Two Thousand Maniacs!

(1926–2016) earned the title “Godfather of Gore” (a nickname he shares with Lucio Fulci) for creating the splatter genre. He started making films in connection with his Chicago-based advertising firm, whose profits financed nearly all of his filmmaking endeavors. In 1961, he began his collaboration with exploitation producer David F. Friedman, which, with the decline of the nudie genre, turned toward gore: 1963 saw the groundbreaking Blood Feast (SLASH 2011), which was followed by Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964), Color Me Blood Red (1965), and A Taste of Blood (1967). Never shy to make use of taboo topics, his works also addressed subjects like juvenile delinquency, wife-swapping, and birth control. Driving the shock and gore elements to the limit with movies like The Wizard of Gore (1970) or The Gore Gore Girls (1972), he left the industry soon after, turning to copywriting and direct marketing. It was not until 2002 that he directed another film, the sequel Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat. His final feature-length work was the limb-severing media satire The Uh-Oh Show (SLASH 2011).