Kensington Gore

Punningly named after a street in London, this is a name for fake blood, especially the sticky, edible sort in old British horror films. Everything2 gives the recipe as:


 * 2 cups of corn syrup (for viscosity and color)
 * 1 cup of water (for balancing viscosity)
 * 10 tablespoons of corn (maize) flour (for making the blood less translucent)
 * 10 teaspoons red food coloring (for color)
 * 10 drops blue food coloring (for color)
 * A few drops concentrated mint (for taste - optional)

The blood is sticky, thick and bright red (crimson in fact). The original Kensington Gore was a specific brand of proprietary stage blood manufactured by retired pharmacist John Tynegate in the '60s and '70s. It can be seen in a lot of old horror films, especially the Hammer Horror series.

Plain chocolate syrup is still used in black and white films as brown looks more like blood than red would in monochrome.

See also A Bloody Mess.

Film

 * Uwe Boll LOVES this kind of fake blood.
 * The famous prom scene in Carrie used a concoction known as 7-11 Blood mixed with food coloring. This fake blood wound up drying and sticking to Sissy Spacek's skin under the hot lights, forcing the crew to hose her down after each take. And they needed 35 takes to get the scene right.
 * Dracula Has Risen From The Grave, especially the opening.
 * Taste the Blood of Dracula, the sequel to the above.
 * If you happen to run into any of the non-Bruce Campbell actors from the original Evil Dead, do not mention fake blood unless you're prepared for a Vietnam-like flashback. The amounts of fake blood used and the very, very sugary recipe (which Bruce Campbell actually gives and recommends in his autobiography) combined to leave every actor caked in unbearably sticky red mess at the end of every damn day of shooting. Also don't mention contact lenses, for mostly the same reason (those white things hurt like a bitch).
 * Campbell also mentions in his book that at one point instead of ripping, his dried shirt broke because it was so saturated with the stuff.
 * A Hard Day's Night plays with this in a canteen scene: an actor uses ketchup first on his food and then on his "wound."
 * This type of fake blood featured heavily in Kill Bill, as an homage to the Shaw Bros' kung-fu films that used the same sort. Also used was the authentic Shaw method of fake-blood-delivery, i.e., bursting condoms filled with the stuff.
 * Alfred Hitchcock allegedly did Psycho in black and white partly so he could use chocolate syrup swirling down the drain in the famous shower scene, instead of something more expensive that really looked like blood.
 * Lampshaded in Looney Tunes Back in Action, in which Bugs Bunny (spoofing the shower scene) is actually seen pouring chocolate syrup down the drain.
 * This is a key plot point in the first Scream movie.
 * The Shining, anyone?
 * Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow uses a very similar-looking kind of blood, mostly as an homage to the Hammer movies, but also for artistic purposes.
 * Not to mention the oceanic amounts of orange-ish stage blood used in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, also a Hammer tribute.
 * It should be noted that in both films, Burton digitally desaturated the color blue so that everything had a distinctly grey cast to it and, in Sleepy Hollow, enhanced the color red so that it would stand out more.
 * Parodied in Tongan Ninja, when the blood coming out of Sione's mouth is a bright shade of fuchsia pink.
 * Lampshaded in Tropic Thunder, where Ben Stiller's character holds up a corpse's head and says that it is a prop, using corn syrup fake blood. Becomes a double subversion, since it is a fake head being portrayed as a real head while still being a fake head.

Live-Action TV

 * Averted in Forever Knight, which used a fruit drink named Ribena, which is the right color red and *extremely* sweet.
 * Used in the violent episodes of Saul of the Mole Men. Extensively.
 * When 60 Minutes profiled drive-in movie mogul Earl Owensby, film techies were shown using Karo syrup and other ingredients to make this mixture.