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.

ferbs54 "A Taste of Blood" (1970) is a relatively goreless rarity for Herschell Gordon Lewis, aka "The Wizard of Gore." At almost two hours in length and clearly designed by Lewis as some kind of epic vampire saga, it tells the story of John Stone, a smarmy Florida businessman who receives two bottles of brandy in the mail from his British ancestors. He drinks the bottles off, little realizing that they have been Mickey Finned with the blood of Dracula himself, and soon, blue-skinned and with a 100-year-old score to settle, he starts to track down the descendants of the old neck nosher's enemies. That doctored booze, I should add, comes as no real surprise in the film...not after we learn that Stone's middle name is Alucard. (This sets the viewer up to expect appearances by Dr. Nietsneknarf and Mr. Namflow, which mercifully never happen!) Anyway, with only a handful of mildly bloody killings, this film should barely appeal to Lewis' usual rabid fans. Nor should it appeal to anyone looking for a well-put-together film. In truth, the picture is very cheaply made, terribly edited, moves at a glacial pace and is never frightening. Lewis' direction is lackadaisical and his camera positionings are pedestrian; worst of all, the same few snippets of music are repeated endlessly, as if on a tape loop, to the point of distraction, and the day-for-night photography is laughable. So why the three stars? Well, the film is also decently acted (for an H.G. Lewis movie, anyway), is at times atmospheric, and the three leads (Stone, his hotty blond wife and his best friend) are somewhat interesting. The picture should have been a 1/2 hour shorter, but with a lot more polish, this Dracula update could have been something other than the bloodless life-drainer it often is. Oh...I should also mention that those blessed maniacs at Something Weird have done it again, rescuing another cinematic oddball and making another fine-looking DVD out of it. Way to go, guys!

Michael O'Keefe From the mind of gore master Herschell Gordon Lewis. a ghastly tale of the revenge of Dracula. John Stone(Bill Rogers), a quirky mundane business man,receives a couple of bottles of brandy that supposedly and unknown to him contains the spirit of Dracula's blood. Stone's wife(Elizabeth Wilkinson)realizes that her husband has become cold and distant since sampling the brandy. Stone is drawn to Europe, where he continues an awkward taste for blood and is driven by urgent revenge to destroy the last remaining descendants of Count Dracula's persecutors. Pretty lame even for Lewis's standards. Others in the cast: William Kerwin, Eleanor Vaill, Gail Janis and Otto Schlessinger.

BaronBl00d The director of what is widely considered the first splatter film ever made(Blood Feast) directed this film about a man, through drinking a brandy laced with blood and his ancestral relationship to Count Dracula, that turns slowly into a vampire and begins to kill the relatives of the six men that killed the famous count. If you are looking for the typical Herschell Gordon Lewis trademarks of great quantities of un-realistic blood, super bad acting, gobs of intestines and the like, inferior lighting, and a litany of other flaws in film-making that seem to find such a home in Lewis's work, you might be disappointed. This is easily Lewis's best film in terms of direction and acting. The actors in here are average. No small feat for a Lewis film. Even Bill Kerwin(one of Lewis's regulars) does a decent job! The female lead was also average, and that says a lot for a Lewis film. Usually he just puts pretty girls with no acting talent in his films like Connie Mason, but sexy Elizabeth Wilkinson has some acting talent(albeit not a lot) as well as boobs! Bill Rogers makes an adequate vampire as well. Not only are the actors decent, but the script is interesting. Donald Stanford used some interesting tie-ins with the novel by Bram Stoker for the names of the relatives. I thought it was a fairly unique concept. The film is two minutes shy of two hours, and it is a tad long. It is very apparent though that Lewis wanted to make this film the best that he could. It shows. It shows he has some talent as well. Lewis also has a bit part as a sea captain affecting a working-class English accent. He is pretty good too. There is not much in the line of killing or gore though. The film shows far less blood that you would see in your typical Hammer feature. There are some obvious budget concerns with sets, etc..., but all in all this is a decent film about the vampire myth in a modern setting.