Big Screen Big Apple- Hershell Gordon Lewis: The Godfather of Gore starts Friday

To celebrate the release of the documentary Hershell Gordon Lewis: The Godfather of Gore(2010), Anthology Film Archive will be screening a series of some H.G.'s most important film works. As I said in the latter post, this is a very big weekend for genre cinema buffs.

Anthology Film Archive says - "Throughout the 1950s and 60s, literally hundreds of American filmmakers journeyed into the realm of Exploitation. There was money to be made then from cheap movies, and the result was a vast sea of no-budget flicks pushing either cars, monsters, killers, or supple skin. Very few of these films rose above the norm of the time, and far fewer actually tried to reinvent a seemingly fixed genre. Herschell Gordon Lewis and producer David F. Friedman knew that staying ahead of the game was the best way to make a buck, and, thanks to the combination of their ambition and their skewed minds, they ended up blazing a trail for independent cinema that America hasn’t seen the likes of since.
To celebrate the release of HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS: THE GODFATHER OF GORE, Anthology offers up a special program of rarely-screened H.G. Lewis films, which represent just a few of his absolutely madcap takes on Exploitation Cinema.
This program is presented with Something Weird Video. All descriptions are by Mike Hunchback (Freedom School Records). Special thanks to Mike Hunchback, Frank Henenlotter, Mike Vraney & Lisa Petrucci (Something Weird Video), and Eric Caidin (Hollywood Book and Poster Company)."

The documentary's actual first screening is Thurday night, but the real funs begins with the screening on Friday Night.

Anthology says -"Filmmaker Frank Henenlotter (BASKET CASE, FRANKENHOOKER), co-director Jimmy Maslon, and Something Weird Video have joined forces to chronicle the amazing exploits of H.G. Lewis from the 50s to the present day. Featuring John Waters, Joe Bob Briggs, and a variety of cast and crew members from many of Lewis’s films, it’s a documentary as mad and unique as the story it tells. As someone who not only lived through 42nd Street’s sleazy reign as ‘the Duece’ but who enjoyed wallowing in it, Henenlotter learned a lot from the cheap gore and twisted sex films that painted the walls of 42nd Street’s grindhouses, and it’s that sensibility that shines in this cinematic exploration of H.G. Lewis’s outrageous career."

Thursday March 10th and Friday the 11th, at 7:30 PM, Anthology Film Archive 32 Second Avenue (at 2nd St.)



Dont' forget to stick around until 9:30 for some more exploitation action with a screening of Something Weird(1967).

Anthology says - "The title hardly begins to describe the lunacy packed into this, perhaps Lewis’s strangest outing. Among the ingredients are an electrical accident that leaves a man with both a badly scarred face and the power to read minds; an evil old witch who can morph into sexy young Elizabeth Lee; and an FBI Agent who pushes the then-new drug LSD, resulting in a bad, bad trip, double-exposed celluloid and all. The original tag lines had it right: “SOMETHING WEIRD comes to haunt you…a boiling, bizarre tale of a mad love that crashes through the supernatural! An unbelievable journey into the awesome worlds of E.S.P. and witchcraft!”"

Friday March 11th
, at 9:30 PM, Anthology Film Archive 32 Second Avenue (at 2nd St.)