Trailer—Scum of the Earth

source: Scum of the Earth

Scum of the Earth

This early "roughie" directed H.G. Lewis is average, but has some interesting dialogue. The main actress is SO TERRIBLE she actually seems to be this naive girl! Otherwise, well-cast and shot. A 4 out of 10. A great final shot! It's a bit long but the second half tension improves the conglomerate of bad taste. A definite morality tale. Herman Hesse would be tickled! This must have been fascinating to see on it's release in 1963. The photographer with the strange-colored hair seems pretty realistic and I can't imagine where they found the lead girl. It's almost as if she was coached to be the complete amateur with bad timing and unbelievable pauses between lines of dialogue, but somehow she makes it work. Worth seeing.

Ah, yes, a roughie from master of gore, Herschell Gordan Lewis. I thought the acting of this film was actually fairly decent for a film like this. A naive and innocent teenage girl slowly gets blackmailed by a photographer to do photo shoots in the *. Yes, there is some bad acting from a few people but the two leads do a decent job. One actor who doesn't come off well is the scummy boss who sells pictures of naked women. However, he is so bad that he's actually pretty memorable with his campy dialog. The way the scene is shot makes it seem like it's a really important scene which makes it even more amusing. I did, however expect this film to get more down and dirty with it's subject matter. Lewis has pushed boundaries with his gore films and should have tried to do the same here. It's not a terrible film but it does feel like the director pulled a few punches.

OK, so this is a "roughie" with trash and the tale of a perversion of a dainty young thing just trying to get some money for college. Aw shucks! Implied slavery, degrading of women, pimps slapping their workers, "filthy" pinup photos sold trunk to dirty old men hand, dirty young men hand and anyone else who was buying "*" in the age. It reminds you of how * required so much more work than the modern age. This movie is a slow burn with some GREAT lines that you might find yourself quoting to your friends. I totally recommend getting friends together and drinking, heavily. You might find the start boring, but this has to be watched to it's blistering end. OK, it's not that blistering but it's FUNNY! A perfect picture of just how ridiculous drive in films were back in the day. Good stuff!

Directed by, according to the opening credits, a one Lewis H.Gordon. No fooling any student of horror or exploitation cinema, this of course was actually the legendary Herschell Gordon Lewis, famous for his gore movies. His former wife, Allison Louise Downe, stars as a naïve young woman who earns some much needed cash posing for photographs but eventually finds herself posing *, with the threat of blackmail hanging over her. And indeed there is some nudity here, breasts and bottoms. Which is probably the purose behind this film, rather than the moral message. Acting is bad, as to be expected with a HG Lewis. One character, Larry, is meant to be a minor but was actually 30 years old when this was filmed. One nice touch is that although filmed in black and white there is a split second red blood splat on screen. I only watched this film because it was an extra on a blu ray of another Lewis film but I'm glad that I did. Turned out to be reasonably entertaining.

Written and directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis, SCUM OF THE EARTH is evocative of the early 60s "make out" flick featuring semi and full nudity. The acting is atrocious, but you don't watch this for the acting. Trying to earn money for acting lessons in Hollywood, a winsome beauty Kim Sherwood(Vickie Miles)is tricked into a dirty picture racket, when she agrees to take photos for a sleazy photographer(Thomas Sweetwood). After posing topless, Kim is blackmailed into taking more daring shots with a muscle-head named Ajax(Craig Maudslay Jr.), who loves to crack a whip. Before she can escape the whole sordid mess, there is a couple of murders that leads to a suicide. Early exploitation flick that could have been a whole lot scummier. Also in the cast: Sandra Sinclair, Toni Calvert, Mal Arnold and Lawrence J. Aberwood.

A naive and innocent teenage girl (Allison Louise Downe) is blackmailed into modeling in the * for a photographer who is in league with a teenage gang whose boss illegally sells photos of teenage girls being abused and degraded. First of all, let's get it out of the way: the father (Edward Mann) is possibly the worst actor who ever lived. Downe, on the other hand, does a great job, and it is interesting that she transitioned from * victim to one of Lewis' longest collaborators. Allmovie wrote, "Unintentionally funny and poorly photographed, this film certainly has its moments for connoisseurs of bad cinema, but others will find it tawdry and dull." This may be true, but to put it in the context of H. G. Lewis, it is actually one of his better-made movies and the film quality has held up well. Most of his films have awful prints, but not this one. Even the score seems pretty decent.

One of the earliest of "roughie" films of the 60s, this cheap Florida film about how nudie photographers lure innocent cuties to shed their clothes and morals is pretty dull with only brief flashes of H.G. Lewis' brand of low-grade brilliance. Acting that ranges from overwrought to amateurish plus static direction keeps this from being a good film but a vicious belt-whipping scene keeps it from being too timid with its seedy subject matter. Look for much of the cast of Lewis' classic film BLOOD FEAST in this.