KRIS GILPIN RARE INTERVIEWS: H.G. LEWIS

HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS INTERVIEW by KRIS GILPIN

(Originally appeared in The Draculina Fear Book 1992 By Hugh Gallagher).

When Herschell Gordon Lewis did the following interview with Kris Gilpin, he was at the peak of reborn interest in his work. With the release of Dan Krogh’s book. THE AMAZING HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS, and the advent of video -Herschell Gordon Lewis was in the lime light with horror fans, doing conventions and film festivals. He spoke of possibly returning to the director’s chair but, over six years later, such a return has yet to develop. In fact, this interview, first published in January, 1986, is still as up-to-date as it was when first published in DRACULINA #2. 

(Erok here, I'm very excited to present this rare interview which was taken from archive.org and emailed to me by Kris himself. We're all still reeling over the shock of hearing the news about Mr. Lewis' death, I've been an obsessive fan ever since I saw and was disturbed by all the hideous big box VHS's at Florida video stores in the 5th grade (1986 to give you some context). I even heard in an interview that his favorite chicken joint in Miami was Bojangles and I staked it out hoping to bump into him--what a weirdo I was and still am I guess. I hope everyone enjoys this incredible interview and keeps the legacy going by sharing your stories about HGL with us on the Twitter and FB page. He was one of a kind and will be missed).

From 1960 to 1972 writer-producer-director Herschell Gordon Lewis earned his reputation as

the man theater owners and other investors would turn to when they wanted their modest production dollars stretched furthest. Herschell, a brilliant businessman, produced nudies, Southern good-old boys epics and even children's pictures and, along with his partner David Friedman, invented the modem Gore Flick in 1963 with the infamous BLOOD FEAST. He followed that virgin viscera with, among other fun diversions such as SHE-DEVILS ON WHEELS, JUST FOR THE HELL OF IT and SOMETHING WEIRD, half a dozen more gore films. I laughed my adolescent ass off upon discovering Lewis's THE WIZARD OF GORE and THE GRUESOME TWOSOME at a Miami drive-in and on Saturday afternoon of June 29th, 1985, grabbed the chance to conduct a telephone interview with the Wizard himself in South Florida, where he now lives.

KRIS GILPIN: You made 37 films in only 12 years. Was there ever a type of film you wanted to make but never got the chance to?

HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS: Sure, but I never had the budget to even indulge myself in a fantasy of that sort. There was a script I had for years and years, I have no idea whatever happened to it called THE MUSIC OF MR. MUNDY. a children’s picture about a gentle old man who runs a grade-school orchestra and, like most grade school orchestras, when they get past "Old McDonald Had a Farm" they’re in great confusion, but to him it sounds like the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Well, one of the children in the group has a father in the recording business and he’s fascinated with the bad sound of this orchestra, so they make a recording and they’re an instant smash. But they're a smash in a way that Florence Foster Jenkins was a smash: they are freaks because the music is so bad. I found the thing completely charming, but never was able to get anyone interested in it, including myself; I was interested in it but I couldn't see it as a commercial enterprise. Really, it's the kind of story that would make a nice television special, but I never made it.

BAD MUSIC, Surely you can't be talking about garage punks The Faded Blue?!

KG: Did all your films show a profit?

HGL: I can’t answer that because I made a number of films for other people. My films tended to show a profit because we did lick the problem of inflated production costs. Those who hover around the periphery of the business could easily be astounded by the amount of waste involved, for example, the director who is insecure and whose most common remark is, "Let's make one more.” Or who shoots the entire scene through with a long shot and then a closeup on each principal, and winds up with hundreds of thousands of feet of film, And, obviously, there is the problem in the motion picture business of union featherbedding, which is a problem that pertains to most craft guilds, and there's also the problem of overpaid, under talented people and, in each of those instances, my films dealt in well-marbled space with a lot of fat cut off of them.

KG: How many shots did you average per take?

HGL: One point four.

KG: How do you remember the nudie era?

HGL: Those films were lots of fun to make. BOIN-N-G was my favorite film from that era because it had a sense of humor; it was a satire of that whole era of film making. THE PRIME TIME and LIVING VENUS [Herschell's first two pictures] were mangled in distribution; the distributor went bust owing the production company a lot of money. I had my entire fortune sunk into the pictures and I was literally out of business. So, when Dave Friedman and I made the next picture, THE ADVENTURES OF LUCKY PIERRE (chuckles) we were the whole crew; we had no film to cut out at the end of that shoot; we used every foot of film we bought. And the film was a smash. That can make you very cynical toward the whole theory of film making, because I felt LIVING VENUS was a good, well-made picture, with a union crew by the way, and it cost 6, 7 times as much as LUCKY PIERRE which was color. But look at the comparative results: LUCKY PIERRE supported Friedman and me for the better part of the year [1961], and for years afterward it was bringing in revenue. And in the entire life span of LUCKY PIERRE I think we only made eleven prints; we played them mercilessly; every print was in use all the time. Prints would come back as junk and we'd splice around the horrible tears and send it out again.

KG: Who did Karen Black play in THE PRIME TIME?

HGL: She had a minor role; I've forgotten the name of the character, but she played herself, literally. I notice she still does, she had lines and she had a screen credit as "Karen Black". That was her first picture; she was still a student at Northwestern.

KG: What was BLACK LOVE about, and what do you think of the way that film turned out?

HGL: Well, I have no comment to make about BLACK LOVE. I shot that for a fellow named Bob Smith who, as I recall, owned a bunch of Baskin-Robbins ice cream parlors on the south side of Chicago. I supplied only the technical aspect of film making; he was the producer. I also put the campaign together for him, which was irresistible; BLACK LOVE, from the view point of box-office draw, was an absolute smash, but I didn't own it; I was for a while, unwillingly really, the distributor. I paired BLACK LOVE with one of my pictures, MISS NYMPHETS ZAP-IN [a soft-core version of LAUGH-IN], which had a sense of humor and some production value, and the combination was irresistible, BLACK LOVE was startling, I guess is the word. We did well with that combination but ultimately, Bob Smith disappeared and that was the end of that deal. I had no regrets about it.

WAKE UP Mr. Softee!

KG: Your films were highly regarded in France for a while. When did this come about?

HGL: One day someone sent me a copy of a French magazine called IMAGE ET SON [PICTURE AND SOUND] in which there was a listing of classic horror films. BLOOD FEAST was in there bet-

ween PSYCHO and REPULSION, which I felt was rather stratospheric heights for a modest

picture like BLOOD FEAST. I think the French were the first to recognize the historic value of

BLOOD FEAST, which nobody else did; I know there was historic value from the viewpoint of

curiosity, but not from the viewpoint of actual film history. BLOOD FEAST was the first picture in

which people died with their eyes open, in which blood spurted, but that’s not like firing on Fort Sumter or Kennedy’s inauguration speech; it's not one of the milestones that one points to. But the French did; bear in mind that the French had the original GRAND GUIGNOL, the bloody [stage] show that ran for, I guess, the better part of a century, and ran to packed houses with their faked slashings of throats, and so on. And in France there was a recognition factor [of my films] which just didn't seem to bubble to the surface anywhere else. That was in the latter part of the 1960's; in this country, I vanished into oblivion during the 1970's.

Kramer, what do I know about baking a shirt? I got an Egytian pizza cooking!

KG: I find that today’s gore flicks take themselves too seriously; they lack the ingrained sense of humor which made yours such fun.

HGL: Absolutely correct, sir! And I think that's the difference: these films take themselves seriously, so that each one becomes "another one of those." It sounds like sour grapes; I don't mean it that way at all. I just today put in the mail to somebody a new script called HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS'S GRIM FAIRY TALES. and it isn't “another one of those." If we make that picture it will be (chuckles) a return to a different kind of film making. In all this time, with all the gore and all the horror and all the attention to prosthetic devices, and all the mechanical manipulations and money spent on special effects, nobody has attempted to penetrate into the happy philosophy of how the stuff makes sense to somebody sitting in the theater. They're more concerned with technique than frightening them, or drama.

KG: At the Drive in New York last November you mentioned an effect you always wanted to shoot but never had the chance to. What was that?

HGL: The Ultimate Effect. That’s where we simply rip somebody to pieces, starting with the outer skin and just work our way in until there’s nothing left but a pile of glop. I was going to do that in THE WIZARD OF GORE but we had mechanical problems and people didn't bring me the props they were supposed to bring, and we just didn't do it. But that's what I regard as the Ultimate Effect; where we simply tear somebody to pieces! THE WIZARD OF GORE was a jinxed film in production, by the way; everything that could go wrong went wrong with THE WIZARD OF GORE Fred Sandy, my partner, and our main actor had a terrible battle as we were rehearsing the first shot; the guy stormed off in a rage - a lot of guts for an out-of-work actor. So I took Ray Sager off the crew and he became the Wizard of Gore. Ray has the manual dexterity of a quadruple amputee; he was supposed to play the part of a mad magician, but Ray is a consummate actor so he brought it off. Also, we lost two days' shooting on the Mitchell camera. Plus, I always made the electrical hook-ups on location because I was quite used to it. So I was hooking this up and this fellow, Roger Strauss, came up and said, “I know how to do that! I’ve watched you enough times." So as he made the hook-up the whole box caught fire and they threw us out of [that person's house]. And many of the effects that I wanted didn't come off.

Well at least something went right today!

KG: What was it like directing Henny Youngman in THE GORE-GORE GIRLS (aka BLOOD ORGY)? Did he bring a lot of laughs onto the set?

HGL: No; hardly. Henny Youngman brought a lot of confusion onto the set. Nice, nice fellow, but he requires more direction than I was prepared to give, I was never - thank God - infected with this Celebrity Syndrome, where you use a celebrity because he’s a celebrity. Henny Youngman talks too fast; after 20 minutes of this, I said to him, "What we're gonna have to do is put English subtitles under your speeches." We finally got him to slow down; he could not have been more cooperative, but, for me and my crew, he was just another guy on the set. And we only gauged people by one criterion; did he know his lines and stand in the right place or not? And after an hour or two he knew his lines and he stood in the right place, so I have a profound regard for the guy (chuckles)

If my mother knew I did this for a living, she'd kill me. She thinks I'm selling dope (actual Henny joke!)

KG: What merchandising did you do on your films?

HGL: We novelized BLOOD FEAST, 2000 MANIACS! and COLOR ME BLOOD RED of those, I wrote the one on 2000 MANIACS!; I didn't write the novelization of BLOOD FEAST and I don't remember whether I wrote novelization of COLOR ME BLOOD RED. And we had 45 r.p.m. records of the theme music from 2000 MANIACS! and THE PILL/THE GIRL, the BODY AND

THE PILL, 1967, I wish I could come across some of those one of these days. We used to send them out to radio stations when our pictures would open up in town; I have no idea whether they were effective or not.

KG: Was writing the films as fun as, I take it, making them was?

HGL: Well, writing is not exactly fun; writing is a solitary, and very disciplined, proposition. Film making is a crowd activity, and often undisciplined. And for the person who is able to carry his discipline from the keyboard to the lens-my opinion is that great rewards are justified. Also, on our sets, everybody had a good time, but we knew at 10 o'clock Monday morning what we were gonna be shooting at 4 o’clock Thursday afternoon. Otherwise it's a waste, especially when you're using somebody else's money.

KG: The storyline for AN EYE FOR AN EYE sounds intriguing [a blind man gains ESP when he is given a dead man's eyes]; I understand the film was never released. Why is that?

HGL: I don't know. I have heard that too, and then I have heard from people who said they saw it. We sold that thing to Abbott Schwartz out of Minneapolis who moved it out of our cutting room, almost in a matter of an hour from the time the deal was made. That picture was in the middle of cutting, and that's the last I saw of any of it-footage, anything. And from that moment to now, I have no idea where the negative is, if the cutting was finished, if prints were made or what; I don't know.

KG: Was it fun to appear in front of your camera as well as being behind it?

HGL: Oh sure; anybody [gets a kick out of it]. I used the name Sheldon Seymour or, sometimes,

Seymour Sheldon, but not as [an acting] screen name, I don't believe. I appeared in THE LIVING

VENUS and A TASTE OF BLOOD, and that was because I had to have somebody [in British

accent] "with a limey accent, I did, and the fellow I hired didn't show up," and there was nobody else on the crew who could even remotely attempt a British accent. So we chopped some hair off of Bob Vercruse and made me a big moustache and I pulled a stocking cap way down over my face. It was not an attempt to play a Hitchcock; I wasn't trying to get a bit part in my own movie.

KG: SOMETHING WEIRD was an interesting, off-beat movie. How did that strange storyline come about?

HGL: That came' from a mixture of input from myself and Jim Hurley, who was [an ESP] nut. He had been involved with a man named Peter Hurkos who was, supposedly, a genuine psychic. So, Hurley showed up with the notion and, as I remember, also the backing for SOMETHING WEIRD, which was a pure exercise in clinical extra-sensory perception; and I convinced him to make the picture a little more commercial by adding the element of witchcraft. SOMETHING WEIRD was also, for me, an exercise in my mastery over the Mitchell camera, because just about all the effects were done in camera, such as a ghost walking down the aisle of a church, and a man disappearing through a wall; I simply did it in the camera. So I was very pleased with being able to meet the challenge of SOMETHING WEIRD. We paired that film with, I believe, THE GRUESOME TWOSOME, and they did very, very well together and, as I remember, after about a year of this, Jim Hurley became irritated with having his film "defiled" by having THE GRUESOME TWOSOME as its companion feature, and he withdrew his picture, and we simply went along with THE GRUESOME TWOSOME without SOMETHING WEIRD. But I share your view, I like that picture.

Corky on a very special Thanksgiving episode of Life Goes on.

KG: How did you manage to work an actual birth scene into SIN, SUFFER AND REPENT?

HGL: (laughs) SIN, SUFFER AND REPENT was owned by a guy named Jim Somebody out of

Toledo, Ohio, and he was an old time exploitation film man. He had picked up a British film - the title of which is lost in obscurity on venereal disease, and reached a point where he couldn’t get it played anymore. It wasn't a badly made film, but it didn't make sense; it was a World War II-vintage kind of picture. And he came to me and he said, "Let's change this into a birth-of-a-baby film", and that is exactly what we did by judicious cutting, by shooting some hospital scenes and by removing some dialogue, sticking in some dialogue, over-dubbing other dialogue and sticking in a birth scene, (chuckles) And that’s all there was to that, and he had a very playable picture and he made a lot of money out of it.

KG: I wanted to know some statistics, such as your most successful picture, longest and shortest

shoots and budgets...

HGL: Well, BLOOD FEAST was our No. 1 winner, I would imagine; I can't think of anything that came remotely close to it in terms of dollar gross. We were carrying money away from BLOOD FEAST in bushel bags. The shortest shoot was LUCKY PIERRE; we shot it in four days. Our shoots always averaged somewhere between 12 and 14 days of principal photography, and there may have been a couple of days of pick-up. As to which was the actual longest, it may have been A TASTE OF BLOOD, because that picture runs two hours. By the way, Jimmy Maslin told me that he knows somebody that owns A TASTE OF BLOOD [Herschell's vampire epicj and is planning to release it on video tape. The largest budget would either be THE GORE GORE GIRLS or A TASTE OF BLOOD, and the smallest would again have to be LUCKY PIERRE for (chuckles) a very low five figures.

KG: Speaking of video, have you gotten a cut from the recent video releases of your films (SOMETHING WEIRD, THE GRUESOME TWOSOME, THE WIZARD OF GORE, etc?)

HGL: Nope. People have sent me copies of BLOOD FEAST, 2000 MANIACS!, SHE-DEVILS ON

WHEELS and COLOR ME BLOOD RED, though. Someone also sent me a bootleg tape of

THE GORE GORE GIRLS, but there's a big hunk missing out of it; it's like Nixon's Watergate tapes. There’s a gap in it where the screen goes white for about 20 seconds.

KG: Why did your film making stop in 1972?

HGL: It stopped for a whole bunch of reasons. One was. we had run the cycle; the major studios were starting to make [bloody] films; it was harder and harder to get playing time. Then. I had all my assets put together in very complicated circumstances in an advertising agency, and my biggest client went bust; everything went. I got a divorce; the whole thing was a mess, and I wound up with very, very little, and it simply was not an opportune time to make pictures. Furthermore, I really felt that [gore] films had shot their bolt, which merely shows how cloudy the crystal ball can be.

KG: Were you happy with the book, THE AMAZING HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS?

HGL: It's not mine to be happy or sad about. I was stunned by the academic research involved in it. First of all, I never knew Dan Krogh [who worked with Lewis on some of his pictures] was keeping score; he apparently amassed a library of information and visual that far surpassed anything I ever might have had. Now, I had some very nice stuff, some 40 by 60s, one sheets and when I got that divorce in the late 1970's, in a fit of pique, I guess it was, my ex-spouse destroyed it all. At least I assume she did; I never saw it. I'm no longer bitter or bothered because I came out by far the winner in that deal; I am now far more happily married than I ever could have been [before], so shed no tears. But as the book goes, there are some factual errors in there, only because there was information to which Dan couldn't be privy. But I was certainly honored; imagine having a book about oneself. It's just not the kind of thing that anyone expects to have happen unless he’s a poet laureate.

The Prince of Puke meets the Godfather of Gore.

KG: What have you done since?

HGL: I am a direct-response writer; I write for a living - I am considered, according to trade

sources, "the Rolls Royce of writers.” And I live very well, and I spend my days on the tennis court or in the pool or sitting in the spa, or at the keyboard. I work with clients all over the world; I give speeches all over the world. And I regard it as leading the good life so, to the consternation of some detractors, I am not lying in the gutter, bleeding. But everybody keeps asking me, "Are you ever gonna make another movie?" The answer is always the same: maybe. But it seems to be getting closer; it depends on who comes up with a deal. Dave Friedman, my old partner, tells me he is talking to some major studios about [getting back together again]. There’s a young chap in Arkansas named Jeff Hogue for whom I have just finished the GRIM FAIRY TALES script; he has authorized and paid for the screenplay, and I may or may not direct that script. I've got my Ultimate Effect written into there, and there are some other gore scenes in there which make anything we've done before seem childlike. Whenever I make a film it's gonna have that effect, because I've been brooding over not having done it. Then there's Jim Maslin in California, the fellow who owns the videotape rights to many of the old films, who has a script he and Eric Caiden wrote called BLOOD FEAST 2, and they are talking to me about directing it. I don't think they've completed their financing, but he says they

may be within weeks of doing that. So I very well may make another picture, and it may go into production before the end of this year, but I make no flat statements as of today because, as of today, no deals have been set. All three projects would be shot in 35mm color for [in addition to domestic theatrical or videotape release] foreign release, which is far more important than it used to be. So you need 35 for that. And I have a book coming out from Prentice-Hall in New York in October [Herschell has also written bestselling books on advertising, including DIRECT MAIL COPY THAT SELLS, his bestselling title] which is a re-edited version of a book published about 5 or 6 years ago called HOW TO MAKE YOUR ADVERTISING TWICE AS EFFECTIVE AT HALF THE COST. And I have a contract in hand for one more book, which is gonna take me a year to write. It’s my magnum opus, and it may be the last book I'll write, but it's going to be a dilly!

She Freak

She Freak Directed By Byron Mabe, Starring Clair Brennen (1967).

Scary freaky deaky shit is going down at the carnival if the psychedelic surfy tune that ramps up during the credits is any indication. For some reason this SWV human oddity flick drenched in velveeta has eluded me all these years, but thanks to Fandor it's time to finally check it out. I mean the if the wardrobe is by "Sassy Pants", you know you're in for an eye popping good time!

Hillbilly folks gawk at the various medical deformities (this is all before the Internet and Fox News so these people have to get their fix this crude way). Friedman is all over the place as writer, producer and carnival barker. The premise is sort of an updating of the famed Todd Browning masterpiece but wait there's more gristle to chew on, don't discount it yet. 

Jade Cochran (Brennen), the star of this flick looks like a rundown bargain basement version of The Velvet Underground's Nico. She's super conceited for a waitress working at a greasy spoon in the middle of nowhere, but she's got big ass dreams and plans to claw her way out of this low rent Waffle House hook or by crook. I love how she talks directly to the camera with her piggy nose and sunken in eyeballs, she's strangely attractive. In fact everybody turns to the camera and delivers their lines in a furious fashion like an off off broadway play with zero budget--it's great!

Duh I'll be your mirror you clonn (pronounced clown).

Her boss is threatened by her smart mouth, but of course he has to put up with it, since no one else will work there. One day a grill cheese eatin' bigwig down at the circus tent gets her all riled up to finally escape and she does--good for her I say! 

According to IMDb, Felix Silla aka Twiki, Cousin Itt and the clown that whips the naked babes in "Catholic High School Girls In Trouble" had a secret relationship with Clair Brennen, who knows if it's true but it's pretty fascinating! 

Kentucky Fried genius

Jade's career path ends up in the toilet, because wouldn't you know it, she's still a waitress only at a carnival instead! She's still got major tude and sticks her upturned piggy nose at a new breed of hicks. All the dudes in this movie have greasy pompadours and all the ladies look like hard faced strippers in between jobs, it's pretty glorious. The message is slightly offensive, that a lowlife waitress with too much liberation needs to be put down for her loose tongue and lofty aspirations, but don't think too deeply because after all this is pure exploitation. 

All the girls wanna know, who's the cutest boy on death row

A two headed baby almost causes her spew funnel cake chunks all over the midway. Next she hooks up with a giant tittyed stripper who boasts that she's smoked everything, whatever that means. She takes a bath with more soap suds than I've ever seen (covering up every stitch of skin). 

Jade is the biggest social climber I've ever seen and is never content with her status. 

On Reel Wild Cinema, a USA clip show with Sandra Bernhard, which showed butchered versions of SWV's in the 90's I saw a few clips of this movie but wasn't sure if I should spring for the 25$ clamshell and order up a copy through the mail, obviously I missed out.

can you put some pork rinds and snout on my chili dog or is that excessive?

Felix Silla hardly talks, but he hides in corners listening intently with his giant cowboy hat and tailored suit, he looks totally hip. Jade goes to an apartment where they have what looks like a milk carton with a Pepsi logo on it, no one drinks from it, very suspicious if you ask me. 

There are a lot of montages with sleazy stripper type stock music (this I guess is this movie's car chase scene to eat up film stock). Jade hooks up with a dude named "Blackie" and they mutually slap each other as foreplay (maybe)? After a snooze inducing montage, she gets married to some schlub, how did we get here anyway? Jade keeps cheating on her new man with Blackie, who I guess she finds irresistible and she off handedly smirks at the audience when he ends up stabbed to death. I won't ruin the ending, it's a quawking good time! I loved every second of this film, punch out your own mother to procure a copy from the consistently reliable Something Weird Video (or just dial it up on Fandor). 

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

HAHA You want it when Blackie?

USA UP ALL NIGHT WEEK RETURNS: The Outing

“The Outing” aka “The Lamp (1987)

Directed by: Tom Daley

Written by: Warren Chaney

Starring: Deborah Winters, James Huston and Andra St. Ivanyi

Review by: “Machine Gun” Kristin 

I saw “The Outing” at a sleepover party, probably when it was fairly recent on VHS in the late 80s. My memory is fuzzy at best so I have a surreal sort of recollection of it. It was on in the middle of the night, and I only remember flashes of the last 20 minutes or so. I thought it was a little scary at the time, or just strange in a way. I’d say it was just the time of night that I watched it also that made it seem scarier. I believe this was the same sleepover party where the resident cat of the household I was sleeping at decided to brush my hair with it claws, cementing a long running distain for pets.

"Come on kids, let's squeeze everyone into the family photo"

Unfortunately, I wasn’t old enough (or just don’t remember most likely) "USA’s Up All Night”, hosted by Gilbert Gottfried and later Caroline Schlitt, then Rhonda Shear which ran from 1989-1998.

I have a better memory of TNT’s “MonsterVision” with the hilarious Joe Bob Briggs which ran sometime in the 1990s.

Another similar show I remember was USA’s “Reel Wild Cinema” which was hosted by Sandra Bernhard and Executive Produced by Mike Vraney of  “Something Weird” video.

The catalog of films shown on “Up…”  is great, mostly horror and comedies. It may have helped create the “late night” cable movie genre which is more or less the little brother of “midnight movies”, but instead you don’t have to leave your couch. Its also another link in the chain of horror host style shows.

“The Outing” is also known as more coherently titled “The Lamp” overseas. I don’t know if it's the first horror genie film, but I’m sure by that time, people couldn’t image “I Dream Of Jeannie” committing heinous murders of naked teenage girls. Unfortunately, the version I watched was super dark, so it was hard to entirely decipher what was happening. This is when the “cleaned up” version of a film really shines, because it displays details we may have missed in past versions. I love VHS formats and grainy videos as much as the next person, but occasionally it's also nice to see a clearer picture because it enhances the creator's original intent. “The Outing” recently received the Shout Factory treatment, but apparently it's still not the right version. Apparently, there’s two different opening sequences, one that explains the Arab women’s possession of the Lamp and another that begins the film past that sequence in the present. There’s also some edits made to a rape scene and I think some of the gore scenes as well. It's annoying as hell when these strange edits are made because then it becomes all the more difficult to obtain the “correct” version of the film.

Original title sequence

something stinks around here!

The movie’s first set in Galveston, Texas (cue Glen Campbell), then later Houston. It’s an okay movie with good pacing, so it's not completely without its charm. It sorta plays like a made-for-tv movie, but with some boobs thrown in. The look of the film for some reason reminded me of “Rush Week”, but I bet that’s just because it was filmed in the mid to late 80s. Here, A lamp with a genie (or Jinn) is brought back from an expedition that took place in 1893 (as explained in the sometimes missing scene from the very beginning of the film). In the present (1986), the lamp is stolen from an Arab woman (played by Deborah Winters, who plays the teacher also) daughter of the owner in the flashback sequence by 3 gross hillbillies. After their demise, (which couldn’t have been sooner haha) the lamp is transferred to a museum’s curator (James Huston) for further investigation. His daughter, Guess Jeans wearing,Alex (Michelle Burke lookalike, Andra St. Ivanyi) puts on a bracelet that makes her the keeper of the lamp and slave to the Jinn/genie. Her class has an after school field trip (is there such a thing?) to said museum and she convinces her classmates to stay after hours without anyone knowing. It's similar to what happened in Tobe Hooper’s “The Funhouse” where they stay overnight at the carnival with disastrous results. Alex’s randomly racist violent ex boyfriend shows up at the sleepover with his cronie. These guys reminded me of super evil bullies in “Trick Or Treat” (1986), where their violent anger seemed so unrelenting. You couldn’t wait for these guys to get killed off. The ending of the movie doesn't make any sense to me when they stop the car to check out the Pepsi truck. Can anyone explain that?

 could you spare some change for the bus?

 may I have this dance?

Most of the cast and crew didn’t seem to much else before or after “The Outing”. Deborah Winters and screenwriter Warren Chaney are actually husband and wife. She made some films in the 60s and 70s, but you might recognize her best from the super fun 1978 horror film, “Blue Sunshine”.

"The Outing" is a fun film, with some nice gore scenes, but overall could've been better. But then again, it could have been worse. I'd give it 2 and 1/2 pairs of blood splattered high-waisted Guess jeans.

You can watch it HERE

You can buy it HERE!

Make sure you check out my online shop HERE. Or if you live in Orlando, FL we have a shop HERE.

BLOODFREAK!

Artist's representation of Charles The Bizarre Alien

Crank here (0r Erok, Eric, whatever the cat's out of the bag now, so I guess I should drop all these internet handles)! I've been looking for new writers and have found one with Charles, he's here to tackle one of my all time Turkeysploitation favorites. Enjoy and stay off the poultry! 

BLOOD FREAK (1972 Steve Hawkes, Dana Culliver, Heather Hughes, Larry Wright and Brad Grinter as the narrator . Written produced and directed by Steve Hawkes and Brad Grinter )

(image from Cinema Arcana, Bruceholecheck.blogspot.com)

Review by Charles The Bizarre Alien 

PRAISE JAYZUS! Gobble! Gobble! Gobble! Just say NO to drugs! Hallelujah!!!! Blood & guts! Agggggggggghhhhh!!!! Wha???????

Ladies and Gentlemen, I bring you an AMAZING film, well at least to me, it is because it is well, amazing! Considered the world's “Only turkey-monster-anti drug-pro Jesus GORE film!” Yes my friends, it really IS all that and more! Around 2006 or so I got into the band Blood Freak thanks to my old friend and ghoulish president of Razorback Records, Mr. Billy Nocera whose label subsequently released 3 albums by them. Great death/grind/gore/metal madness with their mascot being this blood thirsty nutjob maniac 'turkey monster'. 
Turns out it was from a movie and after I looked it up I knew I HAD to see it! Not to long later the stars were aligned just right and I found it in a local store used/mint for about $8! 

Blood Freak the band

I took it home and watched it and I was like WHOA! What we have here is a film that starts right out with this cigarette smoking gentleman (who reminds me of Russ Meyer for some odd reason) introducing the film by stating some philosophical mumbo jumbo about life and blah.blah.blah. Thru out the film you will be interrupted by his story telling, which I thought was and is pretty funny and kinda cool. I still wonder how many cigarettes he smoked and how many takes he had to do? Ha!ha! 

Blood Freak's message? that cancer sticks are healthier than weed

Anyhoo, the movie finally begins and we've got this very tall “muscle bound biker” gentleman by the name of Herschel (producer/ co-director Steve Hawkes). The biker is having a nice time riding his motorcycle on a beautiful sunny day when he sees a lovely young Lady (Angel played by Heather Hughes) on the side of the road experiencing some kind of trouble with her engine. There's barely any dialogue what so ever and he follows her to her house where we meet some heathen hippies who are sitting around smoking the green and snorting poppers.

She said I was a tiger she wanted to tame just like that Billy Ocean song

Angel is a fine Christian Lady who loves Jesus and tells Herschel all about it . He doesn't seem to mind and is a nice decent moral fellow. A sexy swinger hippy Lady approaches him and he kindly tells her “no thanks!,” which she's offended by, but her partner looks like he is about to shit his pants when she tells him that guy over there said “i'm a whore” (which he didn't, in a manner of speaking ). 

I can totally suck a golfball through a garden hose!

Herschel is introduced to Angel's free loving, sexy pot smoking, drug loving sister Ann whom he turns down repeatedly! Herschel isn't a "Christian", but he has got them MORALS people! 

The story continues as a Christian/anti-marijuana/anti free love film and is kinda slow but not boring mind you! The feathers start flying when the main character, finally gets SICK of Ann pestering him about being a loser and decides to try some weed that one of Ann's hippie band drug dealers hooks her up with (he also wants revenge for the Elvis clone insulting his girlfriend, so this is a “special” kind of pot)! Before you know it, Herschel is ADDICTED! 

Great, now I'm also addicted to tryptophan! 

Besides suddenly becoming a hardcore pot head, he also needs a job. Luckily, around the same time, this guy who happens to have a turkey farm/laboratory offers him a job to clean up around the place and do various chores, like picking up the birds and putting them back inside the fence la la la. He is also offered extra money if he'll try some “harmless experiments", which has him just saying YES to eating turkey meat that turns this once happy bible thumping jesus praising just say NO to drugs and illicit sex lunkhead into a total WTF!? THIS IS A TOTAL GOOD TIME GOBBLE FEST!  

This Thanksgiving I implore you to eat a nice baked ham instead

NO sooner does the innocent biker (who resembles the fused DNA results of Elvis Presley and Peter Steele both combined with some serious muscle-age (otherwise known as DANZIG, -ed). He turns into a freaked out looking turkey headed hippy blood drinking psycho monster freak-o and the rest of the film is spent with him killing random women and men here and there, including a would be rapist (the guy gets a deal to use Ann as a blow up doll by another greasy dirtbag dope fiend!) until her BF gets a hold of him, resulting in one of the most HILARIOUS gore scenes ever in my book! 

What the sadistic San Diego Chicken does off the clock!

He chases the dude into a warehouse that just happens to have a table saw and after sawing off one of the guy's legs (after he knocks the guy out then places him on the table)! The guy nonstop screams in a loop that had me in PAIN from LAUGHING my ass off! It's also a little disturbing as the guy is holding his stump and it just drips drips drips! It almost sounds like the sample from an early industrial noise band like SPK or one of (early) Throbbing Gristles creep-fests, Just hilarious and odd! The same scream is heard a few victims before too which cracked me up as I drank my beer! Am i giving away the entire plot? Well dang it, I got caught up alright? 

TG's unrecorded "Annual Jive Turkey Report" went over like a led balloon

There is more to this movie and lemme just say, if you want full entertainment with some Bible studies, moral/immoral friction between 2 hot sisters (sorry, NOT sexual friction!), unintentionally HILARIOUS dialogue, 2 clueless lab technicians, (the balding large guy is beyond HILARIOUS! I wonder if the actor got into comedy)? 

Isn't Turkey, the Chicken of the Sea?

If you want to see a guy plagued by moral dilemmas now thanks to Marijuana and sweet lovin, a very odd and dark make-out scene between a girl and her Turkey monster lover with the words of “Gosh Herschel, you sure are ugly!”, a sketchy 'Turkey' scientist, a cool soundtrack, a narrator that looks like Russ Meyers cousin and/or an aging porn star, Turkey hunting 'whoa dude!” hairball hunter and praising the Lord, among other oddball assortments, then get off your backside and check out this fine film! 

Released on DVD by the fine folks from the legendary SOMETHING WEIRD VIDEO! The disc also comes with literally a TON of extras! Tons of trailers, some shorts (wanna see the director/smoking narrator Brad Grinter NAKED? Watch the nudist short “Brad Grinter, Nudist!”) and a buncha other fun wacky stuff for your entertainment and educational means! 

Nobody asked for this!

As the WARNING states “This program contains nudity, sexual situations, violence and gobbling”! Ha!ha!ha! On a side note, actor Steve Hawkes (“Herschell”) portrayed Tarzan in 2 films, but was badly burned during a scene and later did this movie, which he quotes as “This was during a SAD time in my life!” Well, speak for yourself Mr. Hawkes! This movie is GREAT man! I SALUTE you! Years later he appeared in an episode of ANIMAL PLANET and apparently is a very cool dude (especially for his works, caring about animals and nature) I doubt you'll ever see a movie like this ever again. Cheers to the fine feathered folks behind this great film! This has been The Bizarre Alien saying KEEP WATCHING THE SKIES and beware of blood drinking Turkey headed man monsters! Yeeeee-ha! Gobble! Gobble! P.S. 2-3 beers were consumed as I watched this again! It helped! (seems like you should've had more to drink, -ed)!

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

BUY HERE