Color Me Blood Red (1964)

...aka: Color Me Red

...aka: Model Massacre

Directed by:

Herschell Gordon Lewis

Herschell Gordon Lewis and producer David F. Friedman temporarily ditched soft-corn porn in the early 60's to create a series of gory horror films designed specifically to cater to the increasingly tasteless demands of the Southern drive-in movie market. The first three of their horror ventures, BLOOD FEAST (1963), TWO-THOUSAND MANIACS! (1964) and this feature (also made in 1964, but released in 1965) made up what was later to be called their "Blood Trilogy." COLOR ME BLOOD RED is easily the least gory of the bunch, but it does have its moments... Adam Sorg ("Don Joseph"/Gordon Oas-Heim) 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 been impressed with "aquacycles," some incredibly slow-moving bikes with floating tires, because 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 is now noteworthy mainly as a vintage curio, complete with primitive gore FX (only some of which are still effective), dated fashion faux pas and colorful lines of dialogue like "Come out to the patio, daddy-o!" All in all, a decent watch. A cut version was also released under the title MODEL MASSACRE.

★★