Saturday, September 25, 2010

The Gore Gore Girls (1972)

Crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap.

How do I really feel about this turd? AMRU 1.5.

What Netflix called "classic horror" was in reality mystery/horror themed porn. An IMDb reviewer commented "not so much a film as an endurance event." I couldn't agree more. Through most of the first half I had to force myself to continue watching in hopes it would get better. During the second half, I felt I needed to see this thing through to the end.

A dancer at the sickest strip joint on the planet is brutally murdered. A young female reporter hires famed detective Abraham Gentry to solve the case in exchange for exclusive rights to the story. More strippers (or Go[re] Go[re] dancers ... get it? Do ya?) die and eventually the mystery is solved. So, how does this movie fail? Let me count the ways.

Audio and video quality: F. Indoor shots are almost acceptable. Outdoor shots look like they were done by an amateur with a cheap hand held camera. The quality was reminiscent of the outdoor shots in Sesame Street episodes from my youth. All around the audio quality was bad. Low budget.

Sets and locations: D-. Looked like they had no resources and weren't really trying.

Script, story, and dialog: F+. Stretches of dialog would have earned a D, but overall bad.

Special effects: F. Not for a moment could you think the bloody head being bashed in and mutilated was an actual body part. A melon with a wig and lots of fake blood.

Editing: F. Long, boring focuses on the murders and the (ugh) strippers.

Comedy: D. Not funny.

Horror: F. Not the least bit scary, and we never get to know any victim to even care if they die.

Mystery: F. Didn't care who did it.

Porn: D. While most of the nekkid women in the movie weren't as enchanting as the wall behind them, one or two were.

There are a couple interesting things about the movie: Frank Kress, who played detective Gentry, was the only person in the movie that might have actually been an actor, yet this is his only movie credit. He did absolutely NOTHING prior or after. Another was the appearance of Henny Youngman. Shame, shame.

Some movies are charming or unintentionally amusing because of the makers ineptitude, others strive for the "so bad it's good" quality. I can be very forgiving of these. Gore Gore Girls was just bad. Director Herschell Gordon Lewis is something of a cult icon to some for his low budget, campy horror movies, but with apologies to him and his fans, The Gore Gore Girls sucked. There is a way to do low budget Sexy Horror, but this isn't it. I wonder if there is a Hammer film in my future.

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