Stoutor
It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.
DipitySkillful
an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.
Ogosmith
Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
dworldeater
A Taste Of Blood is a bit of a departure for exploitation director Herschell Gordon Lewis. More expensive, slower paced and taken more seriously than his usual projects. John Stone(played by Bill Rogers)gets a package in the mail which contains two bottles of brandy, which he then toasts to the memory of his ancestor. Said brandy contains the blood of Dracula(which he slowly becomes throughout the course of the film). Bill Rogers does a good job as the lead and sort of resembles Christopher Lee. HGL gives a good go at a Hammer styled Dracula film. While lacking the funding and talent pool of a Hammer production, I think the godfather of gore did well with the resources he did have. A Taste Of Blood is a very enjoyable, ultra low budget horror film that may be less over the top and campy than most of the films Herschell is known for, but contains more gore than other films of this genre made during this period. It is a different sort of film for Herschell Gordon Lewis, but is entertaining and well made.
The_Void
Anyone who has already seen a Herschell Gordon Lewis film will probably know more or less what to expect from this one; bad acting, terrible production values, a turgid script etc etc. A Taste of Blood has all of those lamentable elements except this time it's even worse than usual as the damn thing goes on for a massive two hours. I had a strong feeling that I'd be criticising this film for length before going into it and quite why Herschell decided to make this film this long really is beyond me; it's not even like the plot line is stronger than his usual fodder and all we end up with is a film that is more stretched out than usual; not a film with added 'good bits'. The plot focuses on vampires; in particular, the legendary Count Dracula and the action kicks off (eventually) when a businessman receives a mysterious package from London containing a case of brandy. Naturally, he decides to drink the brandy and naturally considering the film is about vampires, it turns him into a vampire. He and his beautiful wife then go to London to kill off the Van Helsing family.The sequence towards the beginning in which our hero receives the mysterious parcel from London really does sum this film up. This is a simple sequence yet Herschell Gordon Lewis manages to drag it out for twenty minutes; there's no suspense concerning the opening of the parcel either and in it's place is a load of padding that sees the three characters involved babble on about rubbish that doesn't concern the plot anyway. The rest of the film is no better than this sequence and is completely amateurish also; lacking any kind of horror or suspense and the little gore we do get just looks fake as usual. It's really a travesty that Bram Stoker's classic characters have been used in this movie too and the film does not justify their inclusion. Of course you could argue that it's not fair to criticise this film for being rubbish since anyone going into a HGL film will know that already; but the fact of the matter is that A Taste of Blood is a heinously bad film and it would be impossible to write anything about it without highlighting the numerous flaws. Overall, this movie is rubbish and difficult to sit through and should only be seen by hardcore HGL fans!
alanmora
This is Herschell Gordon Lewis' "Epic" movie. This is the film with, according to Lewis, the highest production value and budget of all of his "gorror" (a term coined by Lewis describing the gore genre of films that he created) films. Despite this, I found this film to be slightly disappointing. Anyone, viewing this film expecting to see something along the lines of "Blood Feast" or "The Wizard of Gore" as I did would be slightly disappointed. The gore is kept to a bare minimum in this film and it appears as if Lewis was trying to make a legitimate horror movie without all the stomach-churning effects of his classic work. Although the storyline is fascinating, the bad acting and hideous effects do not serve this film very well, even though this is what most Lewis fans have come to expect from him. It doesn't quite work in this one, because it seems to have been the intention of Lewis to try to provide his audience with a legitimate scare. For Lewis fans, this film is still worth viewing but for those who have not seen his work before I suggest you first watch a couple of his classics such as the previously mentioned entries.
cultfilmfan
A Taste Of Blood, is about a businessman named John Stone, who one day receives a package in the mail. In the package are two bottles of brandy and the letter that comes with it says he is a great relative of a rather famous family. John, starts to drink the brandy and soon his wife Helene, notices how much he has changed. He is very cold and distant from her and he sleeps all day and works only at nights. John, soon travels to London where the package came from and learns that he is a descendant of Count Dracula, the vampire and now he is going to kill off everybody who tried to or is related to somebody who tried to kill Count Dracula. Meanwhile back home a man named Dr. Howard Helsing, visits Helene and her friend Dr. Hank Tyson, and tells them that Helene is in great danger and he is too because John wants to kill him too because his ancestor killed Dracula. Not believing at first soon Hank follows Howard, because he notices changes in Helene and does not want to see any more people dead. A Taste Of Blood, is directed by cult filmmaker Herschell Gordon Lewis, who is known as "The Godfather Of Gore" for giving us such films as Blood Feast, 2000 Maniacs, Color Me Blood Red and The Gruesome Twosome. I have seen many of Herschell's films (and have liked them all) but A Taste Of Blood, is different than his usual horror films. One reason is because there is hardly any gore in this film at all. There is maybe three scenes with some very light blood so gore fans might have to look elsewhere for some of his regular gore. Also most of Herschell's films are under 90 minutes running time and this one is 118 minutes, just two minutes short of two hours. The film is well done but it is quite slow moving and doesn't have the same camp value as Herschell's other films and plays more like a straight faced horror film. It is very slow moving but at the same time I was interested in the film and wanted to see how it would carry out. It is not my favorite Herschell film but I still liked it and die hard fans of Herschell will probably like it as well if they don't mind the slowness of the film or it's no violence.
