comedy is laced in the plotline. Viewers will especially enjoy how Abraham's bon mots test the patience of the Police Department's hotheaded Lieutenant. Not only does Abraham refuse to provide accurate information to the Lieutenant, but he even tricks him into thinking that the killer is a devout Christian! And, of course, let's not forget the outrageous stand-up comedy of Henny Youngman, who plays the ambitious club owner Marzdone Mobilie.
Meanwhile, the mysterious psychopath is killing the dancers one by one, slashing their throats and mangling their bodies beyond recognition. Like "The Wizard of Gore," this movie makes the art of mutilation the main attraction. Even before the opening credits appear, the murderer grabs Suzy Creampuff by the hair and smashes her face against a glass mirror! From there, each victim's demise gets more grisly than the last, and the seemingly cheap effects will make viewers cringe to this day. In the film's latter half, Lola, a ditzy lady with false eyelashes, is attacked by the unnamed psychopath, who then bludgeons her buttocks with a meat tenderizer! The final two murders are perhaps the grossest ones ever to be filmed. The sick assailant burns one woman's face with an iron. Then, he/she has the other victim's skin sizzled in a pot of cooking oil!
If you are a fan of H.G. Lewis's lurid legacy, "The Gore Gore Girls" is worth buying. But, it's not for the easily squeamish. In fact, once you see this movie, you will never want to eat french fries again!

This has got to be the most outrageous gore flick I have ever seen and by far the funniest. The gore effects in this movie are so outlandish that it is actually not frigthening at all but extremely humorous (for those of us with a taste for black humor). A movie like this could only have been created by the "Godfather of Gore" Herschell Gordon Lewis. Known for his mix of sex and extreme gore, Lewis out does himself in this one as Go-Go girls at a nightclub are hacked to pieces one by one. A hot iron is used to melt the face of one helpless victim, another has her face fried in french fry oil, still another has her rear end turned into hamburger meat and of course the infamous scene where a girl has her nipples cut off (the left bossom spews out whole milk while the right spews out chocolate milk!). Faces are mutilated, eyeballs are squished, and even the killer appears to have a dark sense of humor (a lit cigarette is found between the toes of one dead girl and the word "OK" is written on her leg in blood). There is even a cameo by the "King of the one-liners" Henny Youngman (who denies ever having been in this film to this day). After making this film, Lewis retired from the film making business and went on to become a successful investor. That is untill 2002 when he is coaxed back into the director's chair for "Blood Feast 2: All you can eat". Gorehounds will LOVE this flick...most others will be repulsed by it but then again, that is the point of the movie.

In 1963 Herschell Gordon Lewis, an independent filmmaker known for making cutie pictures, changed forever the face of American cinema when he released "Blood Feast." This film, about as low budget as you could possibly get even in the 1960s, kicked off the era of the gore film. While it would be quite some time before Hollywood caught on to the fact that certain segments of movie audiences hungered for films containing nauseating scenes of explicit violence, H.G. Lewis took one look at the receipts for "Blood Feast" and decided he better quickly make another movie similar to this one. What followed was a series of gruesome zero budget shockers, films like "The Gruesome Twosome," "A Taste of Blood," "2000 Maniacs," "The Wizard of Gore," and his final cinematic gore masterpiece "The Gore-Gore Girls." Lewis retired after making this 1972 picture in order to concentrate on a career in advertising, an endeavor he found much more profitable than his work in the film business. It wasn't until 2002 that the director returned to form with "Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat," a movie which proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Godfather of Gore still has what it takes to gross out an audience.

A gruesome series of murders committed against some local club employees inspires a newspaper to offer a boatload of money to famous private detective Abraham Gentry (Frank Kress, a guy who looks a lot like Sydney the psychiatrist from M*A*S*H). The contact between the tabloid and Gentry is one Nancy Weston, an eager reporter who quickly develops a thing for the arrogant investigator. Abraham agrees to take the case and immediately begins prowling the local go-go clubs, asking questions about the victims and narrowing down his field of potential suspects. One man in particular, a Vietnam veteran with the odd habit of squashing fruit, initially attracts Gentry's attentions. Another suspect turns out to be the head of a small cell of rabid feminists who routinely turn up at the clubs to protest the squalid behaviors of its denizens. The case would probably be resolved in a speedier manner if Gentry didn't have such an annoying personality. He ambles around dressed in a three-piece suit with cane, making it a habit to insult everyone from a sniffling bartender (played by Ray Sager of "The Wizard of Gore" fame) to an obnoxious waitress to the owner of a string of clubs named Marzdone Mobilie (Henny Youngman, of all people). He even misleads the local police with a crazy story about a bible-toting killer just so he can solve the case and collect the award.

Meanwhile, the killer continues the rampage. Herschell Gordon Lewis created some nasty looking special effects during the course of his career, but the scenes of carnage in "The Gore-Gore Girls" plumbs the depths of sadism. Describing all of the crimes here in gruesome detail probably won't do, but if you can imagine the effects of bobbing for French fries or the result of applying a hot clothing iron to flesh, you are half way there. Even worse, Herschell plays some of the scenes for laughs, with the grisly highlight involving both chocolate and regular milk. One scene involves a head and a car that equals, if not surpasses, a similar situation in Troma's "The Toxic Avenger." Lewis's final film is only for the stoutest souls, those hardy individuals inured to this type of stuff because they have watched dozens of horror films. Weak hearted people should probably stay well away. Besides, if you cannot stand terrible acting, go-go dancers with about as much onstage energy as a group of geriatrics, or canned jazz music as a soundtrack you won't make it through this one anyway.

"The Gore-Gore Girls" initially resembles a giallo film. A black-gloved killer toting a whole mess of sharp instruments spends a whole lot of time tracking down decidedly unattractive go-go dancers in order to kill them. The first murder looks like it is straight out of a Dario Argento film. If it looks, tastes, smells, and feels like a giallo, it must be a giallo, right? Wrong! This is H.G. Lewis, the Godfather of Gore. The emphasis here is on shocking the audience to the core of its being rather than wasting a huge amount of time building up suspense, investing energy in coming up with inventive camera angles, or constructing a complex plot. Instead, "The Gore-Gore Girls" gives you lots of seedy atmosphere, pedestrian pacing, and amateurish editing (some of the dance sequences run on for WAY too long). One bright spot is the actress who plays Nancy Weston, a nice looking redhead out of place in a Herschell Gordon Lewis film unless you take into account her lousy acting skills. Yes, the film is painful to watch, but you know if you are a Lewis fan you will do it anyway and you will enjoy the trip.

The DVD is another winner in the Lewis catalogue. The director's commentary illuminates many of the hassles both big and small encountered during the production shoot, as well as providing lots of laughs over Lewis's philosophy about making low budget films. As for the picture quality, well, it leaves a lot to be desired. Colors look overexposed on numerous occasions, although that is probably how the movie looked when it was originally shot because anyone familiar with Lewis's films knows he had only a rudimentary knowledge about lighting a scene. Not my favorite Lewis film, "The Gore-Gore Girls" is still an important entry in the Lewis canon due to the over the top gore and the fact that it was the last film the director made for nearly thirty years.

Hershell Gordon Lewis made crap. He made B-movie, gut-wrenching garbage for an audience of potential millions of teenage boys, who were just a little too weird to get girls, at least alive ones.

The "Gore Gore Girls" does not fail to entertain this heretofore unexplored demographic. It's hilarity is undisputed. And, yes, Lewis knew he was making comedy.

I don't think it's as good as 1963's "Bloodfeast" or even 1964's "Two Thousand Maniacs," which, as the first gore films ever released in America, have a much higher historical and cultural importance and are, in fact, primary historical source material.

The "Gore Gore Girls" is an anarchic, nihilistic parody of its times, and it would be enjoyed by followers of Sade, Hobbes, and Malthus today. Feminists are sure to love the premise of the film, which I refuse to divulge.

Buy this gory, disgusting, french fried, eye-popping, face cleaving masterpiece. Make sure to bring a milk glass.

This film has been banned in Australia and will not have a dvd release. How the censorship board could find a badly made horror film from 1972, too graphic for public consumption is confusing. This film plays more like a comedy because of the bad production values (yes gore also), why is this unavailable to adults? Yes, there is violence against women, but have the censors seen the brutal violence on display in "Irreversible"? Have they released the dvd? Yes!
What is happening to our freedom of choice?

THE GORE-GORE GIRLS

*** ½ Out of 5

Release Date- December, 1972

Running Time- 81-Minutes

Rating- NR

Screenplay- Alan J. Dachman

Director- Herschell Gordon Lewis

Starring- Frank Kress, Amy Farrell, Hedda Lubin, Russ Badger and Henny Youngman

Before there were filmmakers like Lucio Fulci there was H.G. Lewis who made a string of low budget splatter flicks. Herschell Gordon Lewis has been dubbed the Godfather of gore and for good reason. Lewis is seen as the first splatter filmmaker and while he isn't a mainstream filmmaker he has splattered his way into cult status.

Released in 1972 The Gore-Gore Girls would be H.G. Lewis' final film until 30-years later when he made Blood Feast 2: All You Can Eat in 2002. The Gore-Gore Girls was a great way for Lewis to end his career. Make no mistake about it; The Gore-Gore Girls is a bad movie, but this is one of those so bad its good movies. These kinda movies are very much an acquired taste. The films of H.G. Lewis you will either love or hate and odds are nobody will really say they were ok. Again it's either a love it or hate it.

Besides boasting one of the coolest titles in cinema history The Gore-Gore Girls is also one of the most brutal horror flicks ever made; though as the years have passed and such make up F/X artists like Tom Savini, Rick Baker and the guys at KNB have come around the gore here isn't quite as cool as it was in 1972, but with that said it's still pretty damn sweet. The murder scenes are really cool and at times really silly. One girl has her face repeatedly stabbed and than the flesh ripped off and that was actually kinda disgusting, but I loved every second of it and the highlight was a woman having her behind mutilated with a meat tenderizer and than having salt and pepper put on it (I kid you not).

The screenplay was written by Alan J. Dachman and it's exactly how one would imagine it. The script is quite poor with barley any plot, annoying and stupid characters that have the most idiotic things to say, which of course is what makes it so funny. The lead character Abraham Gentry played by Frank Kress is actually fairly interesting. Normally these splatter flicks have terrible characters and The Gore-Gore Girls is no exception, but Gentry is actually fairly interesting. He's really eccentric, kind of annoying and obnoxious, but oddly enough sort of likeable.

The screenplay almost plays out like a Giallo and had this been an Italian horror flick it probably would be called one. The mystery is never really played up to. I suppose one can figure out who the killer is, but no real clues are given for the most part. The cops are total dopes as is pretty much everyone actually. The script is filled with silly one-liners, but they are actually funny due to how idiotic they are.

Director Herschell Gordon Lewis ignores creating any suspense, scares or attempting any storytelling and gets right into the splatter. The movies run at a decent pace, but the longer the gaps in kill scenes you might slightly lose some interest, but there is enough silly things happening to keep the viewer mostly interested. When it comes to the gore, Lewis doesn't hold back at all. As I stated before a girl is repeatedly stabbed in the face and has her flesh ripped off and the meat tenderizer scene is the highlight; a girl has her throat slit and than an iron pressed against her face and if things couldn't get any worse she even has her nipples cut and milk pours out (yes you read that right).

The Gore-Gore Girls has no real plot and while the production values aren't too bad despite the low budget, but the movie is really just poorly made is every aspect, from lighting, editing, acting, writing and directing, but yet these tings are what makes this movie so much fun. I don't think anyone can really say H.G. Lewis is a good filmmaker, but the guy clearly knows how to make an entertaining no budget movie.

The Gore-Gore Girls is one of my favorite splatter flicks and H.G. Lewis never attempts to make the movie more than that. The comedy aspect is intentional for the most part and Lewis just sets out to make a movie that is fun and he succeeds in doing just that. If you need your gore fix The Gore-Gore Girls will more than deliver on that.

This is my first and, so far, only Herschell Gordon Lewis movie I've ever seen, much less put in my DVD collection. I must say that, as a connoisseur of fine cheeses, this one is quite delectable.

Being the last film made by Mr. Lewis in 1972, it's mainly tongue-in-cheek, while you can keep one in your head. But don't worry; if you're not an early-seventies stripper working in Chicago, you're safe. With names such as Suzie Creampuff, Candy Cane, and Lola Prize, these groovy go-go gals weren't being very modest, which kind of made them large targets for this particular killer.

Right off the bat, I must strongly agree as to how much Frank Kress, who played the hero, Abraham Gentry, private investigator par excellence (as he so modestly announces every five minutes), resembles Allan Arbus, who appeared several times in M*A*S*H as Dr. Sidney Freeman, psychiatrist. His character is kind of a throwback to the thirties. I was oh-so-slightly projecting Nick Charles' picky, arrogant, yet nattily-attired and gentlemanly nephew onto Mr. Gentry.

Said Mr. Gentry is wooed into helping Nancy Weston, girl-cub-reporter, to solve the case of the Chicago Stripper Killer And Creative Mutilator. There's a "spirited" mob scene in one of the clubs, meaning that they all looked to be three sheets to the wind at the time. Strippers are dispatched, french fries, cucumbers and chocolate milk are served, and the sleazy food chain is established. A few hangover-free Zombies later, Miss Fancy Nancy finds herself entered into a stripping contest hosted by the owner of the local strip joints, Marzdone Mobilie, played by Henny Youngman (!). I must admit, Henny did a good job in this. Later he chose to absolve himself of ever appearing in this film. Such a pity.

One of my favorite parts of this DVD is Something Weird's promo of some of their other juicy celluloid tidbits. It had me cracking a wide smile the first time I saw it. It also reminded me of John Waters' Serial Mom, the scene where one of its characters is watching a Chesty Morgan movie. Plus, there's a clip from a movie featuring some wild women and a most hapless blond guy who's about to spill his guts to them.

If you never thought you'd meet a stripper talented enough to work to Strauss' Radetzky March or My Old Kentucky Home, this movie will set you straight, pickle!

Okay, having said all that, I have one question...in the very beginning of the movie, where the Hell did Mr. Gentry put his pretty black cat? Was that a cat door? I hope it was.

This is perhaps one of the most amazing(-ly bad) motion pictures ever made!! True, it's pure campy gory trash, but it's 100% fun!!! Have you ever seen a film where the director was not afraid to show a woman's buttocks being pulverized with a meat tenderizer? or a stripper dancing to the tune of a Sousa march?? Of course you haven't. H.G. Lewis didn't break the rules, he invented them....he is the inventor of the gore film.
For those of you who may have rented this from the dingy 50c bin at your local video store all those years ago, you'll be delighted to know that the picture on this dvd is lovely, and the director commentary is illuminating and hilarious!
see the work of a true gore artist!! don't miss this dvd!

Herschell G Lewis is one sick puppy!! Anyone who has seen any of his gore movies will realize I mean this as very high praise. Many thought this would be his last movie, but thankfully he's come back recently with a sequel to BLOOD FEAST (which isn't available in NZ to my knowledge). GORE GORE GIRLS sees Lewis going into overdrive, the humor is blacker than before; the gruesome sequences are repulsive and of course there are endless sequences of go-go girls shaking their groove thangs to campy, bizzare jazz music composed by none other than Mr Lewis, under the name Sheldon Seymour. The plot (what there is of it) revolves around a detective and a reporter investigating the violent deaths of strippers at a night club. We are subjected to hilarious sequences of feminists picketing the club (one placard says LEWD IS CRUDE)and awful dialogue ("I'll tell you one thing, this murderer sure isn't weak" and "You're resting your foot on my crutch"). The stripping sequences themselves are more embaressing than titillating, but Mr Lewis outdoes himself in scenes featuring an iron, a deep fryer and demonstrates a novel way of dispensing chocolate milk. And how could you forget the meat tenderiser scene, the movie's pièce de rèsistance? All these grim delights make up for the movie's flagging bits. (And that goes for some of the strippers too). When you watch GORE GORE GIRLS there is no doubt you are watching cheap garbage, but the difference is this is cheap garbage made by a marketing genius. So grab a nice rare rump steak and a big glass of chocolate milk and sit yourself down in front of the box for what could well be the most gruesome eighty minutes of your life.
This is only the third Lewis movie I've seen after BLOOD FEAST and GRUESOME TWOSOME. I just hope our censors let more through. Gore fans shouldn't be denied these movies. They're part of horror history.

Wow! Tell me what movie you've seen where a woman's nipples are clipped off with scissors and white milk spews from one and choclate milk from the other? You could ponder all day and never think of one.

I love this movie. Although this is considered Lewis' worst and most violent, You can find charm in all this drudge. The story centers around a string of murders involving go-go dancers in Chicago. A newspaper reporter named Nancy Weston is sent to hire a world class detective named Abraham Gentry to solve these hideous crimes. So they start on their investigation by lounging around go-go bars while Nancy makes goo-goo eyes at the obviously gay Abraham. You see every attempt for any woman to seduce him is turned down with a queeny remark or a painful bruise caused by his ever present cane.

The murders are inventive, Face in pot of boiling french fries, A meat tenderizer to the buttocks, Face smashed into a mirror, Slashed throat, Etc. The whole atmosphere of the film is almost like a parody of a slasher flick before they even existed. Their is plenty of dry humor and nonsense. Some of the strippers are eyesores, Particulary the black dancer who has too many stretch marks. And Abraham Gentry, Geeze, This guy makes Liberace look butch. This queen should be ON the stage instead of infront of it. Reporter Nancy Weston is definitely barking up the wrong tree.

Henny Youngman makes an appearance as a club owner so of course you have to hear his ancient humor for about three minutes. How he was coaxed into doing this kind of movie is a mystery. I guess it was more appealing to talk into a camera instead of a crowded room of mob bosses.

GORE! GORE! GIRLS! Is a must for people who love senseless violence, Nude women, And gay detectives.