Splatter

Films where graphic gore is the product rather than a consequence of the story.

The inventor

Herschell Gordon Lewis made Blood Feast in 1963 for about $24,500, in nine days, because the nudie-cutie market was collapsing and he needed something drive-ins could not get on television. It is barely competent as filmmaking. It is also the first film built entirely around on-screen dismemberment, and everything in this category descends from it.

Lewis followed it with Two Thousand Maniacs! and Color Me Blood Red, then went back to making nudies.

The technicians

The form got good when the effects people got good. Tom Savini, who had been a combat photographer in Vietnam, did Dawn of the Dead, Friday the 13th and Maniac. Giannetto De Rossi did Fulci's zombie films. Rob Bottin and Rick Baker took it into major studios.

The comic turn

By the mid-80s the excess had become the joke: Re-Animator, The Evil Dead II, Street Trash, Braindead. The gore is so far past plausibility that the only available response is laughing.

Where to start

Re-Animator, which is the point where the technique and the writing finally matched.