The Gruesome Twosome

Presented in dual-channel stereophonic Weird Vision.

Some killer, mostly filler, this film is quintessential sixties exploitation trash from the godfather and modern master of gore, Hershell Gordon Lewis. Lewis is the creator of the first ever gore movie, Blood Feast and the more popular She Devils on Wheels and 2000 Maniacs.

Made almost back to back after She-Devils on Wheels it was the success this film that gave Lewis a standing with his financiers and distributors where he “could do nothing wrong, absolutely nothing wrong.”

This may well be the problem. The Gruesome Twosome may be the work of a master, but it is far from a masterpiece.

The movie runs a mere two minutes over the 70 minute minimum required to be classified as a feature length film. After falling short of the quota, the seven-minute opening sequence was hastily prepared and pasted to the start of the film. It features two Styrofoam wig blocks with crude cardboard faces discussing the plot of the film until one of them gets a bloody knifing.

After such an introduction, expectations should be sufficiently lowered to withstand the boredom that is to follow.

The plot is a simple one: protagonist, Mrs Pringle (Elizabeth Davis) runs ‘The Little Wig Shop' with the help of her mentally retarded son, Rodney (Chris Martell). Mrs Pringle seems like a harmless but eccentric old lady who talks to her stuffed bobcat, Napoleon. But local college girls who come to buy wigs or check out the room for rent get a nasty surprise when Mrs Pringle locks them in the basement where they are brutally scalped (and one girl is disembowelled and has a kidney ripped out) by Rodney the retard. The scalps are then used by Mrs Pringle to make the “100% human hair” wigs sold in the shop.

The first is the most gruesome of the far-too-rare gore scenes, which are interspersed by typical sixties “happenings” like a college dorm KFC pyjama party, complete with groovy music and hip-swivelling, and also a coca-cola beach party (with bikini clad, hip swivelling chicks and once again, groovy music).

When several girls go missing, lead character and pain-in the arse busybody, Kathy (Gretchen Welles) decides to investigate.

There are some excruciatingly padded-out moments where Kathy sleuths around Nancy Drew style. Unfortunately, I've seen more suspenseful episodes of Scooby Doo.

There are a couple of hilarious moments, particularly the drive in scene where we see the film being screened in which a woman attempts to seduce a man who's only interested in squashing fruit in his fist and stuffing his face with potato chips.

In the director's commentary, Lewis speaks frankly and honestly telling his accounts of continuity errors and last minute fix up jobs and “guess work”. These elements make up the charm and appeal of this type of low budget drive-in fodder, which was churned out for the teenage market around the late sixties and early seventies.

This is not rich with gore but there is the scene with the electric carving knife, which adds a nice novelty touch but after the first half you might as well fast forward to the bloody bits. In H.G. Lewis' own words, when compared to She Devils on Wheels… this was a lightweight and in retrospect, my feeling here is that we did spend too much time on the periphery...”

And rightly said: the recovery periods between the violence are painfully drawn out and damaging to the film. Some may say this adds to its sophistication but that's just being generous. After all, the intention here is to make low budget horror. This is a DVD that may appeal to hardcore gore-fans who are willing to endure the tedium, if only to satisfy mild curiosity.

-- Kinko P Douglas