The Uh-Oh Show DVD Review

  Okay, the cover's not the greatest, but it's a Hershell Gordon Lewis movie.  Yes, a brand spanking new HGL film.  The Godfather of Gore himself is still around and kicking.  So okay, HGL put out the first gore for gore sake's films in drive-ins.  Can you imagine the shock and horror of audiences seeing such flagrant displays of butchery on a theatre screen for the first time ever?  Blood Feast, The Gore Gore Girls, and The Wizard of Gore are a few of his trash classics.  Wish I could've been there in the theatres, but it's not my generation. 

On with the review!  Fast forward about forty or fifty years in the new age of shot on video and low budget filmmaking anybody can do.  Where does an HGL find himself in the current trend of low budget films?  I'd mark him somewhere between Troma films and HBO's Mr. Show.  It's a tight crevice where too much of a good thing or too much of a bad thing can easily happen.

The Uh-Oh Show's premise concerned me from the onset.  A game show where people lose their limbs if they answer questions wrong.  How do you fill 87 minutes with that?  It's what happens between the game show that makes this movie so much fun.  You've got TV executives fighting for ratings, reporters exposing a plot to cover up murders (the show promises the people cut up are put back together again; yep, this requires a stretch of the imagination), and humor that's funny or misses the mark and is totally ridiculous.  You also get HGL himself as a story teller between scenes.  This movie is choked full of attempts to entertain you with gore, jokes (some enjoyable, some lame), and a few boobs (never hurts), and a Llyod Kaufman cameo as a pimp (make sure your corn hole's clean).  You'll have to see it for yourself, folks.

The Uh-Oh Show is a low budget movie that overcomes many obstacles if you let it.  This film also lets the Godfather of Gore stick in social commentary where he didn't really get to back in the heyday of drive in flicks, though The Gore Gore Girls pushed for it.  I'm not saying this is great filmmaking, but it's not shit.  I enjoyed my time watching it and was surprised at its level of humor.  As a story and cohesive plot, this one beats his old movies for sure. 

Here's to HGL being around long enough to throw another movie or two in our direction. I'll be all over it.

4/5 for super fan

3.5/ for medium fans.

2 for those who can't enjoy a lower budget movie under any circumstances.