Watch Herschell Gordon Lewis' BloodMania For Free

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Good start, but then it gets ruined

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS' BLOOD MANIA is the final feature in the long-running career of the cult director, best known under his moniker the Godfather of Gore. He made three latter-day gore flicks in the 21st century, but as with the recent work of Ted V. Mikels, they're pretty much buried under a wave of similar indie productions which leaves his '60s legacy as the work he'll be best known for. This film is in particular a disappoint, a horror anthology featuring a quartet of short horror pieces linked by Lewis himself presenting in front of a bad green screen.The first story has a hook hand running amok and causing violence; the second is a small-time romance, the third a family drama, and the last a more arresting story of a psychopath attacking a group of strippers. There's some minor nudity and a little cheap gore FX but otherwise this is surprisingly tame and looks very cheap and lame in comparison to the director's earlier work. RIP, Herschell.

Herschell Gordon Lewis' BloodMania (2017) ** (out of 4)This anthology horror film turned out to be the last directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis who did two of the four stories. Up first is Gory Story from Lewis, which is about a man who is possessed by a hook he uses for his hand. Attack of Conscience deals with a woman seeking vengeance on a dirty man. The Night Hag, also directed by Lewis, has a new family moving into a house and thinking something is there. Finally, GOREgeous has a weirdo manager of an all-girls rock band finally flipping out.From the opening credits to the last, there's no question that this movie was meant to pay respect to Lewis as well as get him behind the camera again. Was the film a success? I would argue no but at the same time it's good to get another Lewis picture even if it can't stand up to his classics. With that said, the film is still better than a lot of the movies he released back in the day.As with any anthology movie, the stories are certainly going to be of a different quality. I'd say that the second film was the least entertaining as there just really wasn't anything interesting going on. The story was rather boring and the CGI murders were just silly. The next weakest would be the first story from Lewis. I'm not sure if the point was to make fun of the media but it's just not as clever as it should have been. The Night Hag from Lewis is a somewhat interesting idea that has Lewis briefly going away from the gore to do a 70's like movie about a creepy woman living in the walls. The final film is probably the best if you're wanting gore as there are several graphic murders in the Lewis style.This here is mainly going to appeal to fans of Lewis who want to see everything that the director did. The highlight of the entire film is the fact that Lewis plays hosts and introduces the films. That great voice was still there and there's no doubt that this is the best part of the film. There's some real blood used but there's way too much CGI and I'd argue that none of the stories are overly good. Still, the last two are certainly the best of the bunch.