The Blood Trilogy: Blood Feast/Two Thousand Maniacs!/Color Me Blood Red [3 Discs]

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

Love 'em or hate 'em, Herschell Gordon Lewis and David F. Friedman made cinematic history with their pioneering trio of gory early-'60s horror films, Blood Feast (1963), Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964), and Color Me Blood Red (1965). As Lewis once put it, "Prior to Blood Feast...no one had made films in which people die with their eyes open, not shut. No one had made films in which blood and gristle show at the end." While that might seem like a slightly dubious claim to fame, there's no arguing the influence of these movies or how they continue to fascinate fringe cinema enthusiasts, and Something Weird Video has done the logical thing and packaged the "Blood Trilogy" together in one boxed set. The DVD versions of Blood Feast, Two Thousand Maniacs!, and Color Me Blood Red included in the Blood Trilogy set are the same ones Something Weird has been marketing individually for several years. All three films have been transferred to disc in their original full-frame aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and while the source materials show occasional speckling at the beginning and ends of reels, generally they look surprisingly good, with the colors vivid (especially the all-important reds) and the images sharp. The audio for the three features has been mastered in Dolby Digital Stereo, with the original monophonic soundtracks spread over two channels; the sound is good enough to reveal the flaws in the original recordings (mostly lots of echo and some occasional hum), but they're also as good as these pictures are ever going to sound. The dialogue for all three movie is in English and presented without subtitles or multiple language options, except for Two Thousand Maniacs!, which includes an optional dubbed French soundtrack (doubtless owing to its popularity with horror enthusiasts in France and Belgium).

The three films each feature an alternate commentary track, in which Something Weird founder Mike Vraney serves as moderator as Lewis and Friedman offer their entertaining memories of the making of these films. Other bonus materials include outtakes (silent with musical accompaniment), the original trailers for the pictures, and a gallery of pressbook material and advertising artwork for Lewis and Friedman's pictures (the same gallery appearing on all three discs). Fans who already have these three movies on DVD will have no need and no reason to pick up this set, but horror fans who've been waiting to pick these up on disc may well find the Blood Trilogy box is the way to go. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: All
• Number of Discs: 3
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 (Pre-1954 Standard)
• Audio: Dolby Digital Mono
• Screen: Color
• Features:
  • Over three hours of audio commentary by the producer and the director
  • Over 70 minutes of rare outtakes and behind-the-scenes footage
  • The original theatrical trailers for all three films
  • The grisly short film "Carving Magic" and the comprehensive gallery of exploitation art

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Director:

  Herschell Gordon Lewis

• Producer:

  David F. Friedman, Stanford S. Kohlberg, Herschell Gordon Lewis

• Screenwriter:

  Herschell Gordon Lewis

• Cinematographer:

  Herschell Gordon Lewis

• Composer (Music Score):

  Herschell Gordon Lewis, Larry Wellington

• Musical Direction/Supervision:

  Chuck Scott

• Editor:

  Frank Romolo, Robert Sinise

• Production Designer:

  David F. Friedman

• Special Effects:

  Herschell Gordon Lewis

REVIEWS:

• It was bound to happen, and Herschell Gordon Lewis and David F. Friedman got there first. While hardcore pornography was still almost a decade away from becoming legal and widespread, this groundbreaking feature from 1963 performed the same task for onscreen violence. Blood Feast exists solely to ogle grotesque acts of carnage, scene after scene of bloody bodies that the camera lingers upon lovingly and without shame. The plot is threadbare, the acting is on a par with the clumsiest of high-school plays, and the direction is static and uninvolving. Nevertheless, this is one of the important releases in film history, ushering in a new acceptance of explicit violence that was obviously just waiting to be exploited, as Blood Feast was an instant success and changed the way that horror films were judged (as well as allowing other genres to raise the pain threshold). The desire to gaze upon gory, gaping wounds has something in common with the urge to view naked bodies engaging in sexual acts. Lewis tapped into this subconscious craving to view the private insides of humanity and not only made a bundle from a subsequent career of car-wreck-level motion pictures but also allowed films to go into more intense visual areas. ~ Fred Beldin, Rovi
• After the unprecedented success of their earlier gore epic Blood Feast, director Herschell Gordon Lewis and producer David Friedman started planning their next move. If a plotless, no-budget splatter film written and shot in a week could do such boffo business, it stands to reason that the same gore in a well-made film will double the take, right? Well, despite their best intentions, the subsequent feature, 2000 Maniacs, was successful but not the blockbuster that Blood Feast was, and Lewis went back to not trying so hard. Of course, by no means was 2000 Maniacs a technical triumph. The actors are as amateurish as any of Lewis' films and the direction is still fairly slapdash. However, the story of a crazed Southern town's revenge against a group of traveling Yankees is a lot more colorful than Blood Feast's simple-minded lone-slasher plot. Lewis has claimed that this was the first of any of his films to be thoroughly scripted, and it's stuffed with overwrought, down-home "cracker" language. The gore set pieces are graphic but not as cruel as before; the filmmakers instead opt to create mayhem with elaborate contraptions and bizarre executions. There's even a car chase -- usually not a noteworthy event in your average film -- but compared to Blood Feast's climactic (and long-winded) foot chase, it's an extremely special effect. For fans of horror, 2000 Maniacs and Blood Feast are certainly worth watching to see sacred ground get broken; for fans of grade-Z trash films, his entire canon is indispensable. ~ Fred Beldin, Rovi