Blood Red is a 1989 American Western drama film

Drama film

A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 directed by Peter Masterson

Peter Masterson

Peter Masterson is an American actor, director, producer and writer.Masterson often worked with his cousin, writer Horton Foote. Acting from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s,including 1975's The Stepford Wives as Walter Eberhart, since then he has concentrated mostly on directing and producing...

 and starring Eric Roberts

Eric Roberts

Eric Anthony Roberts is an American actor. His career began with King of the Gypsies , earning a Golden Globe nomination for best actor debut. He starred as the protagonist in the 1980 dramatisation of Willa Cather's 1905 short story, Paul's Case...

, Giancarlo Giannini

Giancarlo Giannini

Giancarlo Giannini is an Italian actor and dubber.Giannini was born La Spezia, Liguria, Italy. He studied at the Accademia Nazionale d'Arte Drammatica in Rome, and made his film debut in a small part in Fango sulla metropoli in 1965...

, and Dennis Hopper

Dennis Hopper

Dennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1954 and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant...

. It was filmed in 1986, but released only three years later.

The film is noteworthy for featuring Julia Roberts

Julia Roberts

Julia Fiona Roberts is an American actress. She became a Hollywood star after headlining the romantic comedy Pretty Woman , which grossed $464 million worldwide...

, Eric's sister, in her film debut and one of her first film roles. Interestingly, she plays the younger sister of Eric's character in this film.

Synopsis

Set in the 1890s

1890s

The 1890s were sometimes referred to as the "Mauve Decade" - because William Henry Perkin's aniline dye allowed the widespread use of that colour in fashion - and also as the "Gay Nineties", under the then-current usage of the word "gay" which referred simply to merriment and frivolity, with no...

, the story centers around the life of a Sicilian

Sicily

Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

 family, the Collogeros, living in California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 and working in the winemaking

Winemaker

A winemaker or vintner is a person engaged in winemaking. They are generally employed by wineries or wine companies, where their work includes:*Cooperating with viticulturists...

 business, and their confrontation with a local and powerful landowner named William Bradford Berrigan (Hopper), who is after their lands and the ones that belong to the other families in the area. Berrigan's plan is to get control of the properties in order to build a new railroad. When the conflict escalates, he murders the patriarch

Patriarch

Originally a patriarch was a man who exercised autocratic authority as a pater familias over an extended family. The system of such rule of families by senior males is called patriarchy. This is a Greek word, a compound of πατριά , "lineage, descent", esp...

of the family, Sebastian Collogero (Giannini), and in response, his son Marco (Roberts) claims for justice. With the help of his family and others, he starts an open war against Berrigan.