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The Gruesome Twosome (1967)

Dir: Herschell Gordon Lewis

Cast: Elizabeth Davis
Chris Martell
Gretchen Wells

The infamous start of this HG Lewis trash fest is indeed as bad as legend has it. The film was not long enough for a feature, so Lewis added a sequence of 2 wigs on their head shaped holders (complete with paper eyes, mouths and noses) having a bitch at each other before one gets a knife plonked into it.
As one we all cry... "It's art!"

Fade into a girl taking a look at a 'room to let' in a wig shop run by the strange Mrs Pringle (Davis in a bad granny wig) who speaks to her stuffed cat 'Napoleon' and SHOUTS all her dialogue through a rictus grin.
Before you can say "Trasharama" Rodney, her mutant, backwards son, (Murtell, who was Production Manager on the semi classic "Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things") has scalped the poor unfortunate girl (in a bumpy scalp/hair appliance that blends in to her skin as well as The Pope at a Gay Rights Rally) and added her shiny locks to Mum's wig shop. So this is how her wigs are so lifelike!...Titles, funky Jazz score, off we go.

It's Bimbo City! Female Students jive on their beds in nightgowns eating 'Kentucky Fried Chicken' (who had just started up and helped sponsor the film) when suddenly the radio announces that there is a murderer about. Cathy (Wells) is our Heroine Bimbo (who is a 5 cans of hairspray a day Nancy Drew) declares that she knew something fishy was going on.
She tells her plank of a boyfriend she is going to investigate, he tells her to stop being silly. But investigate she does with all the skill of an unskilled thing.
After a very tedious 'following the wrong suspect while a comedy tune plays' sequence (C'mon HG, you have already shown us who the psychos are!), which also has the WORST bit of 'screaming in terror' acting ever seen (even bad for a Lewis flick) and a sneering Woman who hugs her rolling pin, we get on with the plot. Which of course means more nightgowns, an UNrevealing shower scene (BOO!) and more truly dreadful acting.
"HG"! We shout.."Where's that gore"??
HG does not listen though, instead he throws in a bizarre 'potato chip/fruit eating, beer drinking' film within a film sequence (featuring "Wizard Of Gore" himself Ray Sagar) at the Drive-In, as Cathy waxes lyrical about the meaning of life. This has to be one of the most pointless, mind-melting bit of film ever unfurled before Human eyes!

All is not lost though as it's murder time at last! We finally drive through Cheesy Gore City as Rodney goes to work with an electric knife.
But then it's dance time again as the soppy teens groove on the beach wearing nothing but stupid grins and bad bikinis.

But never fear Mrs Pringle has started shouting poetry and wise words to her stuffed cat! This can only mean one thing...We're driving into Gore City again!
And damn fine gore it is too, as one of Lewis's best splatter sequences entertains us. Squishy innards anyone?
Soon Cathy's snooping around the wig shop, Rodney's having a burble to himself, Mrs Pringle's overacting to her dead cat and it's all wrapped up with those typical HG Lewis trash trimmings.

So how can we ultimately sum this up? TRASH! Yes, that about covers it. UTTER TRASH! COMPLETE CHEESE! PURE, 100% HACK JOB!
There is, I have to admit, too much time spent on boring red herring sequences and inane conversations (much as "Color Me Blood Red" bogged down in it's badly made 'drama' elements) and that fruit eating sequence is even worse than the annoying, but bizarre, talking wigs.

And yet, dear reader, it is of course a HG flick, and that means entertainment, no matter how trashy.
It's got that love for all things bizarre, it's got an innocent charm even when the most nasty things are going on and it's got "Blood Feast" kettle drums.
It's Drive-In. It's Grindhouse. . It's something 'normal' people would pull faces at. And that alone HAS to be some kind of recommendation!