All the Rage DIRECT’s own Curmudgeon-at-Large, Herschell Gordon Lewis, is on a roll. This year there’s been a book about him and one by him. Now he has received two distinct honors as well.
The first is that Web site B-Movie Theater (www.b-movie.com) has inducted Lewis into the B-Movie Hall of Fame. The site celebrates low-budget genre films. The annual event is the result of a round of international nominations and elections. Lewis is best known in B-movie circles as the maker of such classics as “2,000 Maniacs,” “Color Me Blood Red” and “The Gore-Gore Girls.”
His film “Blood Feast” was also inducted as a B-movie classic. The Web site, incidentally, is owned and operated by Sub Rosa Studios, which distributes independent films and videos.
The second tribute comes from one of Lewis’ biggest fans: director John Waters. Waters’ films are sprinkled with homages and references to Lewis, but seldom so overtly as in the recently released “Cecil B. Demented.” The movie is about a gang of cinema-terrorists who abduct a movie actress. When the terrorists introduce themselves to their victim, each one displays the name of an independent cult director tattooed on one arm. Needless to say, one terrorist’s tattoo IDs Herschell Gordon Lewis.
