Herschell Gordon Lewis

While visiting the Fangoria convention in Chicago last weekend, I had the pleasure of meeting one of my heroes, the great Herschell Gordon Lewis. Some of you might ask, ‘Who is that?’ Herschell Gordon Lewis is a luminary in the canon of modern Horror! Herschell Gordon Lewis, boys and girls, invented the Gore film.

It was in 1963 that Lewis and his producing partner David Friedman decided to abandon nudie exploitation flicks to create the seminal film BLOOD FEAST, considered by most critics and scholars to be the very first “gore” film. They made two more Gore films together : TWO THOUSAND MANIACS in 1964, and COLOR ME BLOOD RED in 1965.

The red red gore on display in these vibrant color films caused an immediate sensation, and soon other Horror filmmakers around the world began to saturate their productions with similar shocking effects. Lewis and Friedman singlehandedly created the subgenre of the “splatter” film. Without Lewis, there is no FRIDAY THE 13th, no DAWN OF THE DEAD, no EVIL DEAD 2, no DEAD ALIVE, no HOSTEL, no SAW, no PLANET OF TERROR, no super-cool Italian gore. There is nothing! Lewis represents a major turning point in the development of the modern Horror genre.

When I told him that I had seen all of his Horror films, he just laughed and said “Oh, you poor bastard.”