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!

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 (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.

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.

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.