THE BLOOD-SPATTERED BRIDE (1972)
Article #841 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-4-2003
Posting Date: 12-1-2003
Directed by Vicente Aranda
Featuring Simon Andreu, Maribel Martin, Alexandra Bastedo

A newly-married woman has encounters with a strange woman who may be a vampiress from the family’s past.

Title check: This movie earns the title at about the halfway point in a fairly bloody dream sequence.

This marks a third attempt at Le Fanu’s “Carmilla” that I’ve seen, and ranks somewhere between the other two; it’s not quite as bizarre or interesting as BLOOD AND ROSES, but is a lot more effective than TERROR IN THE CRYPT. It’s also the most exploitive, with a fairly liberal dosage of sex and gore, and thematically it deals with the bride’s latent disgust and hatred of men. Since her husband ends up being a bit of brute, this is understandable within the context of the movie, but it’s really hard to warm up to anything or anyone in this exercise in mayhem. Unfortunately, the movie takes its time at certain points when it should be moving the plot along, and it saves most of its mayhem for the final ten minutes. The most memorable scene involves a naked woman with a snorkel buried on the beach, a scene so oddly surreal that it feels like it’s in the wrong movie; it comes out of nowhere and nothing before or after really matches it. Definitely a mixed bag, and not for the faint of heart.