A Taste of Blood clocks in at a healthy 117 minutes, over a half hour longer than your typical Lewis feature. It also has a plot that is more than coincidental to the movie, which is also a vast departure from what we’ve come to expect from the Godfather of Gore. Does this make up for the fact that, despite what the ads claimed, the blood flows less freely and the acting isn’t so hilariously absurd? Yes, plenty. A Taste of Blood isn’t quite on the level of Lewis masterpieces like Blood Feast and Gore Gore Girls, but it stands proudly as an excellent, ambitious effort and looks and feels like a Hammer vampire flick at times. And as an added bonus, Keanu Reeves isn’t around to fuck the whole thing up this time.

Our story begins when good-natured businessman John Stone (Bill Rogers, a stunningly capable actor for an H.G. Lewis film) receives a mysterious package from far-away Europe. John speaks in a deep, booming voice reminiscent of that of Cal from This Island Earth. Tragically, Lewis missed his opportunity to name his hot 60s wife, Helene, Ruth instead. Luckily, I can say “RUTH!” in a big, booming voice just fine and there’s nobody around to look at me like I’m fucked up so no harm done. Inside the package are two bottles of Yugoslavian brandy and a letter informing John that he is the last in a royal line and inviting him to Europe to collect his inheritance. After toasting his ancestor and sampling the brandy, John’s world starts to change. He becomes an insufferable, jealous asshole to his wife (whose previous romance with a trusted friend, Hank (played by Lewis vet Bill Kerwin), is a constant stick in the ass to John), starts working all night and sleeping all day, and develops a dependence on the blood red booze of his ancestors. Have you guessed what was in the brandy bottle? Unlike B-Fest, it has the blood of Dracula!

Not surprisingly, John has become a vampire, and he heads to Europe with one goal: to go to the Louvre and see if there really is something to that “DaVinci Code” crap. No, wait, he is under the power of Dracula, who is dead but really wants to find out if “The DaVinci Code” was telling the truth. Okay, fine, Dracula is controlling him from beyond the grab and commanding him to kill the great-grandchildren of the people that killed him. We are then treated to John, who can wryly be called the K-Mart vampire because he turns blue and gives off a bright blue light when he’s a vampire. Once fully a creature of the night, he’s killing off people with names like Lord Gold and Sherri Morris, whose ancestors helped kill Dracula or something. His weapon of choice? A wooden stake. Ironic, no? Maybe not.

Like any vampire, he needs the blood of the living. And where does he go to get it? Like you and me, he goes to strip clubs and brings strippers back to his hotel room to kill. And kill one he does, by ripping out her throat in one of the most convincing throat rippings I’ve ever seen. It’s worth the price of admission, but it’s not the bombastic clusterfuck of blood that you’d expect after seeing Blood Feast… hey, I just had a sweet idea for a spec script. Has anyone ever made an all-vampire version of Rent that has vampires who sing and dance after getting AIDS from drinking infected blood, or fucking a monkey? Or what about a movie in which a vampire gets AIDS from drinking infected monkey blood and mopes around all sad-like for the rest of the movie? I’d cast Morrissey in the lead role and drop a stage light on him to start the third act. Then I’d have Guitar Wolf and Lemmy from Motorhead come out and play a live version of Summertime Blues. Then, just before the world implodes under the awesome power of having Guitar Wolf and Lemmy on one stage, I’d have Michael Bay strapped to a table and ass-raped by Kim Jong Il for an encore. Why? Because I love you.

Back home, Helene is growing more concerned with her husband’s state of dickism and is confiding more and more in Hank. To make matters worse, Dr. Howard Helsing, a rather weasely looking descendent of you-know-who, is constantly hanging around and blowing John’s cover. So, like any good husband, he uses a hilariously oversized square ring to put Helene in a trance. The cops eventually get involved, which means trouble for John, who is trying to turn Helene into a vampire so they can roam the night and shop at Wal-Mart in peace. The movie’s climax, in which Helsing and Hank follow an entranced Helene to the site she is to be transformed, flops like Bob Dole’s old, wrinkled wiener. As John prepares to drink from her one last time (I bet vampires get big points in bed for giving oral 52 weeks out of the year), Helsing drives him into his coffin with a Gideon Bible and drives a stake through his heart. Normally, this is a powerful scene, but it loses a little when your Helsing character looks like an insurance salesman with erectile dysfunction and an extensive Michael Bolton collection at home.

But even a vengeful hero who looks like he does the voice of Droopy the Dog can’t sabotage this gem. It makes a person wonder if Lewis would have been able to thrive as he did with bigger budgets and more complex stories. I believe he could have, but I’m damn glad he didn’t. This movie, which runs a little long but rocks like a classic vamp movie, is a perfect muscle flex for the world’s greatest director – with it, Lewis lets you know that he could have rocked as a Hollywood director, he just didn’t want to. As an added treat, don’t miss the man himself in a rare on-screen cameo as a salty English sailor, as well as him doing his very best Lugosi impression in a voice-over as John reads his inheritance letter. That talented SOB, I wish he would have left some awesomeness for the rest of the world.

Lewis followed A Taste of Blood with the awesome Gruesome Twosome, but would only a few years later hit his stride with his most awesome movies yet.

DVD Xtras: If you have the Something Weird DVD, be sure to check out commentary from Lewis, a cool trailer (wouldn’t it have been an incredible feeling to go to a movie and see a preview for a new H.G. Lewis movie come on-screen?) and a super-cool, if all too brief and silent, nudie short.