We've all heard the old adage "Practice makes perfect". While perfection is certainly difficult to achieve, a person usually does get better at an activity when they do it over and over. However, this rule doesn't hold true when it comes to entertainers. So often, filmmakers and musicians seem to lose their edge and drive as their careers progress, and after a few years, we look back and consider their early work to be their best. In most cases, this has to with hunger and the desire to make it in the business. In the case of "Godfather of Gore" Herschell Gordon Lewis, he seemed to get worse with every movie, despite the fact that he wasn't all that skilled to begin with. This becomes apparent when one watched The Wizard of Gore and The Gore Gore Girls, both of which are now available on a double-feature Blu-ray Disc from Image Entertainment.

The Wizard of Gore introduces us to Montag the Magnificent (Ray Sager), a magician who performs a decidedly non-traditional act. Oh, he does things like saw a woman in half, or drive a spike through someone's head, but these illusions are accompanied by buckets of blood and organ which fall onto the stage . However, it's an illusion and afterwards, the "victims" are fine. Well, until recently they were. Now, a few hours after leaving the theater, Montag's volunteers die in a manner which mimics the trick which was performed. Local TV hostess Sherry Carson (Judy Cler) attends one of Montag's shows with her boyfriend, Jack (Wayne Ratay), and she becomes determined to interview the magician, dragging Jack back to the show night-after-night. But, when the murders begin Sherry and Jack try to discover what's behind them.

But, as we've discussed in the past, a good idea can't carry a movie, and there's not much to The Wizard of Gore once we get past the premise. Lewis' movies have always been low-rent affairs, but this one feels particularly cheap, as a good portion of the movie is taken up by Montag's stage show and constant cut-aways to a seemingly unimpressed audience. When we're not watching Montag, we get very brief scenes at the TV studio or a location where one of the murders is taking place. Lewis has grown more ambitious with the gore in the film (which is why we are here), but this has lead to some effects which are simply too fake for words. (The scene in which Montag drives a spike through a woman's head features a decidedly uncooperative wig.) And I hate to say this about a Herschell Gordon Lewis movie, but I'm not sure if I understood the finale of The Wizard of Gore. There's nothing wrong with wanting the film to have a twist ending, but this one is way out there, and caps an unsatisfying experience.

The Gore Gore Girls takes place in the seedy world of strip clubs. When an exotic dancer is found murdered, newspaper reporter Nancy Weston (Amy Farrell) hires famed gentleman detective Abraham Gentry (Frank Kress) to solve the case, promising a handsome reward if he can do so. Gentry and Nancy begin to frequent the local clubs to watch the dancers and to see if they can find any clues or suspects. Suspects? How about the guy at the bar who keeps drawing faces on fruit and then smashing it. As the murders continue, despite the fact that Gentry is watching things closely, he decides that he will have to set a trap to catch the killer, and he's going to sue Nancy as bait.

Well, unlike The Wizard of Gore, The Gore Gore Girls (here playing under the title "Blood Orgy") doesn't have a clever idea. Instead we get a very simple murder-mystery in which someone is killing go-go dancers. The appeal here is presumably supposed to be the long and drawn out scenes of the strippers doing their routines. This is the epitome of an exploitation film, as the story (?!) grinds (?!) to a halt in order to show those women going through the motions. Is this supposed to be sexy? (Why would someone strip to a song which sounds like The Star Spangled Banner?) The film's other drawing point is the admittedly interesting Abraham Gentry character, who is played by a young Gene Wilder. Hold on a second, IMDB.com is saying something. What? That's not Gene Wilder? It's Frank Kress? OK... In the world of the movie, Gentry is apparently a famous detective and it's a coup that Nancy was able to hire him. I would have actually liked to have learned more about him and seen less of the sexy (?!) parts. The film's ending is Lewis at his bargain-basement best, as hair peaks out from a skull-cap. Speaking of shoddy effects, the killer likes to take eyes (shades of a giallo here) and it's a shame that those poor mannequins had their eyeballs extracted.

The Wizard of Gore/The Gore Gore Girls double feature offers one of the best still-breathing corpses ever on Blu-ray Disc courtesy of Image Entertainment. Both films have been letterboxed at 1.78:1 and the Disc contains an AVC 1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 17 Mbps for The Wizard of Gore and 15 Mbps for The Gore Gore Girls. The images here are about as sharp and clear as they are probably going to get. The picture does show some grain and the expected defects from the source materials, such as scratches and cigarette burns. For the most part, the colors look fairly good, especially the reds (of course) and the image is rarely overly dark. The HD transfer does reveal more subtle problems such as issues with focus. The Disc offers a DTS-HD Master Audio 2-channel mono track for both movies which runs at 48 kHz and an average of 1.7 Mbps. The dialogue and sound effects are fairly clear and audible. Things are sometimes too soft or too loud, but on the whole, everything is clear, and we don't get any notable pops or scratches.

The Wizard of Gore/The Gore Gore Girls Double-feature Blu-ray Disc contains only a few extras. Each film is accompanied by an AUDIO COMMENTARY from Director Herschell Gordon Lewis. We get TRAILERS for ten of Lewis' projects. "Gallery of Herschell Gordon Lewis Exploitation Art" simply contains newspaper ads and posters for many of Lewis' films.