Color Me Blood Red

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.

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

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!

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.

"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.