Movie Review: The Gore Gore Girls (1972)

 

There is quite possibly no entertainer like Herschell Gordon Lewis. He has brought horror fans endless joy with such films as The Wizard of Gore and The Gruesome Twosome - beautifully bad movies with ungodly bad taste, and that is exactly why we love them. The Gore Gore Girls from 1972 would be Lewis's final film for more than 30 years, but oh, what a way to go out.

Private investigator Abraham Gentry is promised a sizable sum by a reporter from The Globe, Nancy Weston, to look into the murder of a stripper named Suzie Creampuff. As Gentry rounds up a list of suspects, the body count continues to rise as more strippers are offed in increasingly bloody and gruesome ways. Who could be the one making mincemeat out of these beautiful girls' faces?

It has actually taken me a while to be able to write this review because while there is plenty to talk about with The Gore Gore Girls, it has left me rather speechless. The movie revels in its abundance of sleaze and over-the-top, unrealistic gore so much so that my experience of watching it can be broken down into the times that I busted out into such fits of laughter that I had to pause the movie before continuing on. Through the course of The Gore Gore Girls, there were many such laugh-out-loud moments, most of them having to do with the kills.

First to die is Miss Suzie Creampuff in a quick little opening scene before the credits. She's primping in front of a mirror before a black-gloved hand proceeds to shove her face into said mirror several times. It's good, but things get much, much better. The next victim is Candy Cane, a girl whom we meet again in front of mirror where she is staring at herself and caressing her body for some reason. While popping her bubble gum very annoyingly. Anyway, she actually gets the worst demise of them all where her face is hacked to smithereens with a cleaver. This induced Laughing Fit #1. Oh my goodness, how freaking excessive was that?! When the killer is done, her face doesn't even look like a face, especially when the killer sticks his/her hands all in it, pulling things apart and popping her eyeball.

Of course, this is not the best death in this movie.  Laughing Fit #2 came right at the beginning of this murder scene when the Circus Stripper (so named by me because of her dance sequence to odd circus-like music) randomly takes a cucumber out of her refrigerator (how subtle) before she has her throat cut and is bent over a kitchen table. Then the killer spanks the poor girl's butt bloody with a wooden meat tenderizer! What the hell?! That's kind of amazing and horrifying at the same time. It is made even more amazing when the killer dashes a little salt and pepper on her freshly tenderized rump. Soon after this mind-boggling scene, we are almost immediately thrown into another murder scene that is even more random. This scene includes a chick making French fries while ironing before getting her throat cut and getting said iron to her face. Laughing Fit #3 happened when her nipple was cut off and the milk was caught in a champagne glass. I about died. The girl's roommate then comes in and gets her face shoved in the boiling French fry grease. Dear goodness, Hersch, I seriously can't take anymore!

The Gore Gore Girls actually boasts some of the best acting I have seen in an HGL movie, mostly because I love Abraham Gentry. His character is incredibly obnoxious but the actor playing him does obnoxious so well that I give him a pass. Nancy is also pretty funny herself, especially in the scenes where she gets drunk. But the best character of course has to be the bar patron who just sits there, drawing faces on melons and squash before smashing them to bits with his fist. So very random, but so freaking hilarious.

When all is said and done, The Gore Gore Girls has one of the best and most delightful endings I've ever seen. Just as Abraham and Nancy are about to finally make out, Abraham breaks the fourth wall and informs the audience that they've "seen enough," and literally closes the curtain on the movie. Then this text appears:

Seriously, what's not to love with a movie that ends like this? Not only is it another example of awesome titling by HGL, but The Gore Gore Girls is also just another fantastically sleazy and crazy addition to this man's oeuvre. I love it.