Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Herschell Gordon Lewis

Filmmaker and direct-marketing entrepreneur -- via the Hollywood Reporter. AKA The Godfather of Gore. He started as the the director of "nudie cuties," softcore porn. He struck gold with films such as "Blood Feast" and "Two Thousand Maniacs!"If I were less squeamish, I would celebrate his taboo-breaking and wildly successful "splatter" films. However, for me they represent the lowest-common-denominator hand of pure capitalism at work in the arts -- "Hey, we will produce a pornography of transgressive horror if people will pay to see it." The  commodification of sadism in cinema is nothing to be proud of.