In today’s Shocktober Double Feature, we will deal with strippers, boiling oil, acid, a driller killer and tasty Doritos! It’s The Gore Gore Girls and The Slumber Party Massacre!
THE GORE GORE GIRLS (1972)
Say what you will about cinema’s “Wizard of Gore,” Herschell Gordon Lewis, it must be conceded that from his first films (1963’s trashy Blood Feast and 1964’s crackerbarrel massacre Two Thousand Maniacs) to his last (1972’s The Gore Gore Girls), the man remained faithful to his muse, gleefully chopping up the bodies of young men and women for the delectation of the camera. In Gore Gore…, for example, someone has been mutilating the pasty-faced and pasty-clad strippers at the Tops & Bottoms Club, and obnoxious ex-detective Gentry is hired by a hotty cub reporter to assist on the case. The film features remarkably annoying and repetitive background music, terrible lighting, abysmal acting, repugnant characters, problematic sound AND, of course, some of Lewis’ patented gross-out scenes. Thus, one of the strippers has her face shoved into boiling oil; one has her head ripped open; another has her face ironed and her nippies cut off; and still another has her bum paddled with a meat tenderizer until her entire backside is covered with what appears to be Buitoni tomato sauce. (I could be wrong here; it might have been Ragu.) The film also throws out some fairly lame humor, although some of the lines ARE pretty funny. For example, we learn that the real name of slain stripper Suzie Creampuff was … Ethel Creampuff! A bottle of acid says “Made In Poland” on it (don’t know why, but I thought this was funny). And some of strip club owner Henny Youngman’s lines are, of course, amusing. Still, this is NOT the movie to show to Aunt Ethel or Sister Agatha. It is one of the sickest you’ll ever see, with only one surefire, crowd-pleasing moment: the title card at the film’s conclusion that reads “We Announce With Pride: This Movie Is Over”!
THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE (1982)
Although most of the 18-year-old girls in 1982’s The Slumber Party Massacre do some pretty dumb and questionable things, Trish (Michele Michaels) shows perfectly sound judgment when it comes to one area: When your parents split for the weekend, THAT is certainly the time for an “open house”! Doritos? Check. Beer? Check. Maui Wowie? Check. Pizza? Check. Too bad, though, that psycho driller killer Russ Thorn has just busted out of jail and has decided to crash the party… Anyway, although my beloved DVD Delirium book claims that this film has not “a single moment of cinematic fat” in its 78-minute length, I would have to respectfully disagree. There are SO many instances of false alarms here (you know the kind I mean … you think the boogeyman is about to pounce and it turns out to be a cat or something) that things get rather annoying. Sure, I know that these moments, used with discretion, can add to a film’s suspense, but when you string over a dozen of them together, it gets pretty old and downright frustrating. The last 20 minutes of the film are fine, though, as nutzo Thorn tries to finish his night’s work with a clean party sweep. It is a little hard to believe that this film, which revels in topless shots and shrieking bimbos, was written by feminist author Rita Mae Brown and directed by another woman, Amy Jones. Still, it IS a group of women that ultimately gives Thorn a tough time, after the doofy boys fail (although it is fairly obvious who will be the last girls standing). And I just love it when Robin Stille’s Val delivers that symbolic castration! Too bad that future “scream queen” Brinke Stevens has such a small role here, though; wotta looker! Anyway, this movie is fairly lame but somewhat fun. You probably know what to expect.
COMING ATTRACTIONS: H.P. Lovecraft! Boris Karloff! Robert Louis Stevenson! Christopher Lee! It’s Die, Monster, Die! and I, Monster, in the Shocktober Double Feature #7….
I think one-and-a-half stars is the lowest rating I’ve ever seen you give!
Actually, Marion, if you search through our site here for my old review of “Blood Freak,” you’ll see that I gave THAT one a 1/2 ⭐. But that is truly one of the world’s worst….