Turns out this elder statesman of screen mayhem didn’t have a clue he was revered as such. He packed it in after 1972’s The Gore Gore Girls and didn’t look back, figuring he’d had his fun but it was time to get into another line of work. Years later he was contacted by a horror festival in NYC to appear at a screening of one of his films and went thinking it would be a big joke at his expense (which, being a guy with a good sense of humor, he was prepared for and very much expected). Only after the screening and talking to the crowd did he understand that these crazy low budget shock films he’d made actually meant something to a lot of people.
His never-dull parlance with the crowd at the Q&A started at the beginning, how he breached the burgeoning “Nudie Cutie” film circuit through a clever filmmaking gambit of ruthless bargaining and guaranteed returns, right down to how long the roll of film was and how many minutes needed to be delivered to collect the paycheck. Sex sells and he sold it, plot and context be damned. One take for all scenes? No problem!
H.G. Lewis had some very comical comments about the nature of the acting in his films. Yes, someone could say that Connie Mason wasn’t the greatest of thespians. But, as H.G. pointed out, neither is Keanu Reeves. Has that put any kind of stop on his career or the entertainment incurred by those attending his movies? He thinks not; we are forced to concur.
Lewis indicated 2000 Maniacs as being his personal favourite of his own repertoire. He was asked about remakes and The Wizard of Gore being redone by Jeremy Kasten and his response was upbeat. However, it seems Mr. Lewis feels that the fatal flaw of Kasten’s version was that it tried to appeal to the critics, a mistake he claims to never have made.
H.G. Lewis states firmly and unapologetically that critics and fans are mutually exclusive. The critics don’t really know what people like. He doesn’t think critics have any bearing on what people go to see and enjoy. As an occasional critic myself, I feel the need to respond to this. Fair enough of a comment, in a sense – a critic’s voice when negative is only pretty much only his or her own – that’s the truth and there’s no way around it. However, a critic’s voice in the act of praise becomes something else altogether. It becomes a part of the marketing of the film in question. If H.G. Lewis were to argue this he’d be going against the very essence of what comprised the bulk of his latter career even up to this very day; Marketing. This man proclaims to be the single most effective “direct marketer” in history. He compared certain direct marketing realities to the film business, how to ensure a return at any cost no matter how low and so forth, even saying openly that if you send out thousands of sales e-mails, an angry response is still a response and that means someone is paying attention. Which is good (so he says, can’t say I agree).
Overall the Q&A with Herschel Gordon Lewis on Friday night was definitely entertaining, but it revealed something about the guy that might earn him a dual moniker: this guy may be “The Godfather of Gore”, but if he is the all time god of direct marketing like he claims, he may also very well be “The Godfather of Spam”.