I have this little tradition that when an iconic horror veteran dies, and if I both respect and admire his work enormously, I try to watch one of his/her movies in the next few days following the sad news. Herschell Gordon Lewis passed away, and even though 90 years is a fine age I'd sign for immediately, it's still a great loss for the horror movie industry. Lewis was, and forever will remain, the man who brought gore and splatter to the movie and TV screens. And how! Titles such as "Blood Feast" (1963) and "Two-Thousand Maniacs" (1964) weren't just the first gore flicks; they still stand proud and strong even by today's gore standards. That being said, another trademark was that his movies were extremely low-budgeted and often so damn amateurish that they balanced on the verge of tolerability. His gory movies are great fun, but Lewis also made a number of drama/action movies without bloodshed or absurdity ("Just for the Hell of it", "Something Weird", "She- Devils on Wheels"
) and those are quite difficult to sit through. Mr. Lewis' departure also meant for me personally that I no longer had an excuse for postponing my viewing of "A Taste of Blood". I have this DVD lying in my closet for at least 12 years already, but I could never bring myself to actually watch it for one sole – and admittedly shallow – reason, namely
its length! "A Taste of Blood" has a running time of 118 minutes! Seriously, one hundred and eighteen minutes! In my humble opinion horror movies that last for almost two hours shouldn't exist. I can motivate myself to watch good movies that run more than 110 minutes, let alone to watch a lesser acclaimed H.G.L with a low gore factor!
Having completed my little tradition, I can gladly state that "A Taste of Blood" was better than I expected and a fairly entertaining horror movie; - but still too damn long of course! Easily 30-40 minutes of poor, irrelevant and repetitive footage should have been cut, and then – probably – this would have been one of the director's better non- gory flicks. The story is pretty interesting and engaging, being a modern-day of vampirism and blood retaliation. Without knowing it himself, American businessman John Stone is the last living descendant of the legendary Count Dracula. He receives a package, from London solicitors, containing a few bottles of brandy, but doesn't know that the liquor is mixed with the authentic blood from the family line. Shortly after tasting the brandy, John loses complete interest in his beautiful wife who worships him and his job he was previously so obsessed about. All he can think of right now is exterminating the descendants of the bastards that killed Dracula, and he travels to England to extract his bloodline's vengeance. The last heir of Dr. Abraham Van Helsing seeks the help of Stone's wife and best friend in order to stop him. "A Taste of Blood" definitely features a handful of bright ideas and memorable moments, but overall the pacing is too slow while the quality of sound and picture is too poor Oh yeah, and it's far too long! Especially the dreadful love/friendship relationship between Stone's wife and best friend is incredibly tedious and redundant and even half of all the dialogs in general are unnecessary. The film is low on gore, but still HGL manages to insert a couple of gruesome moments of gratuitous bloodshed. For example, when THIS vampire feeds on the blood of a random go-go dancer, he doesn't leave two pathetic little holes in her neck but rips her entire throat wide open! He's to my knowledge also the only vampire ever who rams woods stakes through the chests of his enemies instead of vice versa!
Having completed my little tradition, I can gladly state that "A Taste of Blood" was better than I expected and a fairly entertaining horror movie; - but still too damn long of course! Easily 30-40 minutes of poor, irrelevant and repetitive footage should have been cut, and then – probably – this would have been one of the director's better non- gory flicks. The story is pretty interesting and engaging, being a modern-day of vampirism and blood retaliation. Without knowing it himself, American businessman John Stone is the last living descendant of the legendary Count Dracula. He receives a package, from London solicitors, containing a few bottles of brandy, but doesn't know that the liquor is mixed with the authentic blood from the family line. Shortly after tasting the brandy, John loses complete interest in his beautiful wife who worships him and his job he was previously so obsessed about. All he can think of right now is exterminating the descendants of the bastards that killed Dracula, and he travels to England to extract his bloodline's vengeance. The last heir of Dr. Abraham Van Helsing seeks the help of Stone's wife and best friend in order to stop him. "A Taste of Blood" definitely features a handful of bright ideas and memorable moments, but overall the pacing is too slow while the quality of sound and picture is too poor Oh yeah, and it's far too long! Especially the dreadful love/friendship relationship between Stone's wife and best friend is incredibly tedious and redundant and even half of all the dialogs in general are unnecessary. The film is low on gore, but still HGL manages to insert a couple of gruesome moments of gratuitous bloodshed. For example, when THIS vampire feeds on the blood of a random go-go dancer, he doesn't leave two pathetic little holes in her neck but rips her entire throat wide open! He's to my knowledge also the only vampire ever who rams woods stakes through the chests of his enemies instead of vice versa!