Review: The Gore Gore Girls (1972)

Directed by: Herschell Gordon Lewis
Starring: Frank Kress, Amy Farrell, Hedda Lubin
Written by: Alan J. Dachman
Music by: Herschell Gordon Lewis
Country: United States
Available on: Blu-ray (Arrow), DVD (Something Weird)
IMDb

The Gore Gore Girls, Herschell Gordon Lewis’ last film before going into hibernation from 1973 until 2002’s Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat, is sort of his take on giallo, complete with beautiful strippers murdered in elaborate ways by a black-gloved killer whose identity is obscured. Of course, a movie from Lewis wouldn’t be the same without some outrageously unrealistic gore and bizarre comedy. Of his better-known films, this is perhaps the most slanted towards humor — the central character, a sociopathic private investigator named Abraham Gentry, provides most of the comedy via his sarcastic bastard indifference to the plight of everyone around him, including the flirtations of his dorky and adorable love interest played by Amy Farrell. Lewis also leverages the kills for laughs, even though they’re also incredibly brutal: one woman’s butt cheeks are pounded into bloody hamburger with a meat tenderizer then seasoned with salt and pepper, while another gets her nipples snipped off with scissors, which then expel chocolate milk from one and regular milk from the other. The strangeness continues with ludicrously inappropriate musical choices and stingers, usually involving blaring trumpets, that offset what, in the hands of a sane filmmaker, would be somber or suspenseful sequences. It’s unfortunate that all of this delectable weirdness is dragged down by a tedious plot that repeats a cycle consisting of a strip club scene, in which we watch a go-go dancer perform an entire musical number, then their murder, then a scene of Gentry berating the police officer assigned to the case. Gentry, though mostly droll, is an absolute prick to everyone in the film, even though he’s a lazy dandy who lets everyone else do the work, which starts to grind on you. Then, just as things start to turn sour, the conclusion pops up out of nowhere and adds another delightful feather to the WTF cap, leaving you mostly amusingly baffled when the credits roll. On the whole, this was another pleasant stroll down H.G. Lewis Lane, that ends just as you start getting tired of the scenery.

Overall rating: 7 out of 10