Color Me Blood Red (1965)

I have seen this thing countless times being that its from my favorite director, Herschell Gordon Lewis a.k.a. The Godfather Of Gore. I have always viewed this movie as a remake of A Bucket Of Blood from the great Roger Corman but I never realized until now how much this film is like another Roger Corman classic, Little Shop Of Horrors. Color Me Blood Red is kind of a cross between the two films, just with that H.G. Lewis touch of excessive gore. For instance in Color Me Blood Red the main character Adam Sorg is a failure as an artist until he realizes that human blood is the touch of color that his paintings needed. He slits his own fingers with razor blades in order to squeeze out the blood that he needs for his painting. Its not very long before he feels drained and decides to start using other peoples blood. Sounds a lot like Seymor in Little Shop Of Horrors, right? Now I look at this movie almost as a homage to Roger Corman. Either way Color Me Blood Red is typical of a Herschell Lewis film in the sense that its under par as far as film making goes but its a whole lot of fun. The body-count isn't exactly huge in this one, we only have four murder scenes but they are what you would expect from a Lewis film. Bright red gore fills the screen in scenes with eye mutilation, a spear to the guts leaving a damn bloody mess, a rifle wound to the face and the most infamous scene was

used on the cover of the 80's VHS that I used to stare at when I was a kid in the local video stores. Its a scene with a girl tied to a wall with all of her guts pouring out of her stomach. Adam the artist is holding a bowl in his hands and squeezing blood out of her intestines which he will later paint with. The gore is of course cheesy especially by today's standards but that's the fun of it all. The acting is terrible, the dialogue is just ridiculous and we even have all this nostalgic crap that is just amazing to look at today. For example theres a few scenes where kids are riding around on these weird looking water bikes. You sit up right on it like a bicycle and you can steer and peddle and the thing has little paddles that help it move in the water. As if this isn't dumb enough the thing has the nerve to have a horn as if other water bikers are going to be in your way. Color Me Blood Red also has the hippest lingo of the time, can ya dig it, daddio? and some really silly looking 60's get-ups.

Mr. Lewis is still making films today. He just finished up the Uh Oh Show which I have not seen yet but I heard from a friend that its pretty amazing. Cult icon Frank Henenlotter the director of Basket Case is finishing up a documentary on Lewis called Herschell Gordon Lewis : The Godfather Of Gore which I am really looking forward to seeing. I just wonder if in 40 years people will be watching Lewis's new stuff the way we love his oldies today. Color Me Blood Red is a great one for anyone who likes B-Gore-Movies.