#475. The Gore Gore Girls (1972)

Directed By: Herschell Gordon Lewis

Starring: Frank Kress, Amy Farrell, Hedda Lubin




Tag line: "Nothing Has Ever Stripped Your Nerves As Screamingly Raw As The Gore Gore Girls"

Trivia:  This was the only movie Herschell Gordon Lewis submitted to the MPAA; they gave it an X rating

Released in 1972, The Gore Gore Girls was the first film writer/director Herschell Gordon Lewis ever submitted to the MPAA for a rating. Of course, they came back with an "X", which might have had something to do with the nudity scattered throughout.  But I doubt it.  More than likely, the harsh rating was the result of the movie's bloody gore. No stranger to violence, Lewis nonetheless took things to a nauseating level in The Gore Gore Girls, treating fans to some of the most gruesome kills he'd ever concocted. 

When a strip club go-go dancer is savagely murdered, private eye Abraham Gentry (Frank Kress) is hired by a local newspaper to investigate. Joined by reporter Nancy Weston (Amy Farrell), Gentry spends a great deal of time at the club in question, hoping to uncover information that might lead him to the killer. But as Gentry is collecting clues, the murderer is busy finishing off one stripper after another, and usually in brutal fashion. 

Kress is entertaining as the pompous Gentry, a guy with a real knack for getting under people's skin, and the dancers (who perform in various stages of undress) put on a good show. There's even a brief appearance by comedian Henny Youngman, playing the owner of the strip club. Yet these are not the reasons you'll remember The Gore Gore Girls. As the title itself suggests (not once, but twice), this one's all about the gore. The first kill happens almost immediately, when a dancer (Jackie Kroeger), sitting in her dressing room, has her head smashed repeatedly into a make-up mirror. The next victim's throat is cut, and she's beaten so severely with a mallet that her head turns into a mess of bloody goo. The topper, however, is the poor girl whose nipples are snipped off with a pair of scissors, causing a stream of milk (both regular and chocolate) to flow from the wounds. Even by Herschell Gordon Lewis' standards, the kills in The Gore Gore Girls are extreme. 

Ranking right up there with Blood Feast, Two Thousand Maniacs and The Wizard of Gore as one of Lewis' best films, The Gore Gore Girls will also go down as the movie in which The Godfather of Gore managed to “out-gore” himself.