Blood is the Color of Night1964

Nosferatu in the Philippines! This is one wild ride. Evil vampire (who wears sunglasses—at night!) who’s also a mad scientist, seductive vampire femme fatale (also wears sunglasses), psychotic hunchback henchman vampire (but no sunglasses), giant rubber vampire bat, multiple vampire attacks, vampire martial arts, vampire with a gun. Put them all together and you get a love story with heavy Catholic overtones. And then there’s the color-tinting. Deep blue in the depths of the night; burning red when the vampries are on the prowl. Veteran director Gerardo de León keeps this psychtronic buffet of chills and thrills moving at a fast pace. It’s gothic in the tropics!

Whether done for necessity or art, the masterful use of tinting creates an aura of expressionistic dread. The many forest scenes of red and blue daggers of backlight cutting through mist are beautiful and disturbing. Even outside of that technique, almost every scene is gorgeous and gothic. Unfortunately, the bad dialog (maybe the fault of the dubbing) and scratchy sound detract from brilliant visuals. Many unusual twists also make this a must-see for vampire and horror fans. Hard to believe this gem was made by the same director who did Brides of Blood. This is a great vampire movie!

The coloring in this—tinted black and white images punctuated by bursts of lucid technicolor—is wild.

Fantastic use of color, utterly unlike any other horror film of its time in that regard. Way over the top and fun. The curious mix of Phillipines culture and Spanish Gothic sets are stunning. Not to be missed if you dig Hammer horror and 1960s early 70s monster flicks.

Clearly, the people behind the film wanted to make a Hollywood flic. To our ennui, Hollywood flics are made with rules extracted from work done in the early 20th century. The Filipinos, to my enjoyment, had not learned those rules sufficiently to accomplish their goal. So, their efforts were quite enjoyable. Clearly, a good deal of content was from their unique culture of 50 years ago, which only enhanced the experience. I would like to send this to a Fillipine family so I could learn from them. Sadly, I only have their postal address and the husband's work email address.

I skipped right to the end..I have dishes to do rather than continue wasting my time

no good Says Bruno in Love!