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.

Well a song goes black, but who has black blood? No one is the answer in case you thought this was not a rhetorical question. At least no one on planet earth (sorry aliens, if I didn't include you, but the movie didn't either). All kidding aside and with some filler jokes from me - this is what the movie does too. You get the main storyline where someon discovers he paints good with blood and then you get all these other things so the movie is full length.

Not enganging and pacing wise really awful. Had some neat ideas for the time it was made and many see HGL as an innovator, which is not far removed from the truth. But the movie has not aged well - and the blown up running time that is irrelevant does not help at all

I am sure that when this movie debuted, people were shocked at its violence and blood, though by today's standards it's awfully tame--especially since the blood is obviously not the correct color (looking more like crimson paint) and the "guts" don't really look like internal organs at all. Frankly, for a "gore picture", this is one you can probably let the kids watch...unless your kid is likely to imitate the actions of Adam Sorg! The film is a super-low budget picture--the sort of trashy film that Hershell Gordon Lewis was known for making. There is no attempt to use competent actors, have good production values or make anything other than 100% schlock. So, considering that he INTENDED on making such a craptacular film, you really can't be too hard on the final product. It's bad--but I don't think the film makers intended anything else. Now Lewis made LOTS of rotten films, but some of them managed to be entertaining despite their many, many shortcomings. This and TWO THOUSAND MANIACS! happen to have enough going for them that they are enjoyable in a kitschy sort of way. Not all Hershell Gordon Lewis films are alike, though, as many are not just bad but pretty much unwatchable, such as his MONSTER A GO-GO and THE Gruesome TWOSOME.

The film is basically a rip-off of Roger Corman's BUCKET OF BLOOD (which, despite the title, is a very good film). Unlike BUCKET OF BLOOD, the acting in COLOR ME BLOOD RED is really bad--really, really bad. And, while Corman made a lot of bad films, his style was usually excellent. COLOR ME BLOOD RED is just pure cheese. Like the previous film, this one concerns a crazy artist who manages to impress the critics when he kills people to make his art. In BUCKET OF BLOOD, the crazed artist covers dead people in clay and in COLOR ME BLOOD RED the nut-job is looking for that 'perfect' red for his paintings and happens upon blood!!

The film begins with Sorg having his first one-man art show. However, he's infuriated when an art critic savages his use of color. Later, Sorg's lady friend cuts herself and bleeds on a canvas accidentally--at which point he is inspired to use blood! The problem is that he needs a lot, so he takes to killing. Why he didn't just try animal blood or talk to a blood bank or get groups of people to donate blood for his cause, I don't know! I guess this wouldn't have made an interesting film.

By the way, it's a tad off topic, but get a load of the first lady Sorg kills. Throughout the movie, this lady ALWAYS runs around in leotards like a dancer. She drives that way, goes to art shows that way and goes to the beach that way. It seems that this was such a low budget film that they couldn't even afford clothes for this lady!

Back to Sorg. Now his art is loved by this snobby critic and he is in great demand. However, he suddenly refuses to sell these bloody paintings (I thought a couple of them were pretty cool)! And, because it's like eating potato chips, he can't stop with killing only one person. However, this is no bloodbath film--he only kills three during the course of the film. It all comes to an end when he's about to kill victim #4--when her goofy boyfriend and her even goofier friends come to the rescue.

Overall, despite being a terrible film in every way (acting, direction, a stolen plot, dialog, etc.), the pieces all seem to fit together to make a reasonably watchable exploitation film. It's bad, but fun in its quirky way. I'd give it a 1 or 2 for technical merit but a 5 for watchability. Overall, a 3 seems about right.

It was interesting to me to note that this film was made in Sarasota, Florida--just a few miles down the road from my house. Sadly, however, I have visited Sarasota's famous Ringling Museum of Art and have never seen any of Adam Sorg's paintings in the gallery!! Nor, for that matter, has the film been shown at the prestigious Sarasota Film Festival. Go figure!