Blood Feast

Weird, So unlike the two of y'all, apparently unbeknownst to me, I have no personal connection to Herschel Gordon Lewis. I'm just the guy here to talk about a movie and possibly say I don't like it. But I'm also not entirely convinced that the point of this movie is to like it as much as just to absorb it and experience it and kind of sit in its bloody mess that it makes all over itself and all over the screen. But on this episode of the Culture Cast, I'm still your host Christashio, much to the chagrin of many, and I'm joined by two people who one hasn't been on the show in a year and the other has never been on this show. I'm talking about author of several things, including an upcoming book about the Room I believe, Yes, yes, it's okay.

Is it out now? Okay, okay? And do you want to tell me the title again, so I don't fucking mess it up. Accidental Genius, an oral history of the Room. And what's great, I didn't know there were multiple books already fucking called Accidental Genius, So now we just put one more on the stag.

Author of Accidental Genius. He has been on a couple episodes of my show. We did a George Lucas Steven Spielberg script read through on the projection booth many moons marathon. Yeah, and it took many moons to do. Yeah, jeez, didn't it.

Andrew j Rout all of that, that's right, And from flick attack dot com he runs the place, Rod Lot Well, I guess yet, technically it's been a year for both of you, and we're here talking about the second splatter movie of the month, though was supposed to be the first one, supposed to be the first one for obvious reasons. But now we're talking about it second, we're talking about nineteen sixty three's Blood Feast. Ladies and gentlemen, you're about to witness some scenes from the next attraction to play this theater. This picture, truly one of the most unusual ever filmed, contains scenes which, under no circumstances, should be viewed by anyone with a heart condition or anyone who is easily upset.

We urgently recommend that if you are such a person, or the parent of a young or impressionable child now in attendance, that you you and the child leave the auditorium for the next ninety seconds. So the film is directed by Herschel Gordon Lewis, with a screen play by Alison Luis Down and it stars mal Arnold, William Kerwin, Connie Mason, Lynn Bolton, and Scott H. Hall. No, not that Scott Hall, all you wrestling fans out there, and the film is all about mal Arnold, who plays well. Play's a guy who wants to create an I was almost at an Italian feast.

Boy, that would be would be great, an Egyptian feast. M wants to make an Egyptian feast. And what does that entail? A lot of blood, a lot of guts, and ripping out a woman's tongue right out of her mouth. Like I alluded to in the beginning, I have no personal connection to this film, but each of these gentlemen does.

So, starting with Rod, give me a little bit of a little bit of the history behind your time with Blood Feast. I have to say right up front. I was raised in a pretty strict household where viewing was limited. Audio what we could listen to was limited, So I remember the big boxes of Herschel Gordon Lewis stuff on video shelves, but it wasn't until I never saw a frame of it until I rented Film House Fever in high school, which was a compilation film that Steve Bushimi is one of the two guys in and they use a lot of Lewis's stuff in that include a blood feast in two thousand Maniacs, I believe, with the biggest films featured in that. So I remember that was my first true exposure to his movies, and part of me was like, I should not be watching this.

This is like it was so odd and so unlike anything I'd ever seen that part of me was just like, I should not be watching this. I'm so glad my parents aren't here. This is this felt like just completely alien, being from another planet stuff to me. And I didn't see it in full honestly until something or Video re released it on blue ray several years ago, and that was the first time I actually saw it, and I, for all its faults, I really do like it. What about you, Andy Well, I can't see that I was ever really a big fan of it or any of the Herschel Morton Lewis stuff, but I got this idea I had interviewed Herschel or a book I did where I interviewed fifty filmmakers, and I thought he was neat and he was easy to get a hold of.

The I had this idea, what if I got a hold of Herschel and tried to do a book with him about his movies, And so that's how I met him. We did a book together on all of his films, and I actually had to watch some of them, you know, So I have to say I don't care for most of them, and I feel bad about that. The only one I really like is two Thousand Maniacs, which is a second in his Blood trilogy. But I don't think that Herschel was a real big fan really of his movies either, you know, like he only saw most of them as a gains to a way to make money. And you know, I'm sure there was some craftsmanship that he cared about, but mostly he was very much a money focused, money oriented guy in everything.

So yeah, I guess I didn't know what I was getting myself into with this. I knew obviously how important this is to the splatter film genre or subgenre, micro genre, whatever you want to call it. But obviously I mean, this is considered the first So if you want to do a month on splatter films, why not do the quote first one. So that was the drive behind watching this movie. I think to your point, Andy, it's I can see why this movie exists the way that it does, especially at the time that it comes out.

I mean, this is sixty three. Some of this, A lot of this. There's a lot of this movie that's very little, if anything going on. It's, you know, scenes from another movie that is not what this one is trying to be. There are some weird scenes that just are kind of there but have to be there to maintain semblance of a plot.

But the stuff that this movie is known for is not at all what you would be seeing in sixty three at all at all. And that's the thing that again, you have to watch this movie and remember that. And that's part of what made this a little difficult initially the first time I watched it is I had to put myself in the mindset of someone in sixty three because at this point, and I think y'all would both agree, this movie's beyond fucking quaint compared to the shit that you can see on If we were to just stop this recording and go to shudder. Right now, we could watch something ten times more intense than that is easily accessible to everybody, essentially, anyone with more look, yeah, and to your points, as unrealistic as this looks, it looks pretty good for the time.

It looks really good for the time. And that's what I think, for me, give this movie a little bit of an edge over something else, is that it has such a in terms of the gore and the way that it's used. It has such a foot in the modern way of using it that those scenes don't feel at odds with the other stuff in the movie, which is the acting and the actors. The direction's fine, it's not. I mean again, it's not that it's not anything special, but it didn't have to be.

He knows what he's doing and he's reveling in the gore, which is fine. But yeah, it's I don't think it's a movie that is asking to be enjoyed in any stretch of the imagination. But there was to shock. I think it was very much to shock audiences. And you know, he knew he could.

For a twenty four thousand dollars budget, which was shot on film, and you know, with single takes for most of the things, you know, not great acting, but he knew he could get people to talk about it. You could get word of mouth. Oh my god, I saw this shocking movie, and I do think it's not without its charms. It's just not my favorite. But if I remember correctly, the reason that he and David bite Friedman, the producer, did it is because the he was starting to or the returns on their newdi acutis were starting to run out, and it was just diminishing returns or like what else can we do?

And this turned out to be it. And I think there's a I'm sure that Andy's at least familiar with the quote that Herschel Gordon Lewis said about this movie a lot, which was it's like a Walt Whitman movie or a Walt Whitman poem. It's no good, but it's the first of it. It's type and that really is like, that's to me, that's half the fun of watching it. It's seeing that this is really where this whole thing started.

I don't think it outside of you know, in the mainstream, it doesn't get the credit for that that it really deserves. Most people don't even know about it, but if you've read Joe Bob briggs book Profoundly Disturbing, he devotes a chapter to this and puts it in a really good historical perspective about why they did it, and you know, how it was received. And man, I would just I'd give anything to be part of that initial audience to see this, because I can't. I just can't imagine what it was like to see Gore like that up on the screen and in such a rough way, you know, just the filmmaking technique is. It's so without technique and so cheap looking, but not in the off putting way.

To me, I just can't imagine what those people would be thinking, like what did I get myself into? Or you know, you probably had part of the audience reveling in it and part of them just walking out. There probably wasn't much of an in between you and I wouldn't think so. Herschel said that they opened this at this drive in and Purre and they thought if it bombs and Peuri and nobody's gonna know, YadA YadA, and they weren't going to go and they weren't going to watch it. But they ended up you know, him a day.

There's different versions of the same story, but they end up going. They decided to go and see I think they go on the second night. They go on Saturday to see, you know, how the movie plays, and there's a line down the road. They think there's been an accident, but as he said, we were the accident. You know.

So all of these people are packed into this drive in to go see Blood Feast. But the part I was gonna get at here was that he said that for the up until the tongue scene, you know, everybody, people are yelling out, this movie sucks. It's a bad movie, you know, and people are laughing. And then when he gets to the tongue scene, everything stops because again this was something they'd never seen before. And I think, you know, it is revolutionary, even if it's bad, even if it's very cheaply done.

You know, it's rudimentary, I guess is the word I'm looking for, which I'm more fascinated by the making of these kind of movies. That's what always draws me into these low budget movies, the stories behind them. But but you know, I just think that's it. And also when they go to the drive in. They try to get in for free, because of course they're probably both cheap.

I don't know Friedman or I never knew Freedman, but Herschel was notoriously cheap, and he had a lot of money. He had a book on advertising that got you know, reprinted, like thirty times or something, so he had money. And yet they tried to get in for free. And they told him I'm the producer and I'm the director, and the people in Peoria just looked at him like you bullshit, Like nobody would believe them. So they had to pay for their tickets in discust, I guess, and they go in and they watch it.

But I just wanted to throw that in there. I just thought that was kind of funny. That story I've heard many times. I wonder if it's apocryphal. I don't care if it is.

I still like it. Yeah, what you just said about the audience reacting, you know, like laughing until the tongue seemed reminded me of when The Exorcist got re released for the version you've never seen in the right going to that, and you know, I'm in my fifties, I've seen the extras several times, but I was with a Friday audience of a bunch of teenagers and they were making fun of it and everything until like the first possession, you know, where you actually see the Reagan is the devil, and they shut the hell up, and from then on they were like the movie, but it's like an hour to an hour and a half to get to that point, and that's probably like that. I mean, that's what you remind me of it. It's right right.

People had no idea what was in store, and you're right that. I mean this. I've seen it three times now and most recently just this last week, and I was watching it at home. The only person at home was my youngest son, and the only time I was worried about him walking in was when that tongue seed started, and I was like, oh man, this is even rougher than I remembered. I just, you know, please don't walk out here right now.

He didn't, so, you know, don't turn me into DHS or anything. It's so prolonged too, it's not immediate. It cuts away and cuts back two or three times before you even see what happens. And also on top of everything else, for what it is, and for how infamous I feel like it is for this movie, I would say that you essentially don't see anything. You see him stick his fingers in her mouth, and then you see his fingers in her mouth, and you see his fingers in her mouth, and then you see him pulling the lamb's tongue or the sheep's tongue in from out a frame.

But that's it. You don't see it. Supposedly, the only reason astrod Olsen got their role was because she was the only one that her mouth was big enough to hold two tongues. Is the thing, which I don't even want to know how they they, you know, did the casting couch thing for that or whatever, because Dave Friedman brought her in the same as he brought in Connie Mason, the Playboy playmate. But so there's that.

But then also they get the tongue. And this again could be apocryphal, but it is a good story. So supposedly the er they had the tongue for several days while they were shooting, and the refrigerator breaks down or malfunctions, and so the tongue stinks and it's nasty, and they still shoot it and still stick it in her tongue and our inner mouth, which is really disgusting. But you'd think she'd be reacting more in the you know, out of revulsion. It would be hard to just lay there silently and be dead.

I have to get that nasty thing in your mouth. But I mean, I guess if the option is I'm going to have it put back in my mouth for another take. I think I sit there and I don't move. That makes sense. That makes sense, and not for nothing.

They give out vomit bags. You know. It's like William Castle type from Ion and supposedly they were the first ones to give out barth bags. I have no idea that's true. But probably what's funny about I mean that the idea of like, you know, revulsion to the point of vomiting, which Rod you mentioned the Exorcists.

They talked about that in the Exorcist, the you know all people were huking in the aisles. All that does is just generate good publicity for really, like again, for a movie that I think the three of us would agree is fine for what it is, but what it needs to be is that scene. It just needs to build up to that scene, because even the climax of the movie is anti climb, as anti climactic as possible, given what happens about twenty three minutes into a depending on which cut you've seen, either fifty eight minutes or an hour and seven minutes, so there's about ten minutes difference. But I don't for a movie about splatter and gore, the one scene, the scenes with the gore are very quick. They're not as prolonged as you would think.

It's I mean, for a movie about blood and gore fifty eight minutes, it's probably what seven minutes of gore in a fifty eight minute if that like, it's not as prolonged as you would think now, given you know, in Terrifying, a woman is split in half over the span of like ten minutes. But you know, it's hard for us, even though we all know about film here, it's hard for us, I think now, to really fully understand that context of watching movies before nineteen sixty three, when you know you'd had these things where Western movies people get shot point blank and there's no blood and they just fall over, and so you know, when you put and apparently there were other movies like in Italy. I've seen it claimed, but I don't know that had blood before that.

But at least here it was, you know, the first of its kind. And but I think that we have to look at that context of how shocking that would have been if you'd never even seen blood in it, right, true, And like Psycho, you know you don't see the knife go in, but you think you see the knife go in, just because the editing. It's kind of the same way with the tongue and everything. How he cuts but not as skillfully obviously doesn't have to be. I mean, yeah, it delivers on the gore.

It does. It gives what it promises. It's not all of David Freeman's movies do or Herschel Gordon lewis that matter? And he definitely got gory. Heer is like you see something like I'm blanking, but you know, like there more gruls or something.

Yeah, and then the chocolate milk coming out of the I mean it's silly as can be, but he got courier even in his old age, like he knew how to pour it on, right, he knew what was going to get a reaction. And you know, well and you mentioned William Castle already. I mean That's that's what this strikes me as in a lot of ways, it's what if William Castle just embraced Gore over some of the other kind of tricks, right, because as far as I'm concerned, the way this movie uses Gore is is in a very provocative way, in a way that again William Castle would put, you know, things underneath people's seats to vibrate. I mean, it's like the Tingler. Yeah, it's it's it's provocative.

I mean, you're being a provocateur intentionally. Castle did it in a way that was advertisement based, and I mean this one did as well, sort of. But again, when people are word of mouth saying, hey, there's this movie where this woman gets a fucking tongue ripped out, Yeah, there's you know, John Wayne and everybody else is not doing that at the time. Yeah, and you know there's none of that, and that is I mean again, that's the hard thing to put this in context. And I feel like, you know, I watched this on t B one of the times, which is fucking crazy because it was free on tub right that movie that is is or was I mean, I'm assuming it's not banned anymore in the UK.

I think as of post two thousand and five, but it was banned in the UK as one of the video nasties for the longest time, like and now it's just on tub One of the things you know, we talk about, like the advertising and stuff. And you know, I love the thing that Dave Friedman did, you know, because he was like a master showman, you know. So Friedman got filed for an injunction for his own movie, to get an injunction so it couldn't play in Sarasota. And then they get it and then they advertise, you know, they advertise it based on this, and they get all this news coverage and you know, all this stuff. It's the movie that you know.

I mean, I don't think they said it those words. The movie they did wants you to see, but you know, all of a sudden, people are it's that movie, you know, And I guess if it's true. Even that first drive in in Ohio. You know, there's people picketing out there. Now.

I don't know if they're picketing on the highway. I don't know. That could have been made up to who knows. But the movie's too that the guy who produced Snuff, which is on the same league, but he used those same tactics of you know, boycotting his own movie, hiring people to pick it, hiring people to call radio stations and complain or whatever. But it is, like, I mean, I guess the William Castle thing is is kind of a good comparison if if he didn't hire Robert Block to write screenplay, you know, because it's like supposedly that the down credit you gave is Hershal using a pseudonym because he thought women or people would take a they'd be kinder if a woman wrote it or they thought a woman wrote it or something.

But yeah, I mean, it passes the Bechdel test obviously, right, Obviously this is gonna do. It's so hard, you know, it's funny. I saw that name in the credits before I even knew it wasn't a real person, and I was like, you're like, that's a puitonym for something. Yeah, that's the fakest fucking name I've ever heard, because it feels like it feels like a name that all you got to do is rearrange the letters and it's Herschel Gordon Lewis because I'm pretty sure it is. I'm pretty sure it's just those letters rearranged.

It has to be because there's no living Yeah, there was no real script. There was a there was an outline, and then they kind of put together a script with the with the cast, but it was only like fourteen pages, which tells you why there's this shit. And my guinness is, and I don't know this to be true, but my guess is some of that footage of the police stuff, which is what you're talking about, it's like a whole other movie was put in there to extend the length. I have no idea if that's true, but they do feel like two completely from movies. And the funny part about those scenes is that the cop figures out the whole thing from his office, Like he breaks the case in a chair in his office like that in the whole movie.

He's sitting there and he's figured it out, you know, and he's a hell of a detective. Yeah, they should have had him on the Zodiac case, just sits there and stares at the side. He could have done it from wherever he was at. You didn't even have to leave the town. I got it.

I just stared at the cipher and I got it. It's it's fucking bizarre to me. Yeah, the the entire conceit of where this movie goes in the second act is just, yeah, I don't it's it's the biggest YadA YadA thing I've ever seen in a movie. It's just like, oh, guitar ish tar, That's what it was. We got it.

Everybody's point the fucking stop stop movie. You don't get away with this one. But at the same time, you know, you've got people having their body parts ripped out, so the movie's not it's you know, slight of handing everybody. And look over look over here, please don't look at the shitty script. Look at the girl having her tongue ripped out of her mouth.

I think the fact that there is no script goes to the idea that probably he just knew what people were gonna want to see was the score, and aydy even bother to write a script. They just let's just throw some shit together and then we'll punctuate it every what fifteen minutes with some kind of half assed gore and then you know, we put the tongue scene kind of in the middle, and everybody walks out in there. They don't know what the hell they've just seen, but they're going to talk about it a little peekaboo nudity ton but little yeah, nothing you can see and feel like you got your money's worth, and a lot of like shots static shots of like Zenith Radio, you know, see can you hear the news news reports on?

And yeah, there's definitely a lot of patting and the out of focus shots are fantastic. And I love the newspaper article that says like it says like woman's legs cut off the exclamation point, and it's the headline like it's the weirdest fucking heavy Are you telling me that they don't write that in your neck of the woods Man with head removed on the front page. I think it just says legs cut off. It does say legs cut off, It sure does. That's great.

You read the headline underneath it, like right above the fold, and it says, uh something about a beer sipping horse. I'm sure they don't match. Yeah, you just tick that part on there. And I know why you mentioned terrifier once, but Damian Leone has to be a fan of this movie because you because because as far as I was concerned with the first one. I have not seen the second one, but I know what everybody's criticism of the second one is, this movie has no plot.

We've essentially already established that, right. Terrifier one has no plot. I think everybody who's seen it would agree. However, Terrifier two, apparently, which is two and a half hours long, is replete with all sorts of mythology and backstory and narrative and all the things I guess everybody really wanted from the first one, and then apparently in the commentary on the disc for the movie, there's even more mythology given by the director. I know.

But that's why this reminded me so much of Terrifier the first one, because that movie doesn't have a plot either. It's just for the gore of it and the practical effects. And this movie is the same thing, like you know, again, and I'm not saying people aren't doing Terrifier, but people haven't done what Terrifier was doing the way that they did it in a while that nobody had done. This is the important thing with this movie. And yeah, this movie is not great, but again, I think we've already selfish doesn't have to be and Terrifier is not great either, but it didn't have to be either.

It literally made made enough of an impact with what it was doing that it got people excited enough to go out to see the second one and it made however much money it made. And Herschel Gordon Lewis does the exact same thing from here on out with his own movies, ramping up the Gore, ramping it up, making giving people more of what they want, which is more Gore. Right, ducks, I'd like, well, I don't want mythology in my Herschel Gordon this movies, i'n't want them. They tried. Even in this movie, they're like, look at Ramsy's back in the day.

It's like, who cares for Ishtar? Who's not even the Egyptian? Yeah, yeah, it's just so simple. Here's an exotic caterer who is killing people, right, Yeah, but I love to read either. And I'm sure you guys saw this.

Like the reason that they even put the Egyptian shit in there was at the at the hotel where they were all staying, there was an eight foot tall Spinkx outside and they and he thought this would be cool, and so they just inserted a bunch of Egyptian lore. I guess you would call it Egyptian crap quote unquote, but into the I was gonna say the script, but they don't really have one, so Is inserted it into their way of thinking. It's building production. That's right. Hey, yeah, People say, was that actually shot in Egypt?

Oh look at that sphinx during the closing shot? It must have been shot in Cairo on location with Herschel my god Lewis. Yeah, in nineteen sixties Egypt. Yeah, right, absolutely, Jesus. But I do like the juxtaposition, you know at the end where you go from the gore and then you have the picture of the sphinx, Sphinx with no nose, And I always wondered if that was an on purpose thing, you know, because it's like, haha, he has no nose either, And I don't know, but it'd be about as good a joke as anything else that's in the movie.

You're about as well thought out, you know. And so that's the other thing I was wondering with the movie. And you know, Hershel Gordon Lewis says like, why did they why did the people of variety take this so seriously? I was wondering that again from a more modern perspective, less the nineteen sixties perspective. How much of this feels tongue in cheek to you guys?

Like how much a lot of Just like I don't understand how anyone took this shit seriously at all. So according to mel Arnold, who was the you know, was the Egyptian guy Fuawed that looks very age to look old, but actually it looks like he's twenty five, which is ridiculous. According to him, Herschel purposely was getting everyone else to act can't be but told him to act strue, which his performance is pretty terrible also, so in a different way, you know. But so that makes you think that, you know, Herschel knew exactly what he was going for. I have no idea that's true.

But because there wasn't really much culty things in nineteen sixty three, right, like, maybe he's inventing cult if you wanted to see the true I mean, yes, I agree with you, Andrew, there's tongue in cheek. Definitely. The true tongue in cheek version of this is one of its rip offs, The Undertaker and Its Pals, which is also set in the food service in industry, and it was nineteen sixty six. I think it wasn't directed by Ted V. Michgols or Michaels whatever, but he did the Corpse Grinders though right he didn't produce it or presented it or something.

But it it like it has the like the women all have names that go with food, so like, well, his name is is like Mary Lamb, and so they kill her in the next day's menu, says leg of Lamb, you know. So it's like that's the true pun elbow in your rib sort of version of blood feast, like makes you know what really I want And just to throw this in there, I wanted to do a book on Ted B. Michaels right after this, and I got a hold of him, and when we talked, he was like, I don't want anyway. We can't use the terms could because I'm offended by that. We can't use cold or you know, trash, which I wasn't gonna say trash in his book him, but I mean, maybe it's kind of trash, but you know, and I mean, but he was just so reverent about his films, which was exactly opposite of Herschel.

Herschel tells a story or told the story he's gone now, but Herschel told a story about he hadn't heard anything about these movies in a long long time. And I don't know what year this is. I guess since like in the eighties. He gets a telephone call and somebody says, is this Herschel Gordon Lewis And he says yes, and they say, are you the one that directed? And I can't remember which movie it was, maybe he named off a couple and he says yes, And they said he wanted to fly him somewhere, he and his wife, and they were going to screen his movies.

And he told his wife this is a big joke on us. They're going to make fun of us. But it's a free trip. Again. This goes along with Herschel's cheapness, because he's like, we get a free trip out of this.

And they go and much to his shock, everyone loves his stuff and they're very excited. And you never expected I think we're planned it or what really wanted it, but you know, figured he could make some money on it later on. It's kind of a neat love story. Well, you know, Andy, you your book about Tommy wiseo I'm sure talks at length about him trying to retroactively claim, oh, I made the movie this way, this was my intention all along, which this is when Herzel Gordon Lewis was that strikes me that same shit where it's like, right, I don't know, does it matter, but don't try to put one over on everybody that you knew what you were doing, because this movie would have been significantly different if it had been campy.

Well, you know, and we're talking about a time when you screened the movie and it was gone, right, and these weren't going to screen on TV effort, so there was no VHS. There's none of this. So you know, as far as he knows, these are going to screen one time, maybe somebody to be able to see it a couple of times, but then they're gone. So there's no reason really to think about legacy here. You know, he's not thinking about what people are going to figure out down the road or look at or who Why would he possibly thought anybody's gonna analyze this movie?

Right, He's thinking, I'm gonna get in, I'm gonna make a quick box. I guarantee you that's it. Because literally every conversation we had about Emmy thing was about money. You know. Here's an example, Like I asked him to write an introduction for that horror book, the one that Rod brought up earlier.

We had done a book on the one hundred and one Scariest Movies and it has an introduction by Herschel. And I asked Herschel, if I paid you two hundred dollars, which you know whatever, if I gave you two hundred dollars, would you write this introduction? And he sends back the introduction once the two hundred dollars that day, and it's like, well, Herschel, I'm poor, I work at nine to five job. Man, I'm going to have to get you this two hundred dollars like in a couple of weeks. And he was super excited about that.

But he was ready to get that money. Man. He's old school like that. He's old school. Even the day when I pitched in the book, he's I wanted to do a book.

I was going to do a book on him to start with. And he says, and how much of this money in, Mike could I get? Which there's no money in that. There's no big market for that book. And I said, well, it can be your book.

You can. We can split it fifty to fifty, which fifty to fifty of you know, nothing is not very sub stantial. But he did manage to get the publisher to pay him some money though well before it had sold anything. So that's hersil Godah. I was interviewing him about his time in Oklahoma City working and starting his career here in TV and radio, and he shot a couple of movies in Oklahoma.

But I asked him if you know, basically, if he was going to come out of retirement and do another one, and he was like, if I'll do anything, if someone's ready to pay me, I'll be there tomorrow. So he was all about I don't think he cared. If you've seen some of the stuff he's put his name to, like late in his career, like he presented of ornithology that I can't even name of it, but it was really, really terrible. He probably not even watched it, but yeah, exactly, I'm sure you know, he filmed a little thing at the beginning and let his name to it, and I'm sure just for the paycheck, not that it was huge, but it was not nothing. Well, he was really excited about, you know, having sold the rights to Blood Feast Too, and I don't think which he did not direct.

For the people that are listening that don't know, but you know, there was a guy that wanted to make a sequel to Blood Feast Too. It's forty years later down the road or something, and Marshall's like, giving my money. He was very excited. He advertised the movie somewhat. He was even giving away copies of our book on Indiegogo or one of those sites I can't remember to help raise the money.

But he got his money for his best belief, because that's what he was, and I'm good for him. I can't fault him for that. But he even had a quote that he had said something about I pity anyone who sees film as an art form rather than a way to make money. And I'm paraphrasing that, but it's pretty close. So I haven't seen Blood Feast Too.

I thought he did direct it, but I just wasn't interested in it. It's ben't the idea why. I don't know. It's like, can't go to that well twice especially after and maybe he did directed, I can't remember, but I know he was excited to get paid. Yeah, it's just not the same.

And there is one of his late movies, one of his last ones he did that I kind of find a lot of fun to watch, even though again all its faults and as many called the uh oh Show, it's like a game show type thing where people get killed, and that I enjoyed more because it was He's like, returning to Gore is not returning to the story. You know, there's not enough story in Blood Feast one to continue in Bloodfeast two, So I'm not interested in in that. I have seen the remake of the Wizard of Gore and thought, well, this is worthless. It's just he just can't you know, l like and can't same thing with two thousand and me or yeah, two thousand Meniac got remade, and I mean I wasn't great either back, but it lacks, you know whatever.

I'm not saying that his movies are good by any stretch, but they have a spark of something. You know, they're their own thing, and you can't in the same way that you can't just create a cult movie on purpose, you can't create your own Herschel Gordon Lewis Lovia. I mean after the fact, try to recreate that. I mean again, Tommy wiseoua is an after comparison. Look how many times he tried to redo the rep I mean everything else.

I mean, that's the thing. It feels like a lot of these directors are chasing that first high right, like they're chasing the drag, and then they also want to be you know, retroactively, be like, well, i knew what I was doing, so it's I'm really smart and it's a cult film. It's like, that's that has never been how this worked, And maybe it only worked that way in a couple cases. But even the things that I mean are looked at as like the shining hill of cult movies, like a rocky horror picture show that was a thing before it was even a movie. So that I mean, in a lot of ways, that's a bad example.

This is a good example of a cult movie. One percent. This is a movie that, like, literally in twenty twenty four, why would anyone watch this movie? Because it's a movie that's worth talking about and watching because of where it where. It puts itself in a chronological timeline of things that will come much later that would not exist without something like this.

At least not the way that we see it now. I mean, I'm sure somebody would have gotten a wild hair up their ass at some point in the sixties. Rod, you've already mentioned similar things. I'm sure we could go around the table and talk about other things that were coming out at the same time, but this is that first one, and that's you can't get around that. Nothing can get around.

Rod mentioned Joe Bob Briggs earlier, and there was a quote by Joe Bob Briggs and I can't remember what it's from, but where he made fun of it sort of and he said the tongue in cheek, you know, Herst Gordon Lewis decided to make a horror movie. So he opened up the freezer and started pulling out meats and throwing them on the floor, and you know, were his gore, you know. And it's kind of funny. I mean, it's just here's a tongue, here's some here's a heart of an animal. Pull it out of a woman.

I don't know, I just always cut that thought that was kind of like I think I cut rawd off again. I'm getting really good at that, even though I'm not interested in seeing a sequel to Blood Feast, like he was lucky to make several other movies that are also still true cult films, but he also has a just a ton of pure shit that note, and he didn't even know what movies he had. Yeah, Like there there is probably movies that are still missing because like he couldn't verify or not verify, you know. I think we ended up coming up with something like thirty eight movies he had directed or co directed, and thirty five he had absolutely directed, and but he couldn't say for sure there weren't two or three more out there exactly.

So that's how inconsequential they were to him. He'd't even write them down or keep track of them, you know, right. It was about day in the money, out of eature of him, the next town, and then when it plays out started or they would do it until the broke here whatever, until it was unsalvageable and make another. One thing I love about this movie that we didn't talk about is that it's my favorite part of the movie absolutely is There's a part I think it's the cops where they say all of these murders are the same, but they're not. Every one of them dies in some completely different funky way, you know, whet of them gets their eye popped out or what it cut out, and then there's a leg cut off over here.

There's a heart pulled out over here, and they're like all of the murdersery and they're not in the ones in the bathtub, ones on the beach there. They're one person for no reason at all that is discernible. He tries to kidnap her, like, yeah, it's just willy milly. But I just love that line, which is probably ad lib. You know, all of the murders are obviously the same.

I think in the beginning it's there's something like already seven have happened or something, uh step, but in two weeks. I think it was seven killings in two weeks. So that guy's like every other day he's you know, flat is on the on the ball. But yeah, there's a you know, they all have they're all mutilated in one way or another. I guess that's what the cops meant.

But the Playboy model also like he had told me she could never remember a single line of dialogue. He didn't want her on the movie. That was Friedman's thing. We could probably make some guesses is why Friedman put her in the movie. But I think she got like one hundred and seventy five dollars total to be in the movie, which I'm sure Rehearschal didn't even want to spend that.

And but she can't remember any lines. And when you watch her, you could tell she's reading the cue guard, especially the part where she's talking to her mom about having the party and she's like, it just I can't remember the line. It's something like the murders just ruin everything, you know, And you can see her eyes going back and forth. It's great at a time like all this, I think is the line, like, yeah, she's like at a time like this, cud. She's well, she's the best looking one in the movie, but I mean not the best acting though, And that's it's bad when you're the worst actor in this movie, and I think she is.

But she's the best to look at. I'll say, I don't think she's really any worse than the others. She does get in every I know, but in every interview I think I've read where they talk about this movie, man, it's almost like they go out of their way to bash her. That I think they obviously had a personality contic something. I think she was at Iva like she thought because yeah, thing was because she was in Playboy.

She thought she was a big star, and supposedly she tore up her hotel room. And I have no idea, like what you know, doing rock star party, kicking out the TV. I mean that sounds unbelievable a little bit, but I just don't. I don't think it's deserved. As much as they smash her, when you look at everyone else's performance, they're anti performances almost, and I think she's just as bad as the others.

I wouldn't say she's the worst, but I'm compare to the median line of badness. They're all pretty close. Yeah. I mean, she can hold her arms up for a long time, that's true. She looks pretty good laying by the pool.

She looks really good by the pool. And you know that's why she got cast. That's the business show business, right, Like, that's the business part of the business. There's no business like show business. There is no and there's no business like a whole business.

Oh maybe that's but anyway different movie. I digress. Well, but what's funny is you mentioned the kind of the old school way that they were conducting themselves. I mean, that's the thing about this movie, is it's clear that that's the case. I mean, all of this just smacks of you know, obviously the gore is atypical of the time, but everything else just feels like a poorly made movie from the sixties.

If you remove the gore from the movie, nobody would be watching this. Literally, people would be laughing this movie. I mean, without the gore, there's very little that this movie does right unfortunately, which I think is obviously such a saving grace for the movie and obviously Herschel Gordon Lewis's career, because it's not like he doesn't deviate away for what he's doing here with the gore for the rest of his career. He's always kind of still playing in this similar exploitative, subversive sandbox, and there's nothing wrong with that. But I mean, again, it's funny how many legs you care, how how long of legs you can get out of something like this.

No pun intended. He took legs in the oven. I was curious and any even might know this. Did this play in any HARDtalk theaters or was it only drive in. I'm not sure.

I think it probably did, but you know, because they kind of went around, like you said, from town to town, I think it's more most of its life was lived in. I do know though, that wherever it played it the first few times it was a double feature with a newdy qt sex comedy they had made called Boying, which you know, so it would have been a weird double feature, probably equally acted in both. But I love that title. By the way, what agreed? Yes my young exclamation point not just boy young, you're young?

So is that in reference to breasts or a wiener? Maybe it's the breastmade the wiener go why young? That's what I was wondering, That's what I thought. But right, yeah, right, exactly. So we were talking about the actress, why she played boy model, why she might have and you know, I was just thinking about it.

It's not anything I've ever given any thought about before. But if Herschel doesn't like her and the others don't like her, and she's supposedly be but my guess is that she held up the production somewhat. In time is money kind of thing, because when it comes to money again, money is king in Herschel's world, or was and you know, if it costs money, because he obviously was not a big fan of hers, and there were no double takes. I mean no, he didn't do second takes, he said, except for when they there was things that were absolutely awful, and looking at what's in the movie, it bears the question what were those things? Like, what were those takes that were so bad?

It seems like you'd almost put the goofs and the flubs in, you know, that's all right, just put it on in. Well, that's the thing, Like I kind of mentioned, how much of this you guys think it's tongue in cheek, because if it had been me making this, I would have leaned heavier into that. But again, that's not the intention here. The intention here is the gore is the focus. It's how many times can we put this up on screen with the budget that we have, without you know, again, without really having to go out of our way to create a plot.

You know, like you mentioned, you have a woman being kidnapped and then she's just being whipped, which seems like just another reason to have again for no reason, seemingly no reason, and then we find her, you know, face down on a bloody table. Five minutes later, it's like, oh, okay, this existed solely to have this continuous shot just all the way panning down her body from ted to toe, which takes like a minute just to show every single gory detail. Like if that's what this was about, Okay, got it, and that's going into the movie. The third time I watched it, I was like, Okay, I just have to watch this solely as what is the gore being used for? Because again, that is all this is about.

Like it it reminded me of Deranged, if Deranged had less value in its plot, like it's just trying to be subversive, but Deranged has a performance at the center of it that is a lot more interesting. I mean, it comes eleven years after this, obviously, but I would say in terms of the gore and the sickening stuff shown on screen, that was a typical of that time too, in a way that this one is for time it came out, but a performance at the center of it that's memorable goes a long way. And mal Arnold's not bad, but I mean he's bad, but in a way that the movie is also equally. He was working on stage at the time he got this role, and he says his agent called him. All of this is weird.

You think, here's a guy off Broadway working who has an agent and he's here. He is with these dark and weird eyebrows and the white shit in his hair to look like an old man, and he doesn't look old at all, and he's doing those weird eyes. You know, it's funny. He only uses the hypnotizing eyes once, but they keep doing it for the zoom in on his big eyes. And the first time it's you know, he's kidnapped.

I mean, he's hypnotizing the woman. What the hell's the point of it. The other times just remind us he's the same creepy guy we saw on the other scene. I guess. You know, the eyes are expressive, so they're very expressed.

He's always popping on that. So, Chris, are you telling me you weren't riveted by the whole book club scene where the guy lectures for like five minutes. I think that's where they lash back to ish Tar and all that. But that to me was this time especially was just a haitians tester or not not the hit fast forward. But I didn't but that's fine.

You deserve an a word for that. Yeah, it's fun should already seen it twice and you knew what was happening at that point. You got a best story. It's so it's so much just like an exposition dump in the worst way. It's like, you know, I don't care about any of this, like this, this doesn't add to my enjoyment of the movie.

All it does is again, it just feels kind of like it's forced into this movie, like somebody just forces it. It's like the Terrifier two thing, where all of a sudden you have forced exposition. Nobody wants that in this movie. Yeah, well and that ship right. Well, you're in the looking for the wrong kind of movie if that's what you're here for, Like you're not, you're not really aware of what the expectations are.

I was here to see the New Trophoe, but I actually accidentally walked into Blood Feast. Yeah, I mean that's what you know. You know. It's it's funny you say that because our house, like as independent as this is. I'd love how bright and colorful it is, because if it were I don't think I would enjoy it because it looks like a sitcom almost.

Uh, the color is still top. That's part of the appeal. If it looked dirty and grungey and grimy, it would feel more nihilistic maybe, you know, and just leave a bad taste. My amount versus this is kind of fun. I feel like the intent would have actually I don't know intent, but the vibe would have been completely different, I think, and I don't know they would like I seen it with today, I absolutely agree, and I think it's about getting that blood and bright red.

Yeah. Well, and to your point to be thinking about something like Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I don't go back and watch that movie very often because of the way it is just how gross and grimy it makes me feel. But I would put this on before I would put Texas Chainsaw on again, just based on again how over exaggerated it's. It's again produced.

I mean, the production designed by this movie. They knew what they were doing. The colors and the juxtaposition of the blood is I mean, the gore is what you're here for. But they don't slack on the production design. Even that scene.

I mean, it's so bizarre. The guy giving the lecture about the Egyptian stuff in front of this, like I don't know, like a fucking wall, I don't know what. Like they went down to the local hardware store, like a Walmart, who got a thousand yards of cloth and just hung it up behind him. I don't know. It's so bizarre, but at the same time, it kind of works with how bizarre everything else is.

Again, though, this is the kind of shit where I think, you know, were they running short on running dive because again, obviously those cop scenes were shot somewhere else. The majority of them were in that office, and I really have to think that some of that and he never said that, and I'm probably wrong, but it feels like they were shot completely separately at a different time and stuck in there, and which would explain we need two more or five more minutes. Let's put a scene in here where he explains how he knew where he'd learned about Egyptian member quote unquote Egyptian crap bringing that went back. That's right, we're having a throwback there, call back I and and you know the thing with the Egyptian blood feast.

You know, again, it's so ambiguous as to what it is. I appreciate that there's not like they don't spend a lot of time getting into the particulars of it, which is I mean good and bad for the movie as long as they're not over explaining everything. When they over explain things, the movie slows down, yes, but thankfully they don't get caught up and explaining it. But at the same time, my issue with the end of the movie is, like it it really just wraps up out of nowhere. I was not expecting our villain to get in the back of a garbage truck and just god, just die.

It's shocking, in like in the stupidest way possible. It was shocking. Oh it is. It's terrible, and everything else is gory. Why don't we see him get smashed?

You just throw it dummy in there and fill it up with blood and watch it gets smashed. I mean, that would be kind of fitting with the rest of the movie. But you just see that hand and some gore, some blood. You know, that could have been the very last thing, like, oh, we got to end the ro out of money? How do we end it?

There? You go, Yeah, it's got to be you know. One thing I didn't realize until this watch is that the production come and he is named, ironically Manson International. I thought, certainly that's got to be some kind of retroactive joke, but it wasn't like that was from the fifties. It's just it just adds to the movie for me, Like the Frame one, you're kind of in that weird headspace, right, what's acceptable and pushing the boundaries of taste and independent horror filmmaking, especially independent filmmaking at that time, was so fascinating in that and jumping around just a hair here, But I'm pretty sure and I can't remember that Herschel made some movies like this, but I know other people did.

There were theater chains that would pay people, they would finance movies that would only show in their chain, and so they were producing their own movies. Then they didn't have to pay any fees to screen the movies, because I remember Last House on the Left was one of them that was made like that. And it starts out as a as a teddy movie somewhat, and then it ends up being what it is. And I just find all of that, you know, fascinating, These theater chains going finance a movie and know nothing about what it's gonna be. Here's some money Herschel Gordon Lewis bring us Blood Feast.

That's how it was to be a porn Yeah, it was gonna have porn in it. And I just wrote about this in the new book I'm working on. And there was a scene where one of them was supposed to chew in. One of the women chewed another woman's breast off, and then she said she wouldn't do it, So they apparently there was a bunch of cannibalistic stuff that got cut out. And that movie had like several lives of you know, among this between you know, that's a different one, different episode.

Have uspect for that. Yeah, I've never seen that movie either, shock you like you talked that like that gots back to my grimy thing, like I right, it feels dirty until fifteen twenty years ago, and I just felt like I needed a shower. Yeah, and I by now, I'm you know, by then like I've seen everything, you know, I'm you know, it's like nothing can really shock me. And then but that movie was like, oh, like I just feel gross. That's the way I feel when I watch Texas Chainsaw massacres.

Same thing when she falls out of the Room of Bones. I'm like, fuck this this is that is that is a like that is a really text change that I think is really well made, and it is kind of a downer, it does like I didn't revisit it for a long time because of that. But it's Disney compared to Last House on the Left, I think it almost feels like a snuff film, and you know, yeah, it's so oh just intentionally like I don't I don't know rot you know what's funny about that? Really? Quich I just learned this when I was working on that book, but there was it was just a chapter in it.

It was the whole book on that. But one thing I found interesting was that I can't think of the actress's name that's in that, but she actually thought that the cast members were trying to kill her. Did you see this? So they're all living together in the same house and they treat her like shit through the whole shoot, and they're pushing her around and David has to scaring her all the time, and apparently Wes Craven knows this and kind of thinks it's funny, so they use it to their advantage. They just scared the shit out of this poor lang.

Every time they're filming and Wes Andre Ernian Wes Anderson, that'd be weird. Uh. Wes Craven laughs in an interview later on about how she he thought she thought she was in a snuff filt and they thought it was hilarious, Like, that's not it's pretty shitty about it. If it's effect, if she looks terrified, Yeah, and it's weird. Do you think how the hell would this even happen?

I mean, if we're able to use something thing like that for this, he'd be like, that's a cheap way to do it. Just actually kill somebody. They don't have to make don't make it. They're dead, that's right, And you don't have to pay them exactly, We'll pay you at the end of the shoot. Yeah, So you guys kind of open to the topic.

So I want to go a little further down and outside of Blood Feast, are there any other splatter movies that that y'all would suggest if people are looking to check out some splatter films beyond this one, ones that might resonate with y'all more than Blood Feast. Given you guys were adamant you wanted to be on this episode, both of y'all. So I knew you had a lot to say about it, But there's got to be some other splatter films that jump out at you all. I've got to assume or Herschel Gordon Lewis, you know. Two Thousand Maniacs I think is like Andrew said, it's probably his best.

The Gruesome Twosome is a lot of fun. You know. None of these are quote unquote good. But the Wizard of the Gorgore Girls, I guess too, like he made a number of that really color. Yeah, blood red red, of course, that's the which the Bucket of Blood?

Which one came first? Atter? Bucket of Blood? I think Bucket of Blood right, because it's a rip off basically of the Pate movie. I have to be well checked, right, Not that it really matters because it was nineteen sixty five.

Bucket of Blood was fifty nine, So yeah, go, but yeah, other splatter movies, O, men, that's like a huge I mean, if you want to go in the route of like bizarre and how much of this was intended, I would say pieces from was that nineteen eighty or so? That is pretty fucking crazy movie. And as some dialogue in it that the early eighties was a good time for those, you know, like that was the height of these constantly showing up on the you know, at the video store, these these slasher movies, you know, and most of them are awful. But you know, when I was a kid, you couldn't have told me these were terrible. And I've written them every WEEKND like based on these covers that looked creepy.

You know. I'm trying to think of some others. It's I mentioned I always think slasher versus splatter, and they're not always. They're not always to say, the Pieces is a good pieces. It's definitely a fun one.

Uh man, I cannot think of being a tough herd. Well, it's probably not a fan of Rob zombie movies. I think his movies would count at least Devil's Rejects probably. I like it's the only one I like is Devil's Rejects, because I like that gratty you went to my greedy. It's got that seventies gritty.

I feel like it is the only one that succeeds in that, or really succeeds at anything. Fair. Yeah, I like I like that, and I like the first The House of the corpses. But what's weird is they feel completely different, like they don't. And then all three of those movies in that series because the third one's gone all but yes, they're just three, yeah, thank god, and they all field completely different.

I guess maybe it's his mindset at the time. I don't know. But oh, I've got another one, like an independent. It's from the seventies. I Drink your blood.

That's I guess. I'm sorry, satanic hippies. It has some gore in it, and uh, it's it's fun. It holds up. I mean again, it's not it's not a great film, but it's at least tries more than Lewis ever did.

Right, Canna splatter film be a good film. I don't see why not. Yeah, I mean just Driller Killer kind of tried. I mean, it tried to be an artsy movie and you splatter even though I mean, I don't really like Driller Killer, but Donilla did. Would kind of count that.

The for the Georgia Merra original, that is quite pretty gory, uh, at least what I remember. And it's a real movie. Yeah, it's a real movie, and it's good. I mean, I think, I mean We've mentioned it already once this month, But I think for me, like the peak of these movies is is Brain Dead Peter Jackson. Oh, I mean I think that's like that's like the top of this for me, Like that would be the one.

We're not covering it this month because they're like, I like that movie too much to cover it. Like I just I will fawn over it for an hour and a half. You know. It's a splatter movie that I really like that people don't. I feel like we don't talk about enough and is one that makes you feel gross and dirty mania like the Lustig movie that comes out in like eighty and I mean it's so just scummy and awesomely perfect.

Yeah that's okay. So that's when I never wanted to see again. But that kind of gets into the Luccio Fulci territory, like those are just yeah, and some of those I think are a lot of fun, and then some of them, like New York Ripper, it's like, yeah, little too. I keep saying, you know, Argenta was going to work on like the they were going to make a movie together, uh Lustig And I'm trying to think of the producer's named Andy Garoni I think that's his name, and and u Argento and then the movie they ended up making after Argenda falls away as Maniac. It would have been interesting scare Argento in bolkd directly in Maniac.

But I don't know how differently it would have turned out. Maybe to ended up with like this killer score to go with it, but maybe some bright colors. Right. Yeah, that's that's a good one. I mean that that's a perfect example right there.

I've never seen many I love Maniac. The remake sucks, but I've heard I've heard the remakes, okay, but it just feels like a whole other movie. Man. I mean, I like, what point is it a remake and at what point is it a name only? Yeah, I don't think it's a true remake.

It's it's its own thing. Like have you seen the what's the actor's name that's in Maniac? The little greasy guy he's in He passed Away, He's in The God Fox. He's a taxi driver. Yeah, Joe Spinel.

That guy's amazing, and he played a very specific kind of character and almost everything he shows up in all these great movies at the end of the seventies and he was great. Ye had a very specific look and vibe. He was kind of creepy and Elijah Wood and him are not the fucking same thing. The Just Banil movie that I seen more than once on purpose is the last horror movie. I think.

It's what it's called Carolyn Monroe. Carolyn Monroe, and I don't think I've ever actually watched that. Yeah, it's fun, and part of it is shot like at the can Film Festival, you know, but you'll permit stuff like that, right right. It has a bizarre ending that comes out of nowhere and isn't in tune with the rest of the movie, which is one reason to watch it. But yeah, that's another.

It kind of fits in with what we're talking about in that one. Definitely, definitely. But I try and remember how much splattered there isn't it. I know there's some, but I can't say for sure how much disappointed nobody brings up Cannibal Holocaust. He doesn't love Cannibal Holocaust.

Yeah, and we even went we were talking about the Italian movies that we just moved right on past, well probably read Yeah, Cannibal Holocaust is one of those movies. I mean, we covered it I've seven eight years ago at this point now, Like it's one of those movies where I enjoyed it in college for what it was, which was something you could put on and be like, hey, you're seeing this movie. But now it's just like it again. It feels so passe, like it's just so quaint. And then the killing of an actual animal, as I know everybody gets really upset about, which I understand.

You know, it's part of the perversive, bucked up nature of the movie that they did that, Like that was part of being exploited. It was to show people something they literally were not going to see ever. Well, and like you I saw it when I was you know, at that age and you're like whoah, you know, you're kind of shocked by this, and you want to be shocked and you want to share it with other people. I'm like, this is real. These are real cannibals, you know.

And at the age when like, oh god, what was that basis of death? You know, which half of it's not supposedly not real or whatever. I don't know, But when I saw it, I was in high school, and I was like, you know, we were like horrified kind of by this on the download. We wouldn't say it, but it was crazy creepy shit. You see a woman get hit by a train or whatever.

All this crazy shit is a monkey having the surgery done on its brain. Oh yeah, but that was fake. That was fake, for sure. That was fake. But there were like three or four volumes of that.

Yeah, my favorite. When I interviewed I interviewed John Russo and a million years ago, you know, and I asked he was saying that. I said, so, do you think that there's anything that shouldn't be like that is off the table to make in a movie? And he said no. And I said, do you feel like there's a place for something like say faces of that?

John Russo says, yeah, there's a place for it. Write up the producer's ass who made that? And I always thought that was kind of kind of a good quote. You know. I didn't do it justice, but I didn't what do you gotta do?

I didn't have a curmudgeon liness to John Russo might have had, you know, bringing up cannibal holocaust that that also took advantage of the advertising and the like Lewis obviously knew how to do, which you know, bannedon X number of countries. And I think a lot of the attention that film got was not always intentional, because I believe that director had to go to court to prove he didn't really kill the people in it. Unless I'm thinking of a different Cannabi. No, you're you're thinking a kid that's that's cannibal. Oh cost Yeah, Like he hid them, had them hide for like, you know, not going to public or whatever, like a year or something, and he had to drag him into court to prove that it was not true snuff film.

Yeah. Yeah, And you know it's the Barber Streisand effect, right, like if you're you know, you're trying to hide something. And I mean that's the thing, like, I mean, that's what David Friedman understood about advertising with this movie is make it look like they don't want to see it, which is the best way for people to get excited about seeing something is if you tell them they can't see it. So and look, it worked this movie. We're still talking about it in twenty twenty four.

I think about the infamous William Friedkin Nicholas Winding refin interview where Nicholas Winding referend mentions in the same breath as Citizen Kane in two thousand and one, he mentions only God forgives and drive as masterpieces, and Friedkin goes, get this man a doctor, because he's fucking insane, right is he? It's hard to tell what's going to be important, and within a couple of years in it coming out, it takes time for us as a society and especially as content creators and people that make things, to have things take hold and be important. And we're still talking about Blood Feast in twenty twenty four. It just got re released on an arrow. People seem to have this need to want to immediately label things masterpieces, like five minutes after it they saw it for the first masterpiece.

You know, it seems like there's this knee jerk reaction to called brand new thing it's masterpiece. And you're right, you know, you don't know until you can objectively stand back and look at something with time, right, you know, what is a masterpiece or what is uh? Blood Feast? But I mean it's a cult, you know, but it's not a masterpiece. Speaking of not masterpiece, I'm guessing because I haven't seen it, but it was remade and a few years ago that's just called blood.

I saw that. Yeah, I haven't seen the movie, but I see that. It's a thing that exists now, an actual, true remake. I'm sure it's terrible, but I guess if you haven't seen Sea, this is your jumping off point. How good could it be?

That's and that's the thing. I don't understand why anyone would want to remake this movie like that. You're missing the point so hard of what this is. If you want to remake it, It's like, do you have an actual script? Then you're doing it wrong.

Yeah, exactly, there's no story the first time around. Guys come on in a weird way. It's IP, just like everything that was driven by IP at the studios these days, right right, dumb circles like ours. Blood Feast has you know a little bit of cachet. Yeah, it was a brand, just not much to be made from that brand anymore.

Right, Well, and that's the thing. I mean. Arrow re released these movies in the Herschel Gordon Lewis Feast in twenty seventeen on Blue Reading, and people bought it. They're still selling it like it's again, like, yes, most people don't know about Blood Feast but I would contend most people don't need to because the people that it's the people that it's for are for people that are I mean, at this point in its history, it is purely a historical piece that is wants to appreciate it for their historical context within which it exists. And I don't think normal filmgoers are going out of their way to watch a movie like this because in a lot of ways it doesn't have any inherent value as a as a subjective piece.

The gore is great and all that stuff, but objectively theoretically to most people, who would have no value because you're not going to walk out of the theater from seeing Oppenheimer and then immediately throw a Blood Feast on as a double hatter there. I don't know. I haven't watched Oppenheimer for plenty of reasons, one of them being I'm not a huge Crystollan guy, so I'd rather watch Blood Feast again than watch Oppenheimer. Oh shit at all. I saw them the same week, So I did you really?

So you kind of did do the I'm trying to think if there was anything in between. I don't know. Well, we never talked about the snake on the Beach. That was another cool, free production value thing that was sort of thrown in there. We kind of talked about the kissing cup on the beach.

That was kind of just a bizarre murder that doesn't over acting of the movie is right there with that guy. Oh, but Friedman apparently had always wanted to have a snake in a movie, so they put it in there for no reason. They spent fifty dollars of their budget to buy the snake and it got loose on the beach and one of the actors had previously worked for Wrinling Brothers and he trapped it on the mall. That surprises me. They actually paid for it, and they also it looks like they paid for a book binding or the book cover for the ancient weird religious rights textbook of the best name for the best fake name for a book ever.

Well, if you went to a book club like the characters did, you might think differently. Well, you might not have even needed the book, see, because you could have just had another flashback she was there. Also, you have the same thing like Rashamon from Two Angles exactly ancient weird religious rights as a hell of a book title. You know, exactly what you're getting yourself into it. It could have named the movie though, that would have been quite catchy.

You know. Last thing I wanted to point out that we never covered, well, we did talk about the score briefly, him doing the score, but it is the simple score. It's like two drum beats as slowly paced in between as you could possibly get without forgetting that there was a drum beat before. Like that's the score. And well then you have that crappy organ music where it's just like it sounds like Carnival of Souls, you know where you're just because he didn't know how to play any instruments properly, but he didn't want to spend the money saying about it.

Yeah, and it works totally. I did get I probably will see this again at the next how many years I've left in my life, I probably will watch it again. I do enjoy it. It's it's you know, as like you said, as historical curio. It exists for that, but I do think it's just like the right people will find it.

And oh that's what I was going to say. Yeah, it ties back to when Andrew was talking about person calling up herschel in the eighties and saying, are you the guy that made this movie? Like the right people will find it and those you know, not everyone is going to enjoy it, but some people will, and you're one of them. I am. I am one.

That's awesome by you, Andy. I admired the movie in the way that like it got made in I mean, I mean that as a joke. I mean, anytime a movie gets made, it's a bad deal, and we all make fun of them or whatever. But it takes a lot of effort, even in a movie that only has one take things in it, you know, And here we are, like you said, talking about it many years later, I, like I said, I always am fascinated with the making of stories. How these movies, especially no budget movies by people that aren't technically verse real filmmakers, you know, I mean, somebody that has an advertising day job.

It just goes and shoots a gore movie on the weekend. I mean, that's fascinating, I think, and I think you know, so this is no different than any of those I like it. I unlike Rod, I will not watch it again. I'm sure even this time. I just looked up flips because I thought, well, I've sat through it before.

I didn't need to do that to myself multiple times. But one might even say you wrote the book on it. That's right, I did. But you know it's funny. I have not seen every movie in the book, which is terribly that's terrible.

But I was young and I thought, I just need to get Herssel to tell me the stories of these That's all I did. Why sit through every one of those if you didn't have to? I too, love the making of stories. And you know this is discussed in the Herschel Gordon Lewis documentary. That's something weird put out called The Godfather of Gore, which that's your book's title too, right there, don't you have?

Yeah, there is a book called The Godfather Gore and the Godfather of speaks sweet because it's technically viras right. But I would love an entire documentary just on this movie. I know it's not gonna. I would too, guys are gone, But but I do love what there is and that that film, that documentary, entire documentary is a blast. Even if you never had seen those movies or intend to see them, you may not need to.

Like, even if you don't ever want to see a Lewis movie. I think a lot of people would get a lot out of that documentary just just for that reason alone, just to see what the fuss is all about, with none of the boring parts. But I throw a funny aside in here real quick about a documentary. So there's somebody got a hold of me when that documentary Skin came out, you know, about the history of nudity in film, and I had not seen it, and somebody got a hold of me, Oh my god, you should check this out. That the cover of your book is in it.

So I'm like, okay, okay, So I go and I watch it, and this is the thankless job that the authors have is that. So I put the whole book together, I got herschel, I led the thing, I did the thing. But they cut out my name. They cut they cut out my name in the documentary and so just a picture of the book raised above without my name in it, and I was like, you motherfuckers. So it was almost a really amazing moment for me.

Then not that's kind of how That's how most of the good moments in my life have been. Is almost amazing. Pretty good. Yeah, your your placement the name placement on that company is just ideal to the crop out. Oh absolutely absolutely they felt that way too.

Yeah, I brought this up earlier before we rolled. I'll just tell the story real quick. I did talk about how I interviewed him when about his Oklahoma City origin story. I guess he worked at a station called wk Why, which is still around these days. But my grandfather wasn't advertising, and they briefly intersected at this place Wkbley.

They briefly worked together, and I had asked herschel about him. He did remember the name. I remember my grandfather saying when he was still around, and he died in like ninety two, so it was before I even saw Blood Feasts. But I remember him saying he worked with a guy who went on to Hollywood. Was in Hollywood, it is more like Florida.

But yeah, indie films that, you know, some gross horror films or something like that. I wish that I, you know, then had thought to ask more about it, but you know, I hadn't seen those movies at that time whenever I was a kid and wouldn't be allowed to anyway. But so that's my brief personal connection. You hit it at never met him, but he was a nice guy, very cool. Seems like old school dude and look like you know.

Again, I think you both kind of mentioned it. I'll reiterate it. There's a lot that can be taken away from this movie that essentially has very little to do with the film itself. That has more to do with just how important it is in the grand scheme of things in terms of the horror genre writ large, but also just again exploitation film and the use of gore and exploitation films. So again, I enjoyed this movie for what it is.

I think, similarly to you Andrew, it's not something I'm going to necessarily go out of my way to watch again. But there's, again there's a weirdness to the movie that I appreciate and its ownness to the movie that again cannot be taken away from it. And those are things that are not easy to come by, especially in this day and age where you know, directors are standing on stage the Academy Awards begging people to make smaller movies and stop wasting hundreds of million dollars on other things. So you know, there's something to be said for that, and especially having a career from fifty nine to twenty sixteen. That's literally nothing to sneeze at.

So right, yeah, So on that note, we'll take a break, play some ads, and we'll wrap this episode up. Hi. I'm Susan and I'm Sharon and where are the hosts of Eighties tv Ladies? Check us out wherever you find your favorite podcasts, and please like and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. At Eighties tv Ladies.

You can find interviews and exclusive behind the scenes content on all of your favorite eighties TV ladies. Ladies is the place to go. Please join us Night. Hi, this is HP from Noise Junkies and this is fatherm Alone from Dark Destinations. Please join us as we examine one of the greatest sitcoms in television history.

Taxi on Night Mister Walters a taxi podcast. Good night, mister Walters, Good evening, and welcome to Night's Gallery. Thank you. Rod and I want to welcome everyone to Midnight Viewing, where once a month we talk all about your follow up to The Twilight Zone. Rod Serling's Night Gallery.

They say it's Rod two las Night Gallery, and it isn't really Rod too Le's Night Gallery. It's somebody else's Oh, we know, we talk about it a lot. Your curators at midnight Viewing are the projection booths Mike White? What can happen to human beings when trust is wiped out by suspicion? And culture casts Chris Stashu, Small Boy incasionally Crystal Ball, and I'm Father Alone the kind of thing that usually infested nightmares join us monthly at midnight viewing.

The Night Gallery podcast at Weirdingwaymedia dot Com doesn't remotely belong to me. I have no proprietary interest in that at all. Is everyone all right? Signal's got a mind of its own? Save pits off?

It's up up? M God, good bad? No fucking tell you? Here are you? He's just taking his time.

We will, So that's right. At the next culture cast, we're gonna be talking about Ruey Kittamora's Downrange. I accidentally picked two Ruey Kittemora films this month. Oops, the one was versus uh So until then, Andrew, where can people find you and the things that you work on? You can find me in Kansas and hopefully don't because I like being by myself, but hey, you can find my books wherever.

Books are sold. Amazon's always a good place to look, Walmart dot com, whatever, look me up, read it. If you like them, give me a great review on there. If you don't, you don't have to review it. It's okay, what about you, rod Well vous for those books.

I owned several of them and they're they're great, you bet, and I'll expect my check today, okay, Herschel, he's old school young old school. Herschel. I am as always at licktech dot com. Last time I was here, Kritis, we talked about if I have an article on the Zodiac Killer, the seventies movie in a book called David Fincher's Zodiac Cinema and Misrepresentation or something like that. It is now available in paperback.

At the time it was like one hundred dollars hardcover and actually sure was yeah, right, that's out now. And also the horsh portion Herschel Gordon Lewis interview I talked about is in my book like a tech movie. Arsenal Book one, which came out almost two years ago and could be at Amazon, can be found the Amazon for one undred twenty bucks. It's like five hundred plus pages, fifteen hundred reviews, and an actual blurb from herschel Gordon Lewis that he didn't charge me for as stretch. I didn't you know, I didn't.

I'm surprised he didn't ask for money, but yeah, he gave me a blurb, which is great treasure of that. It's because you didn't know. That's why he didn't ask. Hey, real quick, and I didn't even think about it. Can I hawk my book real quick?

Go for it? So Hey, we did talk about my Room book earlier, we did mention it. But I got a book out on the making of the Room. It is called Accidental Genius and Oral History of the Room. What I always tell people is, if you thought the disaster artists told the whole story, there's more.

It's in the words of everybody that worked on the film, and not just Greg's astero. Although Greg's book is fantastic, the movie is fantastic in different ways. But by my book, if you like the Room, if you don't like the Room, you'll still get something out of the book. At the book. I got no books to hawk, but you can find everything that I work on at weirdingwaymedia dot com, which is named after something that's in a book Frank Kerbert's Due.

But yeah, that's where you can find everything that I work on, including this show. Previous episodes of this show, the thing that Andy and I did with Mike White where we read through the Spielberg Lucas tapes can all be found at weirdingwaymedia dot com. As for this show, like great and review wherever you get at patreon dot com. Slash culture cast is where you can go to get in on the Patreon exclusive collaboration between Mike White and myself. Rankin on Bond where we spend every month with our friend Richard had him talking about James Bond movies.

Ten dollars or more gets you in on that. If that's something you're interested in, go now and check it out. Andy Rod, thank you both so much for joining me. This has been a lot of fun. Hey, thank you both.

Thank you. I will see you at an Egyptian YU. We'll catch you all the next episode