I really needed something like the The Gore Gore Girls today. After back to back days of truly awful movies, it was refreshing to get something that was fun - as fun as a film about a crazed murder who viciously mutilates his victims can be, anyways. But The Gore Gore Girls has this weird, almost wacky sense of humor thrown into the mix. It's no doubt a strange cocktail: a splattery detective tale featuring graphic gore mixed with campy comedy, along with a hefty dose of 70's style. It's certainly an acquired taste... but I dug it.
The Gore Gore Girls is clearly an exploitation film; not a surprise as the plot revolves around an assailant who murders strippers. So in addition to graphic mutilation scenes, you get a handful of striptease scenes too. Often inexplicably done to circus-esque big band music, but whatever. The Gore Gore Girls is old enough that the exploitation stuff to me was more often charming than shocking - the striptease scenes are never really that titillating, and the gore scenes, while graphic, are low-fi enough that they are usually more fun than truly disgusting. (There are a couple of exceptions where I winced a bit.) But according to imdb, it is rated X - I don't know, to me it's a soft X. Still, buyer beware.
Anyways, after a vicious murder to start things off, we are introduced to our hero Abraham Gentry (Frank Kress). He's apparently some kind of private investigator, and is offered big bucks by the Daily Globe to solve the murder and then give their reporter Nancy Weston (Amy Farell) the exclusive story. Gentry is kind of a dapper and dandy/coolest-guy-in-the-room kind of detective - suave and snobby but still pretty funny. He goes from strip club to strip club, interviewing people who knew the first victim and interrogating potential suspects. But an ugly pattern starts to develop - shortly after he interviews a person, they turn up dead! So Gentry meets with the guy who owns all of the strip clubs (Henny Youngman! Some WTF casting, but he gets some good lines) and concocts a plan that will help him catch the killer and stop the reign of terror.
Gentry is just an awesome character, and really elevated the movie for me. He's sarcastic and snobby, but in a light-hearted way - he's just flat out entertaining. He's got this cane that he carries around, that he uses to grab people or tap them on the shoulder when he wants their attention - it doesn't sound funny, but it is. Gentry is a a typical swinging 70's dude - I would seriously *love* to have this guys wardrobe. The character is a bit cartoonish at times. He never really takes anything seriously, which means you as the viewer never really do either. But it fits in with the vibe of the movie - despite the horrible murders that are going on, The Gore Gore Girls is still a fun movie at heart.
The gore effects are probably what the film is most known for. Most of the time they are cheap and over the top enough, and the sound effects so mushy, that the overall effect is more "funny" than "disturbing." And I'm pretty sure that is the intent - I mean, you get a scene where the killer smashes someones ass repeatedly with a meat tenderizer, and once the victim is dead, he sprinkles on a little seasoning. Also, you sometimes can't really even tell what is supposed to be going on... there is more than one scene where there is just a pair of hands moving through a bunch of meat, with maybe an eye in there. Now, it's not *all* fun and games - there are a couple of legitimately cringe-worthy scenes in The Gore Gore Girls. But overall it's gore in the name of black humor and campy fun.
The film is pretty gritty looking - it's got that grindhousey look and isn't particularly well lit or shot. But that lack of polish works in the film's favor. The atmosphere of fun sleaziness just wouldn't be the same if it was a crisp looking film with great cinematography.
I've never seen any of Herschell Gordon Lewis's films before - he is considered the Godfather of Gore, and I'm not a huge splatter guy. But after The Gore Gore Girls, I think I'll have to check more of them out. There is this knowing sense of humor in the film that I really appreciated, and it's fun to look back and see how the idea of gore in the horror genre has changed over time. Like I said, something like The Gore Gore Girls is going to be an acquired taste, but if you're a fan of exploitation cinema and it sounds like it would be up your alley:
I would recommend this film.
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