This Stuff'll Kill Ya! (1971)

I was looking at the credits of the director Herschell Gordon Lewis and this film seems typical of the product he put out. I certainly hope some of his films attained the exalted level of mediocrity. Ghastly is all I can say, throw open the windows folks if you happen to air this one at home. The acting is grade school level the direction non-existent and it looks like it was shot with my father's old home movie camera.The protagonist is Jim Jones like reverend Jeffrey Allen who has a church where moonshine is a sacrament. Some narrow minded townspeople and that scourge the Yankees inflicted on the south, revenuers want to put him out of business. Some dead bodies start turning up, but everybody is having one swinging time at services.Sadly enough this was the farewell film for Tim Holt who with the other actor playing one of those revenuers dressed as they were in those black suits looked either like Mormon missionaries or they worked for the same agency that employed Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. Holt looks like he's passing a kidney stone.The film was shot in Oklahoma and Holt had settled there in his last years. What a sad come down for a man who did some very good B westerns for RKO back in the day and who also appeared in some truly classic films like Stagecoach, The Magnificent Ambersons, The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre, etc.If you're a fan of Tim Holt and remember him from the classic studio era in Hollywood avoid This Stuff'll Kill You like the plague. All others do likewise.

A redneck con artist (Jeffrey Allen) sets himself up as a preacher in a small Deep South town to run his moonshine distillery and clashes with a number of locals and a federal agent bent on shutting his operation down.Although H. G. Lewis is known for his gore films, he also made some "southern" films and some "moonshine" films. This one is not gore, but it is certainly the other two. And it combined alcohol and religion in a very strange way... this cult seems more interested in drinking the "blood of Christ" than worshiping God.This is definitely not the worst film Lewis ever made, but it is far from the best. Apparently he had access to a spare room in a radio station in Oklahoma and filmed most of this picture in there. The writing is good, the acting is actually decent, but it still falls flat. Outside of Lewis fans or those who want to see Larry Drake in his debut role, I am not sure exactly what the appeal might be.

This is a lesser Herschell Gordon Lewis picture that just isn't as much fun as his more celebrated features. It's a rednecks 'n' booze exploitation drama about a con artist named Roscoe Boone (Jeffrey Allen of "Two Thousand Maniacs!"), who fronts as a flamboyant preacher. He and his congregation actually take their liquor more seriously than their faith. The Feds (led by a glum looking Tim Holt of "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre", in his final feature film appearance) mean to shut his operation down, but he's not the kind of man to go down quietly. Meanwhile, in a minor plot thread, a few citizens are bloodily murdered (one by stoning, two by crucifixion).This viewer would admit that he more readily enjoys the gore flicks of Mr. HGL. At least they have a better pace, and a more glorious go-for-broke attitude, as crude as they may be. This one simply goes on much too long, with too many scenes that drag. Allen gives it 100% as the loud talking Boone, but after a while the character loses a great deal of his charm. Even the killings are pretty restrained, compared to what we saw in the "Blood Trilogy". The main exception is the hilariously grisly denouement. The bad sound quality doesn't help any; coupled with the accents, it renders a fair bit of dialogue unintelligible. Fortunately, HGL composed a few songs for the occasion that are pretty catchy, especially "One More Swig of Moonshine".It's a little dispiriting to see Mr. Holt having closed out his career like this, but the other performers do like they're having a good time. Giving "This Stuff'll Kill Ya!" great curiosity value is the presence of future Hollywood character actor Larry Drake, making his film debut as stuttering rube Bubba. Longtime HGL associate Ray Sager doesn't have a lot to do as the character Grady.This is not something that this viewer would readily recommend, unless one is a real HGL completist.Five out of 10.

Ugghhh!! I am a self-professed bad movie fan. I love the films of Ed Wood, Al Adamson, Ted Mikels, Ray Dennis Steckler and the like. So, it certainly isn't surprising that I'd seek out this DVD featuring two of Hershell Gordon Lewis' films--THIS STUFF'LL KILL YA and YEAR OF THE YAHOO. Oddly, YEAR OF THE YAHOO (much like Lewis' TWO THOUSAND MANIACS) wasn't that bad a film despite a minuscule budget. However, THIS STUFF'LL KILL YA was bad--as bad as any of Lewis' worst films, such as BLOOD FEAST and MONSTER A GO-GO. And, when I say bad, I am talking much, much worse than the worst that Ed Wood ever made! It's odd how Lewis could occasionally make a halfway decent film and the next make one that that is worse than one made by a rabid weasel...on crack!! The film begins with Jeffrey Allen playing the worst preacher I've ever seen. It's worst in that the preacher is so evil and worst because Allen's acting is just like sludge. He runs a bizarre country church that advocates drinking moonshine during the service, group rape of brides-to-be by the congregation and a lot of other crazy stuff. Oddly, while Lewis directed many sensationalistic (and rather pornographic) films, they really didn't show very much. In fact, the shocks in this film involved some pointless murders as well as the shock in seeing two respectable actors in the film. Tim Holt surely was in a bad way when he agreed to do this film. It's sad to see this one-time cowboy hero and star of THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (a prestigious Orson Welles production) and TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE. Additionally, this was Larry Drake's first film. While his name may not be that familiar, years later he'd play a regular on "L.A. Law" as well as in the film DARK MAN.While I could talk on and on about this weird religious cult that makes snake handling churches seem mainstream, I'll instead talk about why I gave this film a score of 1. This is because IMDb won't allow a score of zero! The acting is the worst I've seen in almost all of my nearly 7000 reviews. The production values and quality of the film is nil--perhaps worse than many super 8mm home movies of the day. The writing is non-existent and the film simply isn't any fun to watch--it's that bad. However, don't ignore this DVD, YEAR OF THE YAHOO manages to do a lot with a budget of only $48.99--38.99 more than THIS STUFF'LL KILL YA!