Color Me Blood Red

And the Bronze medal goes to... Color Me Blood Red, the third goriest, third most entertaining, and, the third installment of the legendary, Blood Trilogy. Sure, it wasn't as groundbreaking or gory as Blood Feast, or as flat-out entertaining as Two Thousand Maniacs, plus, the presence of a Thomas Wood and/or a Connie Mason might have helped a little, but I still consider the unwanted step-sibling of the Blood Trilogy to be a bit underrated. Color Me Blood Red has pleasant Sarasota beach locations, and not to mention, Adam Sorg is a lot more convincing as a killer than Fuad Ramses, or any single one of the 2000 Maniacs. just A hell of an actor, although, that's not what we're after. Color Me Blood Red also stars several attractive women, some of which not nearly as young as the roles suggests, this film just didn't seem to try all that hard to entertain us, not quite as ambitious as the first two. The so-called humor would seemingly fit more in something from a decade earlier, if ever. F stands for Farnsworth wasn't any funnier the second time Sorg said it, and Holy Banana's just doesn't express the horror and confusion one would feel after finding a girls leg. I suspect this movie inspired the Florida Bore of Scream Baby Scream, that sure doesn't make me feel any better about it. All sarcasm aside, Color me Blood Red is the final entry in , the legendary Herschell Gordon Lewis's Blood Trilogy, so, naturally, it's worth a look, and I'll probably give it a higher score than it deserves. As good as Color Me Blood Red could have been, it does fall short in certain areas as there are absolutely no likable characters, unlike in 2000 Maniacs, where everyone was likable. Also, as half-assed as everything is, you'd think they' would have doubled up on the gore so at least it could be known as the goriest one of them all, they just didn't seem to put their hearts into this one. Color Me Blood Red is not the best Florida Gore has to offer, but certainly not the worst, although, I can't really think of one Florida Gore Film from the 60's that was worse. Hopefully, this one will never be known as "the original" Color Me Blood Red, but we all know it's inevitable. On one last positive note, Color Me Blood Red has tolerable acting (like it matters), as well as a decent, little score, as well as, a modest amount of gore, but mostly, innocent, teenage hi jinx, or at least something similar. Not terrible, but not too terribly interesting. Recommended to anyone who digs Lewis, but something like Moonshine Mountain, or The Wizard Of Gore would be recommended a whole lot more. 5/10

Herschell Gordon Lewis and producer David F. Friedman ditched softcorn porn in the early 60's to create a series of gory horror films designed specifically to cater to the increasing demands of the Southern drive-in movie market. The first three of their horror ventures, BLOOD FEAST (1963), 2000 MANIACS (1964) and this feature from 1965 made up what was later to be called their "Blood Trilogy." COLOR ME BLOOD RED is easily the least shocking, least entertaining and least memorable of the bunch, but it does have it's moments...

Adam Sorg (Don Joseph) is a Florida based struggling artist living in a beach house who has not yet been able to break through on the snobbish local art scene. That is, until he stabs his bickering girlfriend and discovers that all his paintings needed were a touch of red...blood red. His new morbid creations suddenly become the craze on the art scene, so he must kill more people for more blood to make more paintings.

Lewis must have really liked "aquacycles," some incredibly slow-moving bikes with floating tires, cause he puts these hilariously dated things in every possible scene. Adam and his girlfriend take a ride on them before he kills her, then a young couple steals them ("Oh, come on! He won't notice!"), prompting Sorg to impale the guy, then kidnap the girl, tie her up in his house, cut open her stomach and squeeze blood out of her guts directly onto a palette!

This film (briefly known as MODEL KILLER) is now noteworthy mainly as a vintage curio, complete with primitive gore FX, dated fashions faux pas and colorful lines of dialogue like "Come out to the patio, daddy-o!"

All in all, a decent watch.

Artist becomes famous for painting with his own blood. He discovers that he only has so much however so he starts slaughtering models and painting with their blood. Only advised to gorehounds. This is also truly awful like H.G. Lewis' other films. This still is tamer than Blood Feast though.

Director Herschell Gordon Lewis's concluding film in his "Blood Trilogy" (and final film with producer David F. Friedman) unfortunately just isn't as enjoyable as its predecessors. It's not as delightfully nutty as "Blood Feast" or as much fun as "Two Thousand Maniacs!". In fact, it's downright tedious at times. That's not to say that there aren't good moments - there just aren't enough of them.

Gordon Oas-Heim, definitely one of the better actors to be found in an HGL gore epic, plays the highly unlikable, mentally unstable painter Adam Sorg, who's impatient waiting for inspiration to strike. It finally comes when he realizes that human blood provides the perfect shade of crimson for his works of art. He realizes that using his own blood is a very wearying process, so he has to obtain blood from other unwilling donors.

Overall "Color Me Blood Red" is fairly amusing cheesy nonsense with the gleefully squishy splatter and inept acting that we come to expect from HGL's films. It has its delightful parts whenever Sorg is busy doing his thing. It doesn't help him that "hip", goofy young folk keep hanging around his beachfront property. It's also cool to see Scott H. Hall, the police captain from "Blood Feast", here playing Farnsworth the art gallery owner. The young gals are all nice looking even if their acting chops aren't up to snuff. The beautiful beach scenery is another plus. And the movie does end on a very funny note with its final line.

If you're new to the works of HGL and want to do the completist thing, then "Color Me Blood Red" is definitely worth seeing. Just don't expect the same level of entertainment if you've already seen and enjoyed "Blood Feast" and "Two Thousand Maniacs!".

Six out of 10.

If you're a horror fan who loves gore and are looking for a gory movie, go check out High Tension. If you hate cheesy movies, go rent a new release from Blockbuster. This movie is for people who like quirkiness, b-grade film-making, c-grade acting, cheesy gore and.. FUN. I get the feeling that a few people who wrote reviews for this were obviously expecting something very different. This is NOT a horror movie, only in a very broad sense could it be considered one. It is a movie that is twice as unintentionally funny as any Ed Wood movie. There is no real comedy in Color Me Blood Red but the acting and direction will have you laughing throughout. This movie defines "grindhouse". Now that I've prepared you - Go buy it.

I rated this movie 8 out of 10. It was very good at doing what it tried to do. Giving this movie a 3/10 is a joke, of course it's bad but that is the whole point! A phrase I see a lot on the IMDb is "BAD meaning GOOD", not many movies are more deserving of that praise than Color Me Blood Red.