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.

"Color me Blood Red" completes the infamous Blood-trilogy by the even more infamous director Hershell Gordon Lewis and, although my least favorite film of the three, it's another silly entertaining and smutty gore classic. Don't look for many film-making qualities here, as the story is rather unoriginal (imitating Roger Corman's 1959 "Bucket of Blood"), the acting is unspeakable and – especially compared to "Two Thousand Maniacs" – it's clumsily edited together. Good old Lewis brings the art of finger painting to a whole new dimension here, when mentally unstable artist Adam Sorg discovers that the blood of his girlfriend's cut finger supplies him with the exact right shade of red he needs for his macabre paintings. He's going to need more, of course, and thus he kills her as well as various other models in order to complete his masterful art gallery exhibits. I spotted LESS gore than in the previous two Blood-trilogy films, still there are some effectively nauseating scenes, most notably the one where Sorg literally squeezes all the blood out of one his victims' intestines. Other than the gore, there are the hilariously inept dialogues and the complete lack of context to enjoy. If you're not into The Godfather of Gore's work, however, this will just seem like a mindless and sadistic trash-movie.

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.

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.