Title: The Blood Trilogy
Directed by: Herschell Gordon Lewis
Running time: 66min / 83 min / 79min, Not Rated
The originator of exploitation splatter horror H.G. Lewis’ Blood trilogy has been compiled on one disc – Blood Feast, Two Thousand Maniacs and Color Me Blood Red.
Blood Feast (1963) is the story of an Egyptian caterer who murders young women and steals their body parts in order to bring to life his goddess Ishtar, with a group of bumbling detectives on his trail. The infamous tongue removal and heart removal scenes has been replayed in various films over the years (including John Waters’ Serial Mom), and though the gore effects were amateurish compared to today, they were quite inventive as explained by director Herschell Gordon Lewis and producer David F. Friedman on the commentary on all three films.
Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964) is the story of a small southern town who celebrates the anniversary of the Civil War by luring unsuspecting travelers to their town and murdering them in various gruesome ways. This film was a favorite of director Lewis, but I dozed off for a couple of minutes maybe mid way through the film; I did catch most of the torturous scenes like the thumb removal, the horse quartering, boulder crush and barrel roll which was pretty inventive means of torture and killing.
Color Me Blood Red (1965) is the story of a crazed artist who discovers that blood makes a lovely paint color, but requires a few nubile women in order to get some more color on his canvas. This one I really didn’t care for, even though the acting was the best of the three. There wasn’t enough creative murder and the story was a little bland.
The special features were pure retro entertainment. Outtakes from the films – minus dialogue, original trailers, a short entitled Carving Magic about the art of carving various meats, a 1964 short film Follow That Skirt about a serial killer – (lots of T&A), a gallery of exploitation art and a trailer for Hershell Gordon Lewis: The Godfather of Gore.
For the most part, this compilation was entertaining because of the nostalgia factor. The Carving Magic film was one of the best extras I’ve seen because it’s just so awesomely random. The films were surprisingly in good quality, even though the gore was hokey. I’m almost willing to put money down that someone will attempt to get all three of these remade.
Total rating: B
Reviewed by: JM Willis
