Color Me Blood Red

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.

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.

You gets what you pays for with Herschell Gordon Lewis movies. If you are looking for a great, original plot with interesting characters, well acted and impressively directed, then don't look here. But if you want to see a silly Roger Corman rip-off with lots of unintentional cheap laughs, and plenty of HGL's trademark, then you're in the right place. 'Color Me Blood Red' is the last in Lewis' Blood Trilogy, and is the second best of the three in my opinion. ('Two Thousand Maniacs!' just beats it for sheer entertainment value). Don Joseph plays a tormented artist who discovers a way out of his artistic rut - blood, lots of it. Joseph's acting is variable at best, but possibly the best seen in a HGL movie, and he comes across as a corny, poor man's Timothy Carey. Which may not be much, but it's enough, and his performance stands out from the rest of the inept cast, especially the bizarrely unbeatnik beatnik teens (WHAT was that all about?!), and William Harris' stupid art critic character. 'Color Me Blood Red' is dumb, no doubt about that, but it's dumb FUN, and should be seen by every horror movie buff for its historical interest if nothing else.

This is the final film in the infamous Blood Trilogy from director Herschell Gordon Lewis and producer David Friedman. The trilogy also includes superior films "Blood Feast" and "Two Thousand Maniacs". While "Color Me Blood Red" is the most inferior film in the trilogy, it is still worth at least a one time viewing. The film does lack one thing that the other 2 films in the trilogy have and that is an original score. Both of the previous entries include a soundtrack that was scored by Lewis himself but for some odd reason he decided to use "canned" music for this one. The gore effects are also inferior to the other 2 entries...there aren't as many but one effect in particular is especially grotesque (this would be the scene where a woman is shown strung from the ceiling with her intestines dangling out and the villain squeezes the blood out of them in order to finish his painting). All in all this is one of the least entertaining of Lewis' gore films but is definitely worth a peek.

Color Me Blood Red (1965)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

The third film in director Herschell Gordon Lewis' "blood trilogy," this one here centers on a crazed painter (Goron Oas-Heim) who finally reaches his breakthrough when he realizes that human blood is the perfect red for his paintings. This here is pretty much a re-working of the Roger Corman classic A BUCKET OF BLOOD with the biggest difference being that this here is in bright color, which perfectly shows off the various bloody scenes. Look, if you're wanting some sort of masterpiece or brilliant filmmaking then this here certainly isn't going to be for you. With that said, film history has all sorts of items that remain important and there's no doubt that Lewis' blood trilogy is one such thing. The movie contains some awful acting, a silly script, lame dialogue and there are countless other things that you could pick on but in the end the picture is at least fun. While I'm sure all the shots of blood were shocking back in 1965, when viewed today they're more campy fun than anything else. The movie managers to move at a very good pace, which is certainly important as there's nothing worse than one of these films that just drag along. Another important thing is that the lead actor at least keeps you entertained in everything. Yes, the performance isn't great or even good. It's over-the-top and rather campy but this here is actually very entertaining. The supporting players don't come off as well but I'm sure director Lewis wasn't too worried about performances. As for the red stuff, it's cleverly done and especially the "big" sequence early on when a woman is tied up and the painter has to use one of her organs to fill up his paint cup. COLOR ME BLOOD RED doesn't come close to the same level as BLOOD FEAST or TWO THOUSAND MANIACS but it's still a nice entry in the series.