This story does not have a happy ending. You know what though? I'm not even sure that this counts as a story. I was thinking of sending this over to the godlike Kindertrauma but decided it wasn't all that exciting. Anyway, as my childhood came to an end (the first one, the actual one, not the one that I keep perpetuating now), my parents gave me their old VCR and carte blanche in Video-X-Tron (which became a Blockbuster Video in 1990) to rent pretty much whatever I wanted.
No, they weren't letting me get stuff from that little room in the back with the curtain over the door (but don't think I didn't peek back there a few times)! Thankfully, my folks were letting me rent any horror movie that caught my eye. My goal of seeing every horror movie in the store had just popped into my brain one day and I couldn't let it go. But there were some things that were just too much for my young brain to take. One cover that managed to frighten and sicken me at the same time was Color Me Blood Red.
To this day, I can still remember the feeling of nausea that passed over me when I beheld the lurid and ghastly artwork for the film. I think the air conditioning was broken and it was suddenly stifling inside the video store. Plus, there was this smell of something rotten wafting through the store and everything started to swirl around me. I almost, almost puked. This story would have been better if I had tossed my cookies all over the floor right at the foot of the shelves. Forget renting it, I was afraid to even touch Color Me Blood Red to see what was on the back cover. However, I was brave enough to rent 2,000 Maniacs (even though I had no clue the two films shared the same director) but fell asleep before any of the good stuff happened.
The saddest part is, I've still never watched Color Me Blood Red. Sure, I've read about it (in this awesome book) but I kind of want to preserve this unpleasant memory because it's still pretty special to me. The fact that cover art alone could drive me to the brink of projectile vomiting is very magical. Or maybe I'm still scared... Okay, fuck it, I'm putting this on my Netflix queue right now. Thanks you guys. I knew you'd help me get through this.
Thanks to the internet, I can now see what was on the back!
I remember this cover from Video Movie World. When I went through my 'rent-every-horror-vid-in-the-store' phase too it was one I consistantly passed up on.
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