The Blood Spattered Bride -1972 

Director : Vicente Aranda

Writer : Vicente Aranda

Novel By : Sheridan Le Fanu

Running Time : 83 mins

Cast : Simón Andreu, Maribel Martín, Alexandra Bastedo, Maria-Rosa Rodriguez, Dean Selmier

              The cover Art looks great thats why I got it but as I watched this movie, well lets read on....Vicente Aranda, mostly known for his erotic filmmaking does a good job here during the first half of the film. However the movie becomes more senseless and drags from this point on thruout the entire film. The movie is based on the popular vampire novel “CARMILLA” by Sheridan Le Fanu . The novel predates Bram Stoker’s version. The story starts with Susan, a recently married woman who arrives at a hotel with her husband. While her husband is downstairs and she’s looking around the room an unknown attacker bursts in on her and savagely rapes her. This is probably one of the biggest shocks in the whole film for the viewer. Susan later sees a strange woman who we later learn is “CARMILLA”.
     Things get weirder and Susan tells her husband she feels uncomfortable at the hotel now and that they should move elsewhere so they relocate to her husband’s ancestral home and have sex quite often, often, I mean alot!  Then things get weird. Susan refuses to give her husband oral sex and then she begins to refuse his advances and even hide's from him at times. Things get even weirder as they find female portraits of the husbands family in the cellar. One is of Carmilla who killed her husband on their wedding night because he wished her to perform unspeakable sex acts on her. Then in another vision Carmilla appears to Susan and bestows her a dildo end dagger! That dagger becomes a large part of the endings plot, I want go into it.... but will say This is a strange vampire movie. There is certainly an air of lesbianism and a disgust for men, not that the two always go together. There was barely any blood and the really good nude scenes were mostly at the beginning of the film. The vampire Carmilla wasn’t that threatening or scarry and It seems she only wanted to get Susan away from her husband. I am glad they both died. I just had no feeling for the characters and I don’t recommend this film unless you like strange or weird female vampire flicks which make no sense what-so-ever!

4/10 Stars