I've reviewed the other two films in Herschell Gordon Lewis' Blood Trilogy, so I thought it was about time I reviewed this one so I could finish it up. The first film in the trilogy, Blood Feast, is one of my all time favorite movies. The second movie, Two Thousand Maniacs, wasn't anywhere near as good as Blood Feast, but it was still pretty good. That brings us now to this film, which again, wasn't anywhere near as good as the previous one. But where did it go wrong? Well, I'll tell you...

This movie had two major problems that kept it from being really good, and a couple of smaller problems as well. The two big problems were lack of gore and really poor pacing.

What do you watch a Herschell Gordon Lewis movie for? Right. Doofy characters, and lots and some awesomely cheesy gore. Well, this film certainly had it's share of doofy characters, but the gore was really lacking. There were only a few scenes with any semi-decent level of gore, and even those weren't all that spectacular. I think disappointing would be the most appropriate word to describe it. Then there was the pacing. I can't tell you how many times I fast forwarded through big parts of this movie where people were traveling from one place to another or just doing something or other that was completely unimportant. At seventy-nine minutes, this movie ended up being at least twenty minutes too long. There could have been more murders and more artwork thrown into all that wasted time, and in doing so, would have made this movie so much better than it was.

The minor problems I mentioned mostly come down to characterization. By the end of the movie, I still didn't really catch on to who everyone was because their names weren't used all that much, and when they were used, they either weren't spoken all that clearly or the sound was kinda dulled and it made it hard to pick up. The other problem is that there weren't enough victims and not enough building of the individual characters. Like April and Rolf's friend Jack and Sydney were basically just side characters that didn't really have any place in the movie other than hanging out and acting weird. I gotta tell you though, that line Sydney had at the end of the movie...that made having her character there all worth it. I got a great laugh out of that one.

I'm not sure why the Blood Trilogy started out great and then seemed to go downhill from there. It's sad that it did, but then again, even at his worst, Herschell Gordon Lewis' movies are still entertaining and have their own special brand of cheesy charm that make them totally worth the experience. I'm giving this movie two bees. Partly because of the problems, and partly because because I know it could have been so much better. Herschell's movies, for better or for worse, are always fun on at least one level or another and shouldn't be missed. I guess the big thing when you're going to watch this movie is to not come into it with your expectations set too high. I know it's hard not to after seeing the brilliance that was Blood Feast, but if you come into it not expecting much, you'll have a lot more fun with it than you would if you came into it expecting the next Blood Feast, which unfortunately has never been, nor ever will be matched for pure gory awesomeness and fun.