The passing yesterday of film maker Herschel Lewis brought back old memories.
For better or worse.
It was the summer of 1963 and I had just turned 10 the month before. That day I was with my mom on one of her shopping trips downtown. It was the usual, lunch at Kresge's then light shopping at Sears, but when we passed the Robins Theater on our way to the car, Mom suggested we pop in to see the feature movie. The film was Herschel Lewis' newly released cult masterpiece, "Blood Feast". Certainly if the title on the marquee wasn't a dead giveaway, the graphic posters in the lobby made clear what we were in store for, so I'm sure mom knew what she was doing.
Lewis is known as "The Godfather of Gore" and introduced a genre that became known as "splatter films". "Blood Feast" was about an Egyptian serial killer who murdered and dismembered women to sate the god Ishtar. Lewis filmed in gloriously ironic living color and I vividly recall that the killer used a machette' for his dirty work and how the blood fell like a warm summer rain throughout the flick. Lewis also insisted on using actual limbs and organs sourced locally from cadavers for added realism. Trust me, it worked.
The film ended when the antagonist met his doom by ducking into the back of a garbage truck as police closed in. Spoiler alert: It might have worked but the driver inadvertently started the compactor resulting in sickening sounds of bones crushing, helpless screams, and a thick river of rich red blood oozing from every seam of the truck. In your face Hitchcock.
I don't think the experience affected me in any adverse way, I mean I don't hunt or kill and repulse as much as anyone at the sight of blood. I'm also not a fan of modern gore movies, relatively weak as they are, but it made be evaluate my mother for taking me there. She never threatened me with violence or joked that she'd kill me, but if she had... I think I would have run away from home.
Thanks Mom, I'll never forget our day at the movies. I can't.
RIP Herschel Gordon Lewis, you sick bastard.
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