FILMGORE (1983)
Article 4581 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-16-2014
Directed by Ken Dixon
Featuring Cassandra Peterson
Country: USA
What it is: Footage from other movies

Elvira serves as host to a compilation of clips from gory movies from the sixties to the early eighties.

Before I start on this movie, I’d like to say that I have in my collection a made-for-video tape called HORRIBLE HORROR. It is hosted by Zacherley and consists of footage from (mostly) bad movies made from the thirties to the sixties. As a serious movie, it is inconsequential. Nonetheless, I rather enjoy watching it because I like the antics of Zacherley and since I’m personally fond of the types of movies he covers, I enjoyed watching the clips.

I bring this up because, at heart, this made-for-video feature is pretty much the same sort of thing; it’s clips of movies with a horror host. The main difference lies in the emphasis of the clips; in HORRIBLE HORROR it’s concentrating on cheesy black-and-white films, while this one concentrates on clips of movies with extreme gore, violence and blood-letting. Therein lies the reason I don’t care for this one; I may be a fan of those old black and white movies, but I’m not a fan specifically of extreme gore. Oh, I can deal with it; anybody who covers horror movies from the last fifty years has to contend with it. The trouble is, I never go into a movie HOPING it will be really gory, and this compilation is primarily for people who ARE hoping for that. I like Elvira all right, but she’s not at her best here, and despite the fact that she is constantly interrupting the movies with puns and bad jokes, she seems somewhat disconnected from the process. Forrest J. Ackerman is credited as one of the writers, and he no doubt penned Elvira’s opening speech, but I’m not sure about the rest of it. Granted, the whole thing consists of nothing but clips and jokes; there’s no narration to give the thing context, so you have to take it on the face value of its title. And in that case, I do find some of the choices rather curious; there’s really not much gore in either THE ASTRO-ZOMBIES or FIEND. This is for gorehounds only.