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"The Hot Spot", (1990) from
Johnny Web
I think this pretty much
takes care of everything from The Hot Spot.
Virginia Madsen (1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6)
"Blood
Feast" from Tuna
David Friedman and
Herschell Gordon Lewis had a traveling movie
making company. Lewis was a financial and
marketing genius, and Friedman knew how to make a
movie with nearly no budget and distribute it at
a profit. They were in Florida in 1963 to make a
commissioned film, and stayed on to make one of
their own. They got the idea from watching a
gangster film on TV. When someone was shot dozens
of times in the stomach, it occurred to them that
there should have been lots of blood. They
decided then and there to make a film with lots
of blood and gore. Note that this had never been
done before. The closest before that was
Hitchcock's Psycho.
The facade for their
motel (Suez Motel in Miami Beach), which had an
Egyptian motif, gave them the basic idea for a
plot (and the backdrop for the title page and
credits). The plot, quickly, is about a fanatic
follower of an ancient Egyptian cult who runs a
catering service, and decides to create an
"Egyptian Feast," which is made from
body parts of young women, to awaken his Goddess
Ishtar. As he harvests body parts, the police
take a dim view of the grisly murders.
Incidentally, their view wasn't the only dim
thing about these policemen.
This is a terrible film.
There are more plot holes than plot, the acting
is virtually non-existent, people couldn't
remember their lines (one actress is actually
reading them of the back of her hand) and the
dialogue is totally inane. Why did I bother with
it? It is the first slasher/gore film. It is
rather tame compared with what came after, but
was truly ground-breaking. Censorship boards at
the time had standards for nudity, sex and
language, but had no regulations regarding
violence or gore. This film caused an entire new
set of rules. There is no nudity at all in the
theatrical release of this film. Lewis and
Friedman were a little concerned about getting it
shown, and figured nudity would give the censors
an excuse to ban it. The Unknown nudity is from a
set of deleted scenes that Something Weird Video
uncovered for the DVD transfer.
To give you an idea how
this (and other exploitation films) were made, I
will relate some anecdotes from the feature
length commentary with both Friedman and Lewis.
Lewis wanted an actress with a large mouth to
make a scene where her tongue is removed easier
to shoot. He sent Friedman to the Playboy club to
recruit some talent. Friedman returned with June
1963 Playmate Connie Mason. Connie was a model,
and posed every time she was on camera. They also
used her in 2,000 maniacs, but she had no acting
ability at all. Lewis directed, scored the film
and did the camera work, while Friedman produced,
did the sound and special effects and even had a small part to save having to pay another
actor. The stage blood of the period looked too
purple on film, so they invented a new mixture
made mainly of Kaopectate. They did not tell the
actress (some of whom had to have it in their
mouth) what was in it. The actor hired to play a
police chief didn't show, so they used a grip in
his place. Fades were done in the camera rather
than in a lab, as the lab charged $75.00/fade. No
sets were used -- the Suez Motel provided most of
the filming sites. The uniformed police and squad
cars were real, and appeared for free. Notice
Unknown image 4. The book obviously fell into the
bath at some point, but they kept using it. The
entire film was shot in 9 days at a total cost of
$25,000.00 including the 75 prints that went into
distribution.
They opened Blood Feast
in Peoria because they weren't sure how the
public would accept it. The drive-in was packed
every night. Of course, Friedman did have an
ambulance waiting at the entrance, just in case
the shock was too much for viewers, and handed
out barf bags to people as they went in. This
sort of showmanship is something he learned in
the carny, and helped insure his success in
exploitation films. In the commentary, Lewis had
this to say about the success of Blood Feast. He
called it "The Schlock that Wouldn't
Die." For me, the film was bad enough to be
funny, and the DVD was well-made and packed with
special features.
For more information
about this film, I enjoyed this article.
Thumbnials Connie Mason (1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8)
Unknowns (1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6)
"Private
Parts" from Tuna
I must be the last
person to cap Private Parts from DVD, but
hopefully my treatment is different enough to
make it worth the download. This has been
discussed frequently in Funhouse (check the back
issues), but let me say that I really enjoy this
film. It is pure entertainment, which is not a
bad thing at all.
Lesbians (1,
2)
Theresa Lynn (1,
2,
3,
4)
Melanie Good (1,
2,
3)
new
collages from GR
Four new collages from
Graphic Response today. Probably the most
interesting is the quick pubic flash of Rosanna
Arquette in "I'm Losing You" - which
was missed by many of the people who did captures
from this movie. Amber Smith, "Laws of
Decpetion" Elizabeth Perkins, "I'm
Losing You"
Pamela Sue Martin, "Lady in
Red" Rosanna Arquette, "I'm
Losing You"
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