Part of Herschell Gordon Lewis’ so-called Blood Trilogy with Blood Feast and Two Thousand Maniacs!, this one concerns Adam Sorg, an artist who is seeking the perfect color red for his latest masterpiece. While conventional science would tell you that blood would turn brown when it dries, in this movie, it remains the same garish tone that an Italian giallo would feature.

Color Me Blood Red and A Bucket of Blood are essentially the same basic film, except that where Roger Corman keeps much of the violence off-screen, you’re here for a Lewis film to see blood and organs splash all over the screen. You’re not here for subtlety.

Gordon Oas-Heim is positively unhinged here as the lead. It’s kind of amazing that years later, he’d play Manford the butler on The New Monkees. He also shows up in Lewis’ Moonshine Mountain as the sheriff (he used the stage name Adam Sorg here!) and also is in Andy Warhol’s Bad.

This would be the last film from the duo of Lewis and David F. Friedman. There were plans to make a fourth in the series — Suburban Roulette* — but Friedman thought they’d done all they could when it came to gore. He’d move on to make roughies and nudie cuties like A Smell of Honey, a Swallow of Brine; 7 Into Snowy and The Acid Eaters, as well as Love Camp 7 and Ilsa She-Wolf of the SS using the name Herman Traeger.

You can watch this on Tubi or get the Arrow Video blu ray from Diabolik DVD. That has audio commentary by Lewis and Friedman, as well as Something Weird as a second bonus film. If you don’t have the gigantic Lewis box set, this is a great purchase.

*Lewis would end up making a movie with this title in 1968.