Color Me Blood Red

Just what does a teenage boy bursting with testosterone say, while with his bikini-clad girl, they discover a dead girl in the sand? "Wholly Bananas ! It's a girl's leg!" of course. That is just one example of the laughable dialogue contained in this thoroughly un-artistic look at a painter who uses blood to create his art. He starts by using his own, then moves to girl models for their hemoglobin, corpuscles, and plasma for his creative inspiration. Color Me Blood Red is the third film contained in what is typically known as the Blood trilogy directed by that world renowned director of gore...Herschell Gordon Lewis. Yep this film has all the Lewis trademarks. Poor direction...it has it! Cheap sets too! And that acting only Lewis seems to inspire...so bad it is funny. Many of the performers in here are so awful that one wonders how they were ever chosen, although the lead, Gordon Oas-Heim(Don Joseph) as Adam Sorg shows signs of mediocrity at times. For a Lewis film, Color Me Blood Red is a fun picture. It has some good honest to Gosh belly laughs(99% unintentional), and a story not too unlike Roger Corman's A Bucket of Blood. And the lead actress...Candi Conder does more than AMPLE justice to a very nice swimsuit! I had fun watching it...never took any of it serious and, for a Lewis picture, it has minimal gore(only four deaths). It gives new meaning to the phrase that life is a canvas!

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

"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.

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.

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.