60's Herschell Gordon Lewis

COLOR ME BLOOD RED
(1965)
Overall: MEH

The third installment in Herschell Gordon Lewis and producer David F. Friedman's "Blood Trilogy", Color Me Blood Red was released a year after it was filmed due to the duos falling out, as well as some legal matters that needed to be fixed.  Following up the seminal Blood Feast and 2,000 Maniacs, this one is undoubtedly the weakest of the three.  Bottom barrel acting, lackadaisical pacing, technical aspects such as proper lighting, framing, and miking never being a concern; all of these elements are in virtually every frame.  The story is as silly as any in Lewis' films, this time where a raving asshole of a painter is butt-hurt because a critic does not like him, so he starts killing people to use their blood as the perfect color for his canvases.  Way, way too much screen time though is spent watching inconsequential people gallivanting on beaches and worse yet, there is one incredibly obnoxious board who speaks exclusively in unfunny, "hip" 60s slang and she is not even one of the ones who gets killed.  It is a misfire in every respect, but at least there is some gore in a few select scenes.

MONSTER A GO-GO!

(1965)

Dir - Bill Rebane/Herschell Gordon Lewis

Overall: WOOF

 

A strange, exasperatingly terrible Z-grade piece of garbage, Monster a Go-Go! has everything going against it.  Production originally began in 1961 under director Bill Rebane yet after he ran out of money, Herschell Gordon Lewis bought the rights, filmed some new scenes with mostly different actors, (or the same actors looking completely different), and quickly released it so it could go along with his own Moonshine Mountain as a double feature.  All of the hallmarks of incompetent filmmaking are present; scenes go on uncut for eons, none of the actors are properly miked, the lack of budget is unmistakable, (uniformed cops drive regular cars, scientists and law officials have meetings in restaurants, a ringing telephone sound effect is made by someone's mouth, etc), characters appear and then disappear without a trace, the narration desperately tries and fails to "explain" what is happening, the ending is laughably abrupt, and the story is shockingly incomprehensible.  As is the case with another sure-fire contenders as the worst technical movies ever made, this one is more drab than anything, with its comatose-inducing pace so detrimental that hardly anyone is likely to make it past the first three minutes without tuning out. 

A TASTE OF BLOOD
(1967)
Overall: MEH

Herschell Gordon Lewis' take on the vampire film, (particularly his modern day version of Dracula), is as embarrassing and silly as any.  That said, it still maintains a level of likability even amongst its multitude of shortcomings.  As usual, Lewis' ambitious exceed his meager means.  Without the budget nor competent filmmaking abilities at his disposal, A Taste of Blood is hilariously inept in the usual technical areas involving sound design, editing, and pacing.  The acting is agreeable considering how poor such Z-level movies usually are, though the dialog is made up of all of the dumb cliches that you can think of.  Still, the aforementioned pacing problem is the obstacle to overcome.  At nearly two hours in length, this is insultingly too long and nearly every sequence can be trimmed to keep things moving at even the most borderline engaging stride.  We are in trouble from early on where it takes eons for anything to start happening and in the meantime, Lewis is oblivious to the fact that he does not need to show countless long scenes of his characters walking and talking about things that are unnecessary to the story.  Worse yet, this is sadly one of Lewis' least-gory crud rocks, such blood and guts otherwise at least meriting the very existence of much of his work.