Godfather of Gore Coming to Austin This Weekend!

Herschell Gordon Lewis is a living legend. With several gallons of red-tinted Kaopectate, a bag of butcher shop leftovers, and a knack for circus-style hucksterism, Lewis literally invented the North American gore film in the early 60s, turning the exploitation genre (and arguably cinema itself) on its ear.

In the years before the MPAA had instituted its now ubiquitous rating system, Lewis' gore-filled 1963 classic Bloodfeast caught the censor boards off-guard—up until then, there were no rules governing gore, because it simply didn't exist yet. So while Hitchcock was making "horror" films that merely suggested horrible violence off-screen, Lewis' films were jam-packed with explicit, stomach-churning bloodshed. As part of the marketing campaign for Bloodfeast, Lewis even handed out barfbags to theatergoers and stationed ambulances outside cinemas (should anyone become physically ill from the sheer depravity. Wink). Bloodfeast was a raw, campy, virtually plotless celebration of carnage. And audiences loved every second of it.

While the profits from Bloodfeast began to roll in, the censor boards rushed to create rules governing blood-n-guts. But Lewis and his partner David Friedman were already busy making their second gore-sploitation feature (now recognized as a cult classic) 2000 Maniacs!. Shot quickly and cheaply (though with a much bigger budget than Bloodfeast), 2000 Maniacs! is the story of a creepy southern town whose long-dead civil war era inhabitants return to life to exact revenge on a gang of yankee tourists. And much like its predecessor, it's full of gleefully messy murders (it's hard to pick an absolute best scene, but one of our favorites has a woman being flattened by huge rocks).

Both Bloodfeast and 2000 Maniacs! are horror classics, to say the least. And this Saturday, in the spirit of old-fashioned drive-in fun, the Alamo's Rolling Roadshow series will be screening them as a double-feature at a real-life ghost town near Dripping Springs! With Herschell Gordon Lewis himself in attendance to introduce the screenings!

This event is sure to be a hell of a lot of fun, and we'd like to send you there for free.
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