Dario Argento's Deep Red
In just this trailer, you can note another very interesting use of blood. It isn't only here for the shock value of gore, but to create suspense: see the reflection of the other figure shifting back and forth in the puddle of blood! Very interesting, as the blood here is not realistic at all, so it serves a very different aesthetic and narrative purpose.
Totally awesome bloody Blue Velvet themed cake.
It makes me feel kind of funny when I realize that my dad's love for "Blue Velvet" probably developed in my infancy. Maybe this has something to do with my love of "creepy." ANYway...
The infamous candy colored clown scene is a funny one -- no real gore, no blood splattering. But I think it's funny/freakin scary how the punches to the face are somehow "foreshadowed" by their smudged red lips.
Do you know of any extremely violent clips in "Blue Velvet" which feature blood? It's been a while. Let me know.
The official "The Shining" trailer seems to have disappeared from YouTube and replaced by spoofs, but it can be viewed here. Regardless...
From IMDB:
Stanley Kubrick, known for his compulsiveness and numerous retakes, got the difficult shot of blood pouring from the elevators in only three takes. This would be remarkable if it weren't for the fact that the shot took nine days to set up; every time the doors opened and the blood poured out, Kubrick would say, "It doesn't look like blood." They had tried shooting that scene for an entire year.
Ah, the shower scene. It's interesting to me how you never see the knife entering flesh -- instead, the sound and the blood resulting from the apparent wounds tell the story.
There's no splatter on impact, like we might see in movies today -- nothing cascading on the walls when he stabs her. The blood and water combination puddling at her feet is most important, here (starting about 0:59 into the clip). Apparently, the blood was created using chocolate syrup as it shows up quite well on black and white film. You can see how the syrup reacted with the water at the first shot at 0:59. It ends up clumping in bits around her feet, but by the second shot down at the water at 1:02, we can see a diluted, fairly consistent texture.
At ~1:40, the stream of blood running toward the drain is quite affective although subtle. You can see pulses of clouds of blood instead of a consistent texture -- I wonder how precisely this was accomplished.
Now, check out the 1998 Van Sant remake.
This is a "shot by shot" remake, but it fails, even in this scene alone. Did you catch that smear on the wall around 2:40? Yeah. And the color of the blood is a complete failure here. It's bright red, almost magenta. And at ~2:50, at the overhead shot, we see too much blood, including the stab wounds on her back. In this version, the blood seems secondary even though there is more of it. It's more about Heche's (bad) acting and her limp body dangling over the tub. Van Sant does, however, capture the original cloudiness of the blood running down the drain.
This will be my blog ruminating on the use/meaning/cultural significance/technique of blood in films.
To get started:
How to make fake blood, both edible and inedible! I had no idea you could make it with peanut butter...
Cheap blood and blood bags as well as some dried blood effects.
