Trust me, this is going somewhere. I buckled to the pressure and bought the Star Wars Blu-ray Discs. I watched the first one (and by first one, I mean Episode IV, not those awful prequels) with my kids and the whole time I kept saying, "You have to understand, there had never been anything like this before." (For the record, they liked the movie, but weren't blown away by it.) If I had watched the films of Herschell Gordon Lewis with them, A) DSS would have taken them away, and B) I would have said, "You have to understand, there had never been anything like this before." Lewis and his partner David Friedman invented the gore film and their three bloody classics have come to Blu-ray Disc as The Blood Trilogy.

Blood Feast tells the story of Fuad Ramses (Mal Arnold), an insane Egyptian caterer who believes that he can bring back the goddess Ishtar through human sacrifice. To accomplish this, Ramses kills and dismembers young women. The police, Pete (Bill Kerwin) and Frank (Scott Hall), are stumped by the murders. When Mrs. Fremont (Lyn Bolton), orders an Egyptian feast for her daughter's party, Ramses steps up the killings, as he plans to serve his victims as the entrees at Mrs. Fremont's party. Meanwhile (in a bizarre coincidence), Pete begins to date Suzette Fremont (Connie Mason), and the pieces of the bizarre puzzle soon come together.

In no way, shape, or form is Blood Feast a good movie. The sound vacillates from being live to being poorly dubbed. The shots are oddly framed and Lewis isn't afraid to use the zoom or to pan the camera. The acting is horrible and most of the cast act as if they've never heard the dialogue before. Day for night is used way too much and shadows abound. The movie is often unintentionally hilarious, as no one would publics a religious book with "weird" in the title. However, one can discount the importance of the first movie to show graphic bloody violence. Sure, the effects are shoddy and none of it looks real, but I admire Lewis' gall to put it all in our faces. The movie is less of a horror movie than a police thriller, and it drags at times, but the red, red gore makes this movie unique for the time.

Blood Feast was a huge hit (relatively speaking), so Lewis and Friedman immediately followed it with Two Thousand Maniacs!. Set in the South, the residents of Pleasant Valley look for cars with license plates from the North and then set up a detour to get them into town. After detouring six people -- Terry (Connie Mason), Tom (Bill Kerwin), Bea (Shelby Livingston), John (Jerome Eden), Beverly (Yvonne Gilbert), and David (Michael Korb) -- , Mayor Buckman (Jeffrey Allen) informs the visitors that they are the special guests at Pleasant Valley's centennial celebration. Little do the Yankees know that their hosts have a violent vendetta dating back to the Civil War.

I don't think anyone will ever accuse Lewis of being a great writer, but Two Thousand Maniacs! does have a clever central idea, as the supernatural is eventually involved. (The movie appears to lift some cues from Carnival of Souls.) The movie also features some very creative murders -- actually when this movie discussed, it's usually the odd killings which get mentioned. However, the film often borders on unwatchable because it's so silly and over-the-top at times. The movie really plays up Southern stereotypes and these get really annoying after a while. Once again, Lewis lets the blood flow and again, the effects aren't very convincing. However, the arm chopping off scene almost creates some tension.

The final film in this series, Color Me Blood Red, almost tries to be a respectable movie. The paintings of artist Adam Sorg (Gordon Oas-Heim) have been fairly well-received, but he can't seem to break through to stardom. Snooty critic Gregorovich (Bill Harris) says that Sorg needs to master colors. When Sorg's girlfriend Gigi (Elyn Warner) cuts her thumb on a nail, Sorg uses the blood to paint. Inspired by this red color, he uses as much of his own blood as possible, but soon becomes weak. He then turns to murder to finish his work. When the painting is an immediate hit, Sorg realizes that his must kill again in order to achieve the admiration which he's always wanted.

Borrowing liberally from Roger Corman's A Bucket of Blood, Color Me Blood Red offers a somewhat interesting story. I'd never seen this one, although I'd read about it for years. Based on what I'd read, I'd always assumed that Sorg was down on his luck, so I liked the idea that he has sold paintings in the past, but was still looking for his big hit. The first half of the movie isn't that bad, but once the central idea is introduced, Lewis doesn't know what to do with it, and the second half drags. Yes, the infamous shot where Sorg draws blood from a victim is iconic, but the movie never lives up to its promise. The most interesting thing is that the movie can show graphic murders, and some nudity, but profanity has to be implied.

By the time Lewis made Color Me Blood Red, he'd made many movies in several genres, but he still had a difficult time telling a coherent story. But, we're not here for the story, we're here for the groundbreaking gore. Again, the effects are truly fake by today's standards, but it's important to note that without Herschell Gordon Lewis, we would have never had Stuart Gordon, Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson, just to name a few.

The Blood Trilogy Blu-ray Disc contains all three movies on one Disc, courtesy of Image Entertainment. Blood Feast has been letterboxed at 1.78:1 and the Disc contains an AVC 1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 20 Mbps. Given the film's age and low-budget nature, the transfer looks very good. The image is sharp and clear, showing only a slight amount of grain and a surprising low number of defects from the source material. The colors look fantastic, especially the reds of course. The colors here look better than many big budget movies from the era. The image shows a lot of detail, which of course really kills the gore effects. The Disc offers a Linear PCM 2-channel audio track which runs at 48 kHz and a constant 1.5 Mbps. The dialogue is clear, save for the shoddy dubbing and the grating music comes through fine. Two Thousand Maniacs! has been letterboxed at 1.78:1 and the Disc contains an AVC 1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 18 Mbps. The print used for this transfer wasn't as good as the one from Blood Feast. The image shows grain, green lines, splotches and bad splices. Those who want a "grindhouse" experience will get one here. The image is a bit washed out, so the colors aren't as lively. The audio is a Linear PCM 2-channel track which run at 48 kHz and a constant 1.5 Mbps. The dialogue and music are audible, but there is an obvious hissing on the track throughout. Color Me Blood Red has been letterboxed at 1.78:1 and the Disc contains an AVC 1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 20 Mbps. The image is fairly sharp and clear, falling somewhere between the first two films in terms of visual quality. The colors are good, and the reds look fine. There is a little grain here and some mild defects. The Disc offers a Linear PCM 2-channel audio track which runs at 48 kHz and a constant 1.5 Mbps. The dialogue sounds fine, although we do get more of those obviously dubbed scenes where the audio becomes very canned and tinny sounding.

The Blood Trilogy Blu-ray Disc features several extras. Each movie is accompanied by an AUDIO COMMENTARY which features Lewis, Friedman, and Mike Vraney of Something Weird Video (Jimmy Maslin of Shock Films joins them on the second two movies). These are fun commentaries, as Lewis and Friedman aren't afraid to talk about what went into making the movies and what the cast and crew members were like. It's amazing what they can remember. We get "Outtakes" from all three films which run about 76 minutes. These consist of alternate takes, unused scenes, and what appears to be simply footage from the beginning and ending of takes. They are presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio and don't have sound (they are accompanied by soundtrack music). Most of this is simply filler, but there are some interesting moments. "Carving Magic" (21 minutes) is an educational film from the 60s featuring Lewis regular Bill Kerwin and Harvey Korman (!). "Follow That Skirt" (27 minutes) is a copy-cat gore film which was not made by Lewis. (If I hadn't seen Godfather of Gore, I would have had no idea what this was.) We get TRAILERS for all three films, and a gallery of "Exploitation Art", which features many classic newspaper ads and flyers.