Gordon Oas-Heim (credited as Don Joseph) is an emotionally volatile painter who lives on a remote stretch of beach with his girlfriend (Elyn Warner). She and a local art gallery owner (Scott H. Hall) do their best to placate him, but his moods become more and more unpredictable. One afternoon, the girlfriend accidentally cuts her finger and allows the painter to use her blood as pigment on his latest canvas. Predictably, things get worse from there...and the central action of the film revolves around a group of "teens" (led by suspiciously adult-looking Jerome Eden) who wander onto the painter's property.
"Color Me Blood Red," Herschell Gordon Lewis's third gore flick (and his final collaboration with partner Dave Friedman), is one of his lesser efforts. Neither as relentlessly gruesome as "Blood Feast" nor as entertaining as "Two Thousand Maniacs," it struggles to establish a semi-comedic tone and then obliterates it when the painter finally goes nuts and begins to claim his victims. Still, Oas-Heim delivers a good (if somewhat overwrought) performance, and hardcore fans will enjoy the oddball '60s Florida atmosphere that was HGL's trademark. The stock music that Lewis so lamented actually works pretty well, in my opinion.
"Color Me Blood Red," Herschell Gordon Lewis's third gore flick (and his final collaboration with partner Dave Friedman), is one of his lesser efforts. Neither as relentlessly gruesome as "Blood Feast" nor as entertaining as "Two Thousand Maniacs," it struggles to establish a semi-comedic tone and then obliterates it when the painter finally goes nuts and begins to claim his victims. Still, Oas-Heim delivers a good (if somewhat overwrought) performance, and hardcore fans will enjoy the oddball '60s Florida atmosphere that was HGL's trademark. The stock music that Lewis so lamented actually works pretty well, in my opinion.