Refocus: The Films of Herschell Gordon Lewis - (Refocus: The American Directors) by Calum Waddell (Hardcover)

About the Book

Explores the influence of American director Herschell Gordon Lewis on exploitation cinema.

Book Synopsis

Dubbed "The Godfather of Gore," no other exploitation filmmaker made the most of scant budgets, short shooting schedules and amateur special effects like the legendary Herschell Gordon Lewis.

Making his mark with Blood Feast in 1963 and helming such notorious splatter-shockers as Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964), The Gruesome Twosome (1967) and The Gore Gore Girls (1972), the director provoked generations of indebted genre stylists - from John Waters and Frank Henenlotter to Eli Roth and Damien Leone, with his hit Terrifier franchise.

This is the first academic study into the work of Lewis, covering not just his bloodstained celluloid, but also his background in sexploitation and infomercials. In doing so, this entry in the ReFocus series takes one of cinema's most influential low budget craftsmen out of the grindhouse and considers him as an Avant Garde auteur in his own right.

Review Quotes

ReFocus: The Films of Herschell Gordon Lewis constitutes a substantial anthology of critical essays dedicated to an often overlooked figure in horror cinema. This volume is poised to serve as the definitive scholarly resource on Lewis's oeuvre, encompassing his earliest industrial documentaries through to the direct-to-video sequel, Blood Feast 2.-- "Mikel J. Koven, University of Worcester"