Blood! Guts! Gall!

As he approached his 78th birthday late last year, David Friedman, the godfather of movie gore, had come through an extended rough patch in his life. His beloved wife died in May, just weeks shy of their 50th anniversary. His eyesight was slowly fading with age. Routine conversations were becoming harder for him to hear.

Yet there was no mistaking the mischievous twinkle in his eyes and the mirth in his voice. As he approached the big day, Christmas Eve, David Frank Friedman, with the mind-set of a carny pitchman and the look and demeanor of a TV grandfather, was back hustling another B movie, this one a sequel to his 1963 cult classic “Blood Feast,” the first of the blood-and-guts horror genre.

The original “Blood Feast” movie poster boasted there had been “nothing so appalling in the annals of horror,” a claim in which Friedman takes great pride. He always has loved writing the breathless promotional copy for his movies and producing the previews. He takes considerable delight in having foisted a whole series of low-budget, lowbrow movies on an eager ticket-buying public. Between 1958 and 1984, Friedman produced and/or directed 58 largely tasteless, feature-length movies, he notes in his 1990 autobiography, “A Youth in Babylon: Confessions of a Trash-Film King.” The sequel to his classic, expected to be released in 2002, includes a subtitle: “Blood Feast 2: All You Can Eat.”

“I am probably guilty of promulgating more of the most disgusting garbage on the American public than anyone has ever done,” he once gleefully confessed to the authors of “Sinema: Pornographic Films and the People Who Make Them.” His horror and “sexploitation” movies were hardly pornographic, at least by today’s standards, but they enticed audiences with material that teased and titillated and seemed to offer glimpses of the taboo.

Indeed, Friedman is one of the last of the old-time hucksters. His history dates to the original movie conmen of the 1920s and 1930s, businessmen-turned-fast-buck moguls who whimsically called themselves the 40 Thieves and produced movies that made sensational claims, drew big crowds and, not coincidentally, made imposing profits. (Itinerant showman Kroger Babb--who made a fortune with a clinical childbirth movie called “Mom and Dad”--was Friedman’s mentor.) Their cinematic efforts were cheaply made, often crudely produced, and had thin or nonexistent plots, but their movies were guaranteed to entice eager customers into dark movie houses with the promise of seeing the unbelievable and forbidden.

“Remember,” Friedman says proudly. “I’m the guy who turned on your fathers and grandfathers.”

This genre of exploitation movie predated the explosion of explicit X-rated movies of the 1960s and 1970s, and they never actually delivered what they promised. The earlier films were all con jobs that played on the audience’s prurient expectations.

“I never did consider myself a pornographer,” says Friedman, chewing on a long Dominican cigar. “The secret of my stuff was the old carnival tease. The audience would think: ‘Oh, boy, we didn’t see it this week, but next week.’ They never did see it, but they kept coming back. We were fortunate that we were in the independent-film business, running between the raindrops. I’ve always said I made some terrible pictures, but I don’t make any apologies for anything I’ve ever done. Nobody ever asked for their money back.

“Fortunately, the great American public, in their wisdom, took these pictures to their hearts.”

There was often nudity, of course, but no sex, at least not anything remotely approaching today’s standards. Some of the movies were simply renamed and re-released on an unsuspecting public. Some played on each other.

“Blood Feast” was a detective story of sorts about a caterer named Fuad Ramses who kills and mutilates young women in an ancient Egyptian rite and uses their body parts in exotic dinners that pay homage to Ishtar, Egyptian goddess of blood. The movie spawned two more epics, “Two Thousand Maniacs” and “Color Me Blood Red,” completing a trilogy that made Friedman a legend among fans of that film genre.

Lately, from the comfort of his home in Anniston, a town about 55 miles east of Birmingham, he has been plotting the promotion and release of “Blood Feast 2.” The expansive subdivision in which Friedman lives is on the peak of a mountain, part of the Appalachian foothills. The neighborhood is heavily wooded, disturbed only by the gently rustling wind or yardmen brandishing leaf blowers. Magnolia trees and towering oaks and pines shade the manicured lawns. Neighbors are local businessmen, bankers, insurance agents and retirees.

Although he is well known and accepted locally, there is no outward indication of the pressing business being conducted in Friedman’s comfortable, wood-paneled home office, except for the hint on a brass doorplate--past the new Cadillac in the carport--that whimsically reads “No Dogs, Children or Actors.” Visitors invariably are offered a libation by their convivial host. Inside his office is a sign that reads: “Caution: You Are Now Entering the Den of Mad Dog Friedman.”

“Over the years, many people have come to us and said they wanted to make ‘Blood Feast 2,’” Friedman says. “But they didn’t have a script, and they didn’t have any money.”

So he and his equally famous production partner, Herschell Gordon Lewis, told all hopefuls to come back when they had a deal in place. Then in the fall of 2000, a young filmmaker named Jacky Lee Morgan approached Friedman and Lewis again to enlist their help. Morgan, 35, was just 8 when a teenage cousin smuggled him into a rural Louisiana drive-in to see “Blood Feast.”

Over the years, Morgan has worked in various production jobs for movies and music videos, and he was able to scrounge up the money, some from friends and from his own pocket, to produce his first feature-length film.

The original “Blood Feast” was shot in Miami in five days in February 1963, cost $24,500 to produce and has turned a $6.5-million profit, according to Friedman. “Blood Feast 2” was shot in Mandeville, La. (where Morgan lives), in 18 days last July and August. Producer Morgan declines to disclose the budget.

Friedman and Lewis are listed as the movie’s executive producers and tinkered with Morgan’s script. Friedman has been negotiating the all-important distribution deal, which will determine whether the movie will have a theatrical release, as he hopes, or go straight to cable and video.

By year’s end, he had spent a week or so in Los Angeles showing the movie to four distributors, and six others had lined up to take a look.

Lewis, 72, an authority on direct-mail advertising and author of about 14 related books, lives in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., and directed the film.

Neither Friedman nor Lewis have invested money in the new film, but for their contributions they will share in any profits. The rights to the “Blood Feast” name are held by the owners of Something Weird Video, in Seattle, Wash., which markets videos and DVDs of Friedman’s movies.

Preparations for filming “Blood Feast 2” were handled by Morgan, and there was an added bonus to the revival. Director John Waters, a devotee of the genre and friend of Friedman and Lewis, flew to Louisiana for a day to make a cameo appearance in the movie.

Shooting had its tensions. The crusty team of Friedman and Lewis thought the youngsters spent too much time setting up shots that would consume only seconds on the screen and drive up costs. “One Take” Lewis saw no point in filming scenes twice, though he sometimes did so anyway.

“I don’t think any of the crew was born when we made ‘Blood Feast,’” Friedman says. “They thought we were making ‘Citizen Kane 2.’ Finally, I had to take the cinematographer aside and say, ‘Look, kid, the people who go see pictures like ‘Blood Feast’ aren’t looking for any Rembrandt painting in every shot. They just want to see some blood and guts and a little skin. And if it’s in focus, all the better.’ It was something of a chore, but we lived through it and had fun. We were very fortunate in picking up some local actors in New Orleans who brought it off. We have five more victims [than the original] and a lot more nubile Southern lasses who were not too reluctant to show a little epidermis, so to speak.”

There were advantages to waiting 38 years to film “Blood Feast 2.” Technology has advanced the craft of moviemaking, and this time there was a special-effects man from California. The original “Blood Feast” relied on mannequins and makeshift animal parts acquired from butcher shops to produce gory scenes.

“The industry has come a long way since then, and we have every right to take credit for that because that whole genre wouldn’t exist if it hadn’t been for us,” Lewis boasts. “You can go into a local magic shop and get things we didn’t dream of.”

Friedman and Lewis didn’t set out to produce a cult classic. They hatched the project by accident shortly before they flew to Miami in early 1963 to film another low-budget nudist-colony romp, one of the staples of their moviemaking careers that bore such titles as “Daughter of the Sun” and “Nature’s Playmates.”

The independent-movie kingpins had wondered: What kind of movie would no one else dare make--certainly not the big studios, which were restricted by codes of standards and taste--and might draw a crowd and turn a nice profit?

As they talked, “Blood Feast” started to take shape. When they finished the nudist-colony picture, they stayed in Miami and quickly cranked out “Blood Feast.”

In his autobiography, Friedman calls “Blood Feast” a “revolting little film that started out as a gag.” When he and Lewis returned home to Chicago with the raw footage, one of their film editors, Bob Sinise (father of actor Gary Sinise, then 8), asked incredulously, “Where do you plan to play this movie?”

Friedman’s wife, who had taught speech and drama in college, wondered too. She described it in one word: vomitous. Friedman observes with a smirk: “Carol never was that complimentary about my work in film.” But her remark gave the huckster another promotional idea. He bought tens of thousands of barf bags that read “You May Need This When You See ‘Blood Feast’” and passed them out, sometimes personally, in front of movie houses.

“Blood Feast” premiered in early summer 1963 at the Bel Air Drive-In in Peoria, Ill. At that time, the U.S. had 5,000 drive-ins, which Friedman describes as the “showcase of movie mediocrity.” “Blood Feast” became a staple on the then-thriving drive-in circuit, drawing crowds that chuckled at its amateur outrageousness and daring.

It was more than a boy from Birmingham, Ala., who was partly raised in nearby Anniston, his mother’s home, could have imagined. Friedman’s father was the business editor of the Birmingham News, his mother a music teacher and pianist. Early on, he was exposed to popular culture and the arts. He developed a passion for classical music and opera, but movies and carnivals fascinated him the most, leading him to a youthful decision to become a movie-studio publicist.

After Friedman’s father died, Friedman moved to Buffalo, N.Y., with his mother and stepfather. He attended Cornell University for almost three years.

Following a stint in the Army, Friedman landed the job of his boyhood dreams, becoming a regional publicist in Atlanta for Paramount Pictures, which later transferred him to similar jobs in Charlotte, N.C., New York and Chicago. He schemed to concoct ways to promote movies and grab press attention.

His “greatest stunt” came when Tony Curtis’ “Houdini” was released in 1953. Friedman was in Des Moines, Iowa, promoting the movie and advertised that the studio would pay $100 to anyone who could extricate himself from a straitjacket. Meanwhile, he recruited a teenager and rigged the straitjacket so the boy could escape.

Crowds laughed at how the publicist for the big studio had been outsmarted, but it was Friedman who had pulled a clever con. News of the youth’s amazing accomplishment hit the wires and generated enormous free publicity for the movie.

As a publicist for Paramount, Friedman would play local host to such stars as Bob Hope and Jane Russell, but he left that job in 1956 to produce low-budget movies in Chicago. In 1964, he moved to Los Angeles and continued the work with partners, living almost lavishly in a handsome home on Franklin Avenue in the Hollywood Hills and, with wife Carol, supporting such civic institutions as the Los Angeles Zoo and the local Audubon Society.

In 1990, however, with the years passing, Friedman and his wife moved home to Anniston to be near her family.

In semi-retirement, he has cut back on his activities, but continues to manage and promote the video sales of the roughly 50 pictures he owns that bear such titles as “The Defilers,” “Acid Eaters,” “The Erotic Adventures of Zoro” (“the first movie rated Z,” as the promotions proclaimed) and “Trader Hornee.” He figures he sells about 25,000 videos a year at $19 a pop, and they’re coming out on DVD. He organizes and promotes the fall carnival in Anniston.

He also has been a guest lecturer at most of the nation’s prominent collegiate film schools, in between appearances at film festivals and fan gatherings in the U.S. and overseas. In 2000, Friedman and Lewis were honored guests at the San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain. The year before, Friedman toured most of Scandinavia as young film buffs paid homage to his work. He annually ventures north in late October to attend the Chiller Theatre Fan Convention at the Sheraton Hotel and Convention Center in East Rutherford, N.J.

Now, of course, Friedman is working to sell and promote “Blood Feast 2.” He thinks it rates favorably with the other slasher/horror movies that have been popular in the 38 years since he made the first.

“It’s a parody of a parody,” he says in the fading twilight. “I think this thing will hold up with any of ‘em. I’m pleased. It looks very professional. But Herschell and I never took any of these things too seriously. We knew we weren’t creating fine art.

“In many minds, Herschell and I became pariahs, but one man’s garbage is another man’s treasure,” Friedman says with a chuckle.

“The young kids today look on us as pioneers in the cultural revolution. We were just making movies for fun and profit.”

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Frederick Burger is a freelance writer and editor who lives in Anniston, Ala.