"Time to put a fresh coat of wax on the old Pontiac GTO and empty out the ash trays. Hey, I might even break in a new T-shirt for this one!"
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The contemporary horror film has one thread running through it...a blood-red thread. Blood and gore. In fact, storyline, character development, and even the monster itself sometimes take a back seat to the gore effects. And it didn't start with Friday The 13th. In fact, to see the gore film's "roots," we have to travel back to the Sixties, a time of...
(Editor's note: Okay, okay, we were going to do a properly serious series about Herschell Gordon Lewis and David Friedman's three early Sixties "blood trilogy" films that introduced gore to the horror film. But we decided to take the point of view of the sort of drive-in movie patron whom these exploitation flicks were aimed at--a drive-in movie patron who has more on his mind than Egyptian feasts and Southern rituals...) By JOHN W. COLEMAN My name is Billy Ray. That’s really two names, I know, but I’m a Southern boy, so that‘s OK. The year is 1967, my first summer after high school graduation, and what I’m about to describe to you may be just too horrifying, too fantastic for you to believe. This is a tale that may go beyond words... Her name was Bambi. I guess her parents were big Disney fans or something. At the time she was the hottest number at Meck High. It took me weeks to get up the courage to give her a call and invite her to the movies. Imagine my surprise when she accepted. Must have been a slow week for dating this unusually warm summer. Now I could take her to the movie in town or the triple feature showing at the South 29 Drive-in. Bambi was definitely triple feature material. And this particular triple play was supposed to be a gory one.
The paper had it advertised as the "Blood Trilogy". Three films to make the girls squirm and sit a little closer; Blood Feast, Two Thousand Maniacs, and Color Me Blood Red. Time to put a fresh coat of wax on the old Pontiac GTO and empty out the ash trays. Hey, I might even break in a new T-shirt for this one! Bambi and I got through the initial small talk OK. She even said she liked my car, so I figured I was off to a pretty good start. I got a good spot at the drive-in on the first try. Yeah, believe it or not, the speaker actually worked in the spot I picked! First up was Blood Feast. I was looking forward to this one. The ad in the paper said it featured Connie Mason, Playboy’s Playmate of the Month for June of 1963. I don’t recall if that issue was one of the ones that my classmate, Buddy, ripped off from his dad for our perusal, but if Connie Mason was a Playmate, she was OK by me.
This is certainly starting out to be pretty interesting, a bathtub scene! I wonder what Bambi thinks of this? This drum beat in the background is driving me nuts. So, OK, this girl is reading the book Ancient Weird Religious Rites , and, good Lord, she just got stabbed by this guy, and there’s gunk hanging from his knife, it’s her eye, he’s hacking at her... man, he just cut off her leg and there’s blood and bone and gore, and this movie ain’t even three minutes old yet! Bambi looks shocked. Heck, so am I for all that matters. Finally, some credits roll, Blood Feast, spelled out with spattering blood. Oh, brother! So the cops are trying to figure out the murders of seven young girls, all mutilated, with body parts removed. A woman enters the store of Fuad Ramses, Exotic Catering. Hey, it’s the guy who killed the girl in the tub! Our lady introduces herself as Mrs. Fremont, and she’s going to be throwing a party for her daughter, but needs some suggestions for the meal. Ramses offers to cater an "Egyptian Feast".
Boy, this guy is really creepy, limp and all. In the back of the store he has a shrine set up to the Egyptian goddess, Ishtar. The feast will be for her, in an attempt to bring her back to life. Alright now, here’s Connie Mason the Playmate! Nice! Oops, Bambi is giving me the eye. Are these cops a couple of boneheads, or what? And what’s this? A make out scene on the beach? But what happened to Connie? Oh, well. Now Ramses shows up, clubs the guy on the head, and takes a machete to the girl.
What is he up to? Yuk, he’s got his hands full of something bloody and squishy. He cut out her brains! Bambi asked, "Did you know this movie was going to be like this? I’ve never seen anything like it. I didn’t think they were allowed to show this kind of stuff!" I didn’t have anything intelligent to say, so I shut up. She seems quite taken in by all this. Ramses is stalking a drunk guy and his girl (all to the tune of How Dry I Am played on a violin or cello or something. Pretty sappy!).
The guy leaves the girl in the motel room and Ramses moves in. He’s got his hand in her mouth. Holy crap, he just pulled out her tongue! There it is, dripping in bright red blood. Lordy, this is gross. Well, we’re finally back to Connie Mason. Her character, Suzette, is the daughter of Mrs. Fremont who is throwing the "Egyptian Feast". Suzette shows up at a lecture about the Egyptian goddess, Ishtar. One of the detectives, Pete Thornton, is there, too, and they strike up a relationship. The lecturer tells about the Blood Feast of Ishtar, and that many virgins were slain in its celebration. Body parts were removed, then prepared and fed to the celebrants.
So this is what this Fuad Ramses guy is up to. In the ancient reenactment, a priest cuts out the heart of his virgin victim, which of course we get to see in all its gory bloodiness. After the lecture is completed, Detective Thornton offers to drive Suzette home. He stops on the way. I think he might be trying to make a move on her. Maybe I should follow suit with Bambi. There it is, the kiss! Dang, I waited too long, the moment is past. The same holds true for our lovers, as the radio announces another victim. But this one isn’t dead, yet. The detectives visit the hospital and find that she has had her face hacked away and her eyes gouged out. She describes her assailant as a wild eyed old man. After mumbling something unintelligible that sounds like "etar’, she dies.
Detective Thornton thinks that sounds familiar, but can’t quite place it. Duh! Back at Ramses’ store, we’re presented with a clue. That book we saw in the bath scene, Ancient Weird Religious Rites, is advertised and sent out by Ramses himself. That’s how he gets the addresses of his victims. Whoa, boy! Hot bikini clad chicks in a swimming pool including our Miss Mason. I’m liking this. I wonder what Bambi looks like in a bikini? Don’t tell me that Ramses is going to crash this pool party, too. Guess not, he wanders off, but kidnaps one of the girls later as she leaves the house. He takes her back to his Ishtar shrine and ties her to the wall. As he finishes cooking his concoction of body parts, he starts flogging his victim to get her blood.
Meanwhile, Detective Thornton has finally put it all together... the Ishtar thing, the book and the book club that the victims belonged too, and it all leads him to Fuad Ramses. Now back to Ramses... jeez, he’s cooking a human leg in a pizza oven! Comes out nicely charred. The detectives go to Ramses’ store and discover the shrine, complete with the latest victim’s bloodied and mutilated body laid out on the table. We get a slow pan, full body shot of the blood and gore. They high tail it to the Fremont party, which Ramses is catering. Ramses entices Suzette into the kitchen, but his plans to sacrifice her on the counter top altar fail when Mrs. Fremont catches him about to hack off Suzette’s head. Ramses runs from the house as the police show up and chase him through what looks like the local dump. It is the dump, and Ramses climbs into the back of a garbage truck to make his escape. Not knowing Ramses is in there, the garbage man compacts the trash in the truck, including Ramses. One of our brilliant detectives states, "He died a fitting death, the garbage he was." Well, so much for that movie.
Bambi was pretty cool about this whole gore fest, but to the point where she showed no interest in getting to know me better, if you get my drift. Strike One. Well, it was time for the first intermission and up on the screen comes that goofy "let’s all go to the lobby" cartoon. Why play that at the drive-in? There was no lobby. Bambi requested some popcorn and an RC while for me a Moon Pie and an RC sounded pretty good. I put in my time standing in line and headed back to the car. It was pretty embarrassing when I couldn’t find it at first. I didn’t realize there were so many GTOs in Charlotte. Oh, man, I just don't believe this. I'm not really sure where I parked. It looks a lot different with all these cars here and from this direction. This is only supposed to happen to total nerds, not studs like me! I've got to figure this out in a hurry. To be continued. Will Billy Ray find his car? Will he achieve his goal with the vixenish Bambi? Or will the next two gory installments of the "Blood Trilogy" induce projectile vomit and ruin any chance of romance? Tune in next issue! Article copyright © John W. Coleman. You can email him here. |
