Herschell Gordon Lewis: The Godfather of Gore

Writer/director Frank Henenlotter was born in 1950 in Long Island, New York. Henenlotter gleefully misspent his youth watching a large array of blithely cheap’n’cheesy low-budget exploitation flicks in various seedy grindhouse theaters on 42nd Street. Henenlotter began making 8mm films as a teenager. His 16mm black-and-white short “Slash of the Knife” actually played at a 42nd Street midnight show with John Water’s “Pink Flamingos.” Henenlotter briefly worked as a commercial artist and graphic designer prior to embarking on a career as a filmmaker. Henenlotter’s pictures are distinguished by their offbeat plots, cheerfully lowbrow humor, excessive gore, and pervasively sordid atmosphere. Henenlotter made a smashing horror film debut with the marvelously gruesome and sleazy monster splatter gem “Basket Case” (1981), which delivered a surprisingly substantial amount of touching pathos along with the expected over-the-top explicit violence and hilariously scuzzy humor. This terrifically twisted tale of two Siamese twins who exact a harsh revenge on the doctors who surgically separated them was a big midnight movie hit and deservedly achieved true cult classic status. Henenlotter’s follow-up fright feature was the equally excellent and inspired “Brain Damage” (1987), another grotesquely original and imaginative winner that offers a potent and provocative allegory on drug addiction with its supremely sick story of a young man who becomes an initially unwitting host for a cunning, ancient and lethal parasite that feeds on human brains. “Frankenhooker” (1990) was an uproariously rude’n’raunchy tongue-in-cheek hoot while both “Basket Case” sequels are very amusing and enjoyable affairs. Outside of writing and directing, Frank has been responsible for reissuing an enormous volume of vintage 60s and 70s horror, soft-core and exploitation movies on VHS and DVD alike for Something Weird Video; he has also served as an extremely funny, lively and entertaining moderator on numerous DVD commentaries for Something Weird Video. After a regrettably lengthy absence from filmmaking, Frank Henenlotter made a welcome comeback with the typically bizarre “Bad Biology” (2008). —IMDb