Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.5
Audio		2.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		2.5

A Taste of Blood Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 24, 2016

Note: This film is available as part of The Herschell Gordon Lewis Feast.

Mention the initials “H.G.” to most people, and my hunch is virtually everyone will default to thinking about H.G. Wells, the legendary author whose science fiction masterpieces resulted in such memorable films as The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, The Island of Dr. Moreau and War of the Worlds. Certain fans who have a slightly different definition of what constitutes a memorable film might have a variant reaction to those same initials, however, positing one Herschell Gordon Lewis instead of Mr. Wells. Lewis has long been known by the sobriquet “Godfather of Gore,” and his early exploitation pictures were, for their day, amazingly overt in their depiction of what ultimately came to be called “splatter”. Lewis, who only just fairly recently died at the age of 90, had an interesting if not especially distinguished career, though it’s notable that Lewis maintained a more than abundant sense of humor about his films and his contributions to the supposed art of cinema. Lewis’ filmography (it’s a bit of a stretch to actually call it an oeuvre) hasn’t been especially well served in the Blu-ray era, though there have been at least a few releases of his work, including The Blood Trilogy, The Wizard of Gore / The Gore Gore Girls and The Lost Films of Herschell Gordon Lewis. Now, in what amounts to an elegy of sorts for Lewis, Arrow Video has assembled what will certainly go down in the annals of the Blu-ray era as one of the most lavish deluxe sets produced, at least within the confines of what can only be accurately described as “cult cinema”. Along with a collection of fourteen films (nine making their Blu-ray debut), Arrow also includes a glut of bonus content (some with Lewis’ involvement), as well as impressive packaging and non disc supplements.

A Taste of Blood is another Lewis effort that comes closest to some of the Roger Corman canon from the sixties, much as that “other” blood film of Lewis’, Color Me Blood Red . John Stone (Bill Rogers) is a seemingly everyday businessman who is shocked to receive notification one day that he’s heir to an estate in England, a notification that comes replete with two apparently ancient bottles of brandy. John’s wife Helene (Elizabeth Wilkinson) has bad feelings about it all, but John is unfazed and decides to celebrate his newfound status by having a sip or two. Bad decision.

Lewis attempting to “reinvent” the vampire genre is a study in reach exceeding one’s grasp, but A Taste of Blood is an interesting detour for Lewis in a couple of ways. It’s surprisingly coherent from a narrative standpoint, with John discovering he is of course a descendant of one Count Dracula, and that those aformentioned sips have turned John into a fitting family member (so to speak). That ends up making John desirious of avenging the old Count’s death (did the Count actually die?), and he travels to England (yeah, right—this is a Lewis film) only to find out he himself is being stalked by a descendant of Van Helsing, here rather mundanely named Howard Helsing (Otto Schlessinger).

Not very explicit on gore quotient, but kind of stylish in a low rent way, A Taste of Blood never really works up much energy (iron poor blood?) or even suspense, but it’s an obvious effort by Lewis to break free of some of his probably self-created shackles. The film doesn’t really work, but in the annals of Lewis films, it’s a rather noble attempt nonetheless.

A Taste of Blood Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Arrow has included some general verbiage about the transfers in this set:

All film materials sourced for restoration were scanned in 2K resolution on a pin registered 4K Lasergraphics Director Scanner at Deluxe Media, Burbank. Film grading and restoration was completed at Deluxe Restoration, London. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris and light scratches were removed through a combination of digital restoration tools. Overall image stability and density fluctuation was also improved when possible.

The original mono soundtracks were transferred from 35mm prints by Deluxe Audio Services, Los Angeles, and were conformed and restored at Deluxe Restoration, London.

Additional audio conform for How to Make a Doll and Just for the Hell of It by David Mackenzie.

Although the best existing elements were sourced for this project and every attempt was made to present the films in this collection in the highest quality possible, some of the films still exhibit varying degrees of damage that could not be digitally repaired to our satisfaction. The condition of the existing materials for Moonshine Mountain, The Gruesome Twosome, How to Make a Doll and This Stuff'll Kill Ya all contained extreme levels of dirt, scratches and debris as well as many instances of torn or missing frames. They all exhibited heavy degrees of colour fading as well. Likewise, the print sections sourced to complete A Taste of Blood were both faded and heavily scratched. Throughout the restoration workflow process, our priority was to retain the original photochemical look of the films rather than create unwanted digital artefacts by heavy handed picture cleanup. Therefore, many of the films in this collection exhibit "warts and all" appearance, in keeping with their distribution history and physical condition.

Restoration supervised by James White, Arrow Films.

Additionally, this film comes with the following disclaimer:

A Taste of Blood has been exclusively restored for this release by Arrow Films. The film was restored in 2K resolution from a combination of the surviving sections of the original 35mm camera negative and sections of a 35mm print. The soundtrack was remastered from a 35mm print. Although the existing negative sections were in decent condition overall, the print sections were heavily faded and scratched throughout. Therefore there are occasional noticeable shifts in image quality during this presentation. There is occasional loose audio synch but this is as per the original source materials.

A Taste of Blood is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. This is overall one of the nicer looking transfers in the Lewis set, despite that perhaps over cautious disclaimer reprinted above. While there's once again a pretty coarse grain field on display, things resolve naturally and everything looks decently organic. There's other age related wear and tear, but nothing as major as is seen in some of the other films in this set, with the possible exception of some of the stock footage (typically used for establishing shots), some of which is very ragged looking. Colors are generally nicely suffused and relatively accurate looking, though there are signs of moderate fade. There is occasional crush in some of the darkest scenes.

A Taste of Blood Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

A Taste of Blood's LPCM mono track unfortunately doesn't quite measure up to the generally good video quality, though there's nothing here that will create overly problematic obstacles for most listeners. There's lots of hiss here and an overall boxy sound that is especially noticeable in some of the brass inflected cues, though some of the harpsichord music still sounds decently bright and clear. There's occasional low frequency hum that intrudes during some scenes, though dialogue is generally clear and easy to hear.

A Taste of Blood Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Arrow has packaged this set a little unusually, with two films per disc and one set of supplements for both movies available from a main menu. While some of the supplements are obviously geared toward one individual film, others are a bit more general in nature, and so I'm listing the complete supplemental package for each particular disc rather than for each individual film. The supplements for The Gruesome Twosome and A Taste of Blood are:

• Peaches Christ Flips Her Wig! (1080p; 9:54) features San Francisco performance artist Peaches Christ discussing The Gruesome Twosome.


• It Came From Florida (1080p; 10:48) features Fred Olen Ray discussing filmmaking in Florida.


• H.G. Lewis vs. the Censors (1080i; 7:43) features Lewis discussing his skirmishes with various "moral authorities".


• Promo Gallery

  The Gruesome Twosome Trailer (1080p; 2:44)

  A Taste of Blood Trailer (1080p; 1:24)

  The Gruesome Twosome Radio Spot (1:07)

Audio Commentaries

The Gruesome Twosome Commentary features Herschell Gordon Lewis.

A Taste of Blood Commentary features Herschell Gordon Lewis.

• Herschell Gordon Lewis Introduction to The Gruesome Twosome (1080p; 1:05) is available under the play menu for that film.


• Herschell Gordon Lewis Introduction to A Taste of Blood (1080p; 1:42) is available under the play menu for that film.

A Taste of Blood Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

A Taste of Blood is a surprisingly lethargic offering from Lewis, something that's at least a little unexpected given its (tangential) pedigree (i.e., Dracula). Video is generally good but audio encounters some issues. The supplementary package is very good.