Interview with Herschell Gordon Lewis
by Paul Bistoff

In 1963 director Herschell Gordon Lewis and producer David F. Friedman joined forces to release "Blood Feast," the first gore film which marked an evolution in horror cinema and effectively changed the film industry forever.

Lewis became a pioneer of low-budget, highly revolting filmmaking and served up such delicious oddities as "The Wizard of Gore," "Two Thousand Maniacs!" and "The Gore, Gore Girls." Whether you love or hate his films, there can be no denying he has a style all his own.

In this extensive interview Lewis discusses a wide spectrum of topics - the origins of "Blood Feast," his world-renowned marketing career, his musical ambitions, and his unexpected cult resurgence which prompted a return to the director's chair after a 30 year hiatus. To top it all off, Lewis details his current film project which bears the alternate tentative titles "Grim Fairy Tale" and "Win, Lose or Die."

Please note; this interview is the result of several conversations I conducted with Mr. Lewis on October 15, 2004. An unusually hectic schedule prevented me from preparing the transcript for earlier publishing. I sincerely thank Mr. Lewis for his time and hope everyone enjoys reading the resulting interview.

Tell me about the early years leading up to "Blood Feast." Did you go to college?

I went to school; yeah, everybody went to school at one point or another. I was at Northwestern for about a hundred years and I taught English and the humanities at Mississippi State for two years. At Mississippi State they made me director of broadcasting, which is how I really got into that end of it.

There's a whole series of rather dull episodes that brought me into the world of advertising. I bought a half-interest in a commercial film studio in Chicago. We were shooting commercials, business films and government films; and at the same time I was writing advertising to keep the film studio going - because we weren't making enough money, in the studio itself, to even pay the rent.

So one day I was complaining about this and some friend of mine said, "How do you make any money in the film business?" And I said, "The only way to make money in the film business is to shoot features." He said "Well why don't you shoot features?" Which is like saying, "Why aren't you rich?"

That started a thought process going, and that really is what drove me into it. I had 35mm film equipment, so technically I was capable of making movies. And by that time I had learned enough about the technique of production; that is on the mechanical end. I could load that Mitchell camera where nobody else could - in the dark wearing gloves.

It was a hand-to-mouth operation, which is a very good way to learn how to make-do. The wonderful world of make-do, which has always been sort of a catch-word in the movies I made.

So I started to make low-budget movies, and it became clear very quickly that the only way to succeed - and I'm talking back before we had cable, and before we had video cassettes, and before we had DVD's and even satellite - you made money in the theatres or you didn't make it all.

So the question was, what kind of motion picture might there be that the major film studios either couldn't make or wouldn't make? I had no star name value, obviously. I couldn't offer production value on a comparable level. The people, I found, were often going to see movies that cost less money but had greater entertainment or excitement value. The kind of movies they would say to their friends, "Hey you've got to see this!" So the question was, what kind of movie might there be that I could make? And after a lot of experimentation - and soul searching, and messing-around, and making mistakes in fact - the marvelous four-letter word leaped out at me; G-O-R-E.

It was really accidental. The whole genesis of "Blood Feast," which now has become something of a cult film, here's a movie that cost nothing to make, with nobodies, and shot in four days. The genesis of that movie was truly accidental. One piece of it was something I saw on television; an old black-and-white movie with, I think it was, Edward G. Robinson playing a gangster. They shot him full of bullet holes and he died very peacefully with a little red splotch on his shirt, and I said "Wait a minute. With all that shooting that's all that happened?" So that gave me part one.

Part two was a place we were staying in Miami Beach. I was living in Chicago and when the weather turned cold it was time to go to Florida to shoot a movie; some cheap movie at one time or another. We always stayed at a place on the north beach called The Suez. And the Suez Motel had one distinguishing feature - it was not comfort, that wasn't the distinguishing feature. Price was a nice feature, but the distinguishing feature was a cement sphinx outside the motel - because they wanted to give it that Egyptian overtone.

That is where we got the thought for the lunatic in "Blood Feast" being named Fuad Ramses - who was the mad caterer who dealt in human body parts. And as we were shooting this I had the feeling that I had gone insane. The question was would anybody ever go to see this thing? When we were cutting it finally, in my cutting room in Chicago, and people would say "What in the hell is that?" Not because it was such a rather primitive production job. They were looking at pieces here with grease pencil all over them, and leaders that had nothing that would ever make sense in the cutting room, and they said "Oh my god! Who did that?" They were horrified thinking that we actually had disemboweled somebody.

And I figure, all right maybe we were good at midnight shows on Halloween; which was the first of a number of conclusions that show how cloudy the crystal ball can be. Because when we opened "Blood Feast" it wasn't very long at all before the entire industry became aware that there was blood lust that hadn't been satisfied like this, I guess since the Roman coliseum.

Originally, an indication of how times have changed, we killed the concession stand business. Now I'm told that splatter films really are the mainstay of the concession stand business. They do much bigger business when people are being shot, stabbed, poisoned, or pulled apart.

People were too sick to eat?

You see again we were startling people. We startled everybody. We startled critics, we startled censor boards who had all kinds of regulations against nudity; there was no nudity in "Blood Feast." They had regulations against obscenity; there was not one four-letter word in "Blood Feast." They had no regulations against gore because there had never been any. Now, of course, it's so common-place that people expect it. That is another reason why, I guess, "Blood Feast" was a watershed picture.

Would you say that you created the modern horror film with "Blood Feast?"

I am told that. Now I'm not a film historian, and I don't know what other people are doing. I know that prior to "Blood Feast" there had never been a movie of that type; that certainly is so. I didn't know that I was creating an entire genre of motion picture. Good heavens nobody can play god to that extent.

In fact it was some years afterward that I found this out. These movies had long since passed from my possession and I guess it was in the 1980's I got a phone call from somebody who said "I've found you!" as though I'd been lost. And I said "Great heavens, who is this?" He said "My name is Rick Sullivan and I'm calling to ask you if you will come to New York on Halloween night. We're going to show one of your movies." I said "Come on, who is this?" figuring it was a local joke. So I said "I better call you back."

Well he gave me a number that ended in 0-0-0 with a four digit extension, and I called this number and they said "Exxon Corporation." I said "Exxon?" - this is the pre-Valdez period. So I asked for that extension; and "Mr. Sullivan's office." I said "Can you tell me what Mr. Sullivan's position is?" "Yeah he's one of our controllers." I said, "What is going on here?"

Well it turned out this person was a legitimate business person by day and a gore-hound by night. He had read an article that I wrote in a direct marketing magazine, which is really my current profession, and he put the names together. In fact for some years, until the Internet exposed me totally, I'd be giving a speech on marketing and somebody would come up and say "Hey you know there's some screwball who used to make these goofy movies who has the same name you do?" I'd say "I'll sue them!"

I had really thought that it was an episode in which I'd had a good time, but meanwhile the major companies had said "How long has this been going on?" And they came bursting through the door of splatter movies with the equipment, with star names, with techniques, with exploding clothing, with electronic devices; I simply couldn't compete. I felt it was time to get out and I did. We had a good run.

But when I went to New York for this first episode - which you might call either a renaissance or some sort of posthumous tribute - I was greeted with reverence. Again I felt the whole thing was a big joke. I had said to my wife before we went up there, I said "Margot we're going to have a good time. It's going to be like one of those Harvard Lampoon things. They're not going to throw anything, but they will have fun at our expense." The reason it didn't bother me was because I had, at that very time, I had to go to Stockbridge, Massachusetts. I was writing a book on contract about the artist Norman Rockwell, and that's where he spent his last years and I had to interview some people up there. And I figured okay these guys will pay the way to New York, I only have to pay from New York to Stockbridge. So, yes there was a method in my madness.

But when I went to New York, and had this kind of response, really I was nonplussed. I didn't know what to make of it all and I certainly didn't know that it was going to last through the year 2004.

Was the movie they showed in New York "The Wizard of Gore?"

Oh God yes. It was "The Wizard of Gore" and that really is my jinx picture. It's the least favorite; and I know some people who just remade "Two Thousand Maniacs!" - they call it "2001 Maniacs." If I were involved in that loop I would have pleaded with them, "Please don't remake 'Two Thousand Maniacs!' it's my personal favorite." Remake "The Wizard of Gore," which is in desperate need of a remake.

Do you dislike "The Wizard of Gore?"

No. It's like saying do you hate one of your children? But that was truly a jinxed picture. We had a number of things go wrong mechanically.

I was always doing the electrical hookups because people were concerned at the time we were shooting in their homes. One, they didn't want their TV picture to shrink and they didn't want their air conditioner to go out. So I would hook into the main power box. So here was this fellow who said "Let me do that, I've been watching you and why should you knock yourself out." I figured oh boy I have help. Well he set the power box on fire and they threw us out.

And that was the place where I was going to shoot my ultimate effect. The ultimate effect was taking a human body - of course it was a goat carcass - and simply tearing it to shreds. We had it set up in an apartment where these people were. (Laughs) It was showbiz, and I show up with a big Mitchell camera; they didn't care what we were going to shoot after that happened.

We went to K-Mart or someplace and bought a rubber-based rug to put over their carpet so we wouldn't get it messed. And we put a sheet of plastic - we were ready to go. And here's this goat carcass laid out and everything blew up and they called the fire department. They completely threw us out of the building. The goat carcass, as far as I know, could still be moldering on their floor.

But there went my ultimate effect and that was really generic to "The Wizard of Gore." But so what? In that kind of movie you shrug and go on to the next move.

Well, if it means anything, I think the movie turned out great. Of your films, it's one of my favorites.

Well, you see it depends whose ox is gored. My wife and I were in San Sebastian, Spain; we were guests at their film festival. Another indication of how crazy this business can be; I'm a guest of honor at a film festival in San Sebastian, Spain. Go feast that one.

They had a bunch of journalists there who were voting on which one of my films was their favorite, and I could have gone under the table with that. It turned out that their favorite one was "The Gruesome Twosome." That wouldn't have even been on my top-ten list. (Laughs) So, it's a matter of individual preference, as I say my personal one is "Two Thousand Maniacs!"

That's a great film. Why is it your favorite?

When we saw the business "Blood Feast" was doing I said to Dave Friedman, who was my partner, "What if we made a decent one?" There was never any illusion about "Blood Feast."

The difference was, first of all, "Two Thousand Maniacs!" has respectable acting in it. It has a different kind of horror. It has mounting horror; it's not just mindless gore. And I wrote the script, and it's my voice on the soundtrack doing the sing-song opening theme. Not that I'd ever felt like an auteur, I don't dare take that posture with movies that were that cheap. I've often said if you want to win an award at a film festival all you do is shoot out-of-focus, handheld, at night, without lights. (Laughs) That makes it very easy.

I felt there was a certain amount of production value to "Two Thousand Maniacs!" It's just simply a picture I like. To this day I like "Two Thousand Maniacs!"

Since we're talking about "Two Thousand Maniacs!" we have to talk about your music. The "Two Thousand Maniacs!" theme song is fantastic.

I'm very pleased to hear you say that. That's another interesting story.

Once these movies had passed from my possession, I thought that was the end of it. Until one day I got a phone call from Jim Maslon. He now owns most of these movies. Between Jim Maslon and Mike Vraney, the fellow who runs Something Weird Video out of Seattle, they control these movies. And Jim Maslon called and said "Hey here's a situation, John Waters is making a movie called 'Serial Mom' and he wants to use the music from 'Blood Feast.'" I said, "Let him." He said, "I don't own it, you do."

I had not known that music is a separate set of rights. I still owned, and continue to own, the music from "Blood Feast" and "Two Thousand Maniacs!" which I wrote. I had to join BMI - it's really very funny. To this day I get royalties - it's nothing but cigar money, but I get royalties twice a year. When this began I figured okay it's a one-shot. Then a company called Rhino Records brought out a recording of the music from "Blood Feast" and "Two Thousand Maniacs!" Then a fellow from Smog Veil records had me re-record the music. I happened to be giving a speech on marketing in Cleveland and he knew about it, and he said "Stop into my studio and we're going to re-record." I said "Great!"

And now of course here's this movie called "2001 Maniacs," of which I have no relationship at all, other than they have licensed from me the original music from "Two Thousand Maniacs!" So go figure.

Do you wish you had more involvement in "2001 Maniacs?"

Not at all. This is not the movie I would have liked to remake. As I understand it they made it a much more serious kind of movie. "Two Thousand Maniacs!" was sardonic, it wasn't funny but it wasn't deadly serious. But I don't know, I haven't seen one foot of "2001 Maniacs" so I don't know. I'm told that it's a very professional production job.

The fellow I've dealt with at all regarding music, and everything else, is a fellow named Chris Tuffin. And there again, you never know what the next turn around the corner will be. In the course of conversation with Chris Tuffin about the music rights that he wanted to use for "2001 Maniacs," he said "Do you have a script lying around?" I said "Of course I have a script lying around." Everybody has a script lying around. Every taxi driver in Los Angeles has a script lying around. He said "Well e-mail it to me." I felt alright here's another stupid thing to do. I sent out a script for "Grim Fairy Tale" and apparently he is very much interested in producing it this winter.

Staying with music, did you write the music for "The Year of the Yahoo?"

Yes I did. We hired a sort of old-time country western star. There are a lot of country and western artists who have one hit, then vanish back into the woodwork. A fellow named Claude King who had a hit record called "Wolverton Mountain," and that was the only one he ever had that was a hit. A nice guy.

So he was the star of "The Year of the Yahoo," and yes I wrote those songs for that movie. See there's a case where I had great hopes for those songs. The combination of a country and western artist, and he had a contract with Columbia Records. I figured oh boy I'm off and running, but nothing ever happened with those.

Do you see any similarities between "The Year of the Yahoo" election campaign and this year's Presidential campaign?

(Laughs)

Well we've got a couple of yahoos running.

It [The Year of the Yahoo] was an early attempt to expose some of the hypocrisy that underlies the professional politicians that really take charge of these campaigns. Claude King played the part of a baby in the wilderness in that regard. Yeah there's a parallel, but of course it's an ancient parallel.

Who gave you the nickname Godfather of Gore?

I don't know. I saw it in some article, or newspaper, or book, or somewhere and it seems to have stuck. I didn't make it up myself that's for sure.

In your horror films, you don't just flash gore; instead you take the camera right down into the special effect and kind of hang out there for a while.

That's a very astute remark. Yes, I've always believed in intensive rather than extensive gore. Part of that, of course, is a budget decision which has to drive a lot of this stuff. Over a period of years I've had the opportunity - I usually don't take advantage of it - of picking up unfinished pictures by people who preferred extensive over intensive; which tends to make me a little on the gun-shy side. I want to make sure the picture can get finished and the effect, however primitive, can get finished too.

"The Gore, Gore Girls" has some of the most outrageous sequences I've ever seen on film. What was your inspiration for the milk scene?

Well here's what happened, by the time I did "The Gore, Gore Girls" I was beginning to parody my own effects. See one of the problems with some of the contemporary horror films is they become derivative. The audience can expect what's going to happen. "Oh yeah this guy's going to do that." So the whole notion of shocking the audience disappears.

I felt there was no point in a reprise of what we'd already done. I had a feeling that "The Gore, Gore Girls" was going to end the sequence; which it did for about 30 years. This wild notion, in the script, was having this guy put the electric iron on the girl's face.

Then I had this notion, what if - but then I had to make sure that the audience understood that the concept was ridiculous. That was the horn on which I was impaled. So I felt if they saw milk come out of one nipple, and chocolate milk come out of the other they would say "Yeah, isn't that ridiculous?"

What happened at the time was a precursor of what's happening now. People who saw that movie when it was first released - or I should say when it was first excreted - those who were under 35 laughed their heads off. Those who were over 55 thought that it was just absolutely horrible. So even then this age differential was beginning to take form.

A couple of years ago my old buddy John Waters invited me to a horror film festival in Baltimore where he lives. So they screened "The Gore, Gore Girls," and of course this is an audience of gore-hounds, and they thought it was the funniest thing they'd ever seen. In fact that's where I said to John, when I went up there to Baltimore, "Alright I'll come up there but you owe me." He said "Okay, I'll pay, I'll pay."

Well when we came to make "Blood Feast 2" Jacky Morgan, who was the producer, said "Hey you're a friend of John Waters. Do you think you can get him to take a part in this movie?" I said "You mean as an actor?" He said "Yeah, why not?" So I called John and he said "Alright, I owe you so I'll be there." And he came down to New Orleans and took the part of a pedophile priest. So neither of us now owes anything to the other.

No matter how violent your films get, they all retain a sharp sense of humor.

That's the idea of my movies. I wanted the audience to say "Of course this isn't real." That was the idea behind it. The idea wasn't to say to somebody here's a clinical evisceration of somebody. I wanted, here's a clinical evisceration and aren't they having fun?

If we make "Grim Fairy Tale," which seems very likely - in fact since you and I talked, another phone call just burst in here, which I couldn't take because I was on the phone with a client. But it was making a date for the location guy to meet with me to talk about where we are going to shoot this thing. So apparently they're deadly serious about it.

When you're ready to make a film what are your goals? How do you measure success? Some directors would say they're artists and they care more about the film than finances; and some the other way around.

Then they're giving birth.

I don't regard these as anything other than business ventures. If I can have a business venture in which I have a rollicking good time; that to me is the kingdom of heaven.

Because, making movies is great fun if you are not so bound up in it that you regard every shot as crucial and you're going to have take 13. Very seldom on my set will you hear that strange phrase "take two," and I think really that adds to the cachet of the movie.

After "The Gore, Gore Girls" why did you leave the business for so long?

As I told you earlier the major companies were making movies with which I couldn't compete. They were eating up the playing time. At that time, had we had such as thing as direct release to cassette and DVD I might have made more movies. But we didn't have it then, and the theatres, I could see the number of theatres that would play my movies was shrinking. Because they were playing stuff by Sam Peckinpah, the Halloweens, and the houses on Elm Street and whatever the hell there was. There was no point, from a business point of view, in beating on the window with a sponge.

Tell me a bit about your marketing career which followed.

Well the marketing career co-existed. I simply moved it over from a 50% position to a 100% position. Fortunately for me in the world of direct marketing - direct marketing as you know is by mail, by e-mail, by TV, direct response, that kind of thing - I am very highly respected. I gave a speech yesterday in Philadelphia and I was introduced as "the leading direct response copywriter of our time;" which really pleased me.

I've written 27 books, my 28th book is due out the end of the year or the first part of next year. I write for a whole bunch of magazines. I write a column called "Better Letters" for Selling Newsletter. I'm a copy columnist for Catalogue Age. I write a regular column for Direct Magazine, it's called "Curmudgeon at Large." I write for two UK publications, one is called Direct Marketing International and my column is called "Copy Class." For another UK publication Catalogue and E-Business I write a column on E-Mail copy. I write occasionally for Marketing, the Australian publication. I'm only four times a year in Internet Retailer. I write six times a year for Non-Profit Times, and I have clients all over the world. I have a client in Greece, I have two clients in the UK, a client in Germany and of course here in the US I have clients. The day after tomorrow the annual Direct Marketing Association Conference is in New Orleans and every year I have a session called "The Creative Master Class."

I'm well thought of in that business. I'm in the Marketing Hall of Fame. In their history, which goes back 76 years, they've only had 88 people elected to their Hall of Fame.

Now that you're making films again how do you balance your careers?

With great care. You see I couldn't have done this years ago because I didn't have a computer. Now here we were last month my wife and I went to China and Tibet. And my two biggest clients, with whom I deal really by e-mail - they e-mail me instructions and I e-mail copy back to them - neither of them knew I was out of the country.

Even way out in Tibet, 14 or 15 thousand feet in the air and near nothing, in the hotel there's a cyber cafe. No matter where I am I can get hooked in. This morning on the plane coming back here from Philadelphia I turned on my Blackberry and caught up on my e-mail. The whole idea of being able to do this, it's remarkable. I could not have functioned this way years ago. I was either in or out.

Of your two careers which do you find most personally rewarding?

From the viewpoint of finance there's not a question in the world that my marketing career has been more rewarding. That has maybe millions of dollars, and I have the lifestyle that I'm enjoying because of that.

From the viewpoint of emotional satisfaction, yes I do love the film business - the perfect marriage of the very technical and the very creative. And you live on your wits in both businesses.

There is an overlap; I remember way, way back. I've always thought any schmuck could aim a camera. The campaign - to get people in their seats - that's where I was the star; to the point where other producers were giving me their movies to do the campaigns for them.

There's a different kind of reward in each of the two careers, and that's the reason I am not simply walking away from the film business. It has not represented, not in recent years, any major contribution to income.

So after thirty years away you returned to directing. Was that just a matter of waiting for the right deal?

Oh every year I'd have four or five people say "Let's make 'Blood Feast 2'." I developed a defense mechanism, I'd say "Put your deal together and call me." That practically got rid of them; these are just people who wanted to get their names in Variety.

But when Jacky Morgan called and said "Let's make ÔBlood Feast 2'." I said "Put your deal together and call me." He put a deal together and he called me. So what was I supposed to do? He called my hand.

Imdb.com has you listed as working on "Win, Lose or Die."

That's the one that we're talking about. That's actually "Grim Fairy Tale." We haven't decided on a title yet. In fact, I suggested "The Millard Fillmore Story" just to throw people totally off.

What can you tell me about that movie?

Well it's about a TV show called "Truth or Uh-oh!" If they get the question right they get 5 million dollars cash, a Mercedes Benz 6000 and a trip around the world every year for the rest of their lives. But if they get it wrong, uh-oh! And they part with part of their parts. So that's the story of "Grim Fairy Tale."

That sounds great. I hope you work out a deal.

Well I kind of suspect they're going to make it. They're sending location people out, what the hell?

Was "Blood Feast 2" successful for you?

Oh yes.

I disagreed with two things. The circumstance with "Blood Feast 2" was that I was a hired hand; they hired me to direct the movie. So I had no say-so in the cutting of it and I had no say-so in the distribution. And I felt the distribution of this movie was not handled properly, but that's an opinion.

It's in every Blockbuster store; but it's in Blockbuster as an R-rated movie. If you want to really see the movie you've got to get the unrated version.

With unlimited funding, what is your dream project?

With unlimited funding my dream project is to make the ultimate slasher movie which combines over-the-top gore, and over-the-top humor, and has enough name value in it that the theatres will say "Alright we've got to play this." And the people sitting out there will say "We've got to go see it."

When it's all said and done how would you like to be remembered?

As somebody who brought a sense of humor into an area of entertainment that most people do not regard as humorous. It's that old Columbus joke. I didn't know where I was going, and I got there. I came back, and I didn't know where I was. But I got there first.