Herschell Gordon Lewis week (July 14 – 20) HG seemed to truly love packing theaters. He’s most famous for introducing gore to horror movies, but he’d fill any need that the audience had. He made every genre of exploitation __ – even kids movies! Gore movies would’ve happened eventually, but Herschell seemed to take joy in crafting gross-out shocks for unsuspecting cineasts. INTERESTING FACT! HG Lewis was a huge fan of Kentucky Fried Chicken and had them cater all of his productions. Col. Harland Sanders himself appeared in Lewis’ Blast Off Girls!

A Miami businessman, John Stone (Bill Rogers) gets a package from England with two dusty and cobwebbed bottles of plum brandy from a recently dead ancestor. He drinks them both and, as these things happen, he becomes a vampire. He puts his wife Helene (Elizabeth Wilkinson) in a trance and heads off to England.

There, he fights Howard Helsing (Otto Schlessinger), the last survivor of the Van Helsing family. Well, as much England as Miami.

This was Herschell Gordon Lewis’ attempt to go mainstream, filled with better acting, less gore and, well, way too much running time. At least the makeup on the vampire version of Stone is cool, there is some nice lighting and unique camera angles. It was good enough for Roger Corman to offer Lewis a job, which he politely turned down.

In case you’re wondering where the music is from, it’s from the Dr. Who episode “The Tenth Planet.”

While not a bad movie, I come to a Herschell Gordon Lewis movie to be upset, shocked and nauseated. This did none of those things, but at least he stretched a bit.