Gore Gore Girls, The (1972)

A mysterious leather-gloved maniac smashes the face of a scantily-clad stripper into a mirror, brutally stabs her multiple times, and then mutilates her corpse.

As the camera lingers to savour every detail, the murderer decapitates the woman, carves off her face, and pummels the bones and muscles of her skull into a pulp decorated by one intact eye.

Since the camerawork is clumsy and the makeup effects are amateurish, the scene isn’t so much horrifying as unpleasant, but it’s hard to understand why director and splatter-movie titan Herschell Gordon Lewis thought such atrocities should be filmed.

Attractive young reporter Nancy Weston (Amy Farrell) subsequently hires debonair private investigator Abraham Gentry (Frank Kress) to search out the identity of the killer.

All the victims are exotic dancers so Gentry – who refuses to get his hands dirty – plunges into the world of low-rent strip clubs and Lewis gets to augment scenes of bloodletting with sleazy vignettes of strippers plying their trade.

The murder scenes are so absurdly extreme that the movie was originally rated X. Throats are slit, bottoms are pulverised with meat hammers (with a little seasoning!), skin is seared with hot irons, nipples are cut off by shears, and faces are boiled alive in oil.

Comedy legend Henny Youngman inexplicably shows up as a strip-club proprietor.

Abraham Gentry
Frank Kress
Nancy Weston
Amy Farrell
Marlene
Hedda Lubin
Marzdone Mobilie
Henny Youngman
Lt. Anderson
Russ Badger
Suzie Cream Puff
Jackie Kroeger
Lola Prize
Nora Alexis
Mary McHenry
Emily Mason
Go-Go Dancers
Corlee Bew
Lena Bousman
Marina Salli
Menda MacPhail
Luba Cherewchenko
Pickles
Marlene Berger
Barney the Bartender
Ray Sager

Director
Herschell Gordon Lewis