Nonureva Really Surprised!

ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

FrogGlace In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

Sanjeev Waters A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

jorge eduardo myers Vicente Aranda was one of the finest directors to emerge from the Spanish transition to democracy, overshadowed by film "auteurs" such as PedroAlmodóvar, Víctor Érice, or the late period of Luis García Berlanga. Often dismissed as merely a cultivator of exploitation-style cinema, with abundant nudity and sometimes over-the-top sexual scenes, he was an excellent translator of literature into film, but also a clear, if subdued, visual stylist, who knew how to capture the complexities of Spanish culture, both popular and learned, and history -traumatic in the extreme- during the second half of the Twentieth Century. This film, one of his earlier works, already exhibits the feminist stance that appears over and over again in his more famous films -"La pasion turca", "Amantes", "Si te dicen que caí", "Carmen", even, perhaps, "Tirante el Blanco"-: his female protagonists are always endowed with agency, strong, impetuous, free, even when the structures of male domination in society are most powerfully ranged against them. As some other IMDb reviewers have observed, an appreciation of "The Blood-Spattered Bride" as simply a vampire film, one more of the abundant slew of early 70s, erotic-horror offerings from Europe (and the UK's Hammer, etc.) is simply wrong. Much of the imagery is not only surrealist, but deliberately echoes Buñuel - Spain's greatest classic film auteur, surrealist and ironic to the core-: the beach scene -brilliant- evokes "Un chien andalou" and the diver-suited customer at "Belle-de-jour"'s brothel; Carmilla's sucking the blood from Susan's palm again quotes 1930's Buñuel/Dali, etc. One clear theme, underscored by the surrealist touches, is that the boundary between real and unreal, dream and waking reality is not stable, but blurred. The other central theme is the horror of male domination and the justice of women's rebellion against it: in the French version, not only is horrible hubby a cruel hunter, and a chillingly manipulative and cruel husband, he is also a child-molester who forces oral sex on 12 year old Carol, only a day or two after his marriage to Susan. The scene, despite being tastefully-filmed, is disgusting, shocking (more than anything else in this work) and seems to utterly justify Carmilla and Susan's later blood-spree. The photography is beautiful, and the structure of the film is extremely precise in conveying its dual message: concerning the multiple readings "reality" offers to the imagination, and in rendering clear the final statement that despite gender violence, women will continue to live and fight for their freedom.

ma-cortes This thrilling as well as sumptuous film contains horrifying scenes , chills , lush photography shot in Galicia , appropriate set design , brilliant costumes and lots of nudism and gore . A young hubby's (Simon Andreu) sexual fantasies frighten his new spouse (Maribel Martin) and cause her to seek advice from Carmilla (Carmilla is anti-heroine of J. Sheridan Le Fanu novella Carmilla), a descendant of Mircalla de Karnstein . Carmilla/Mircalla (Alexandra Bastedo) seduces the young bride and takes for her desires . She has developed an elaborate feeding ritual, that involves infiltrating the family of young girls and living alongside them, while she gradually drains their lifeblood over a period of weeks . She forces her to commit gory acts of mutilation and grisly killings . Mircalla Karnstein is a vampire that drains the blood of the victims to use as elixir of youth . She didn't know that her new friend is sucking her blood and the cause of her nightmare ; then there takes place the revenge of a young bride on her wedding night . Then happens a battle of wits between a husband versus seductive lesbian vampire fighting it out for control over his wife .It's a creepy tale about lesbian vampire issue ; being plenty of thrills , chills , eerie events and lots of blood and gore ; including nudism in double version . Enjoyable version about the famous personage ¨Carmilla¨ with a good cast , brilliant cinematography , glamorous gowns , adequate production design , including evocative sights on palaces , beaches and rotten churches . Surrealist and fantastic images as as when the husband meets a naked woman buried on the beach, he brings her home and finds out that she is Carmilla , as well as the scary frames when Carmilla along with the bride kill their victims . This is based on Sheridan Le Fanu novel titled "Carmila" and on a story by Mathew Lewis , being written by the same director Vicente Aranda. Carmilla was born into the aristocratic Karnstein family in 17th-century Austria , she was originally called Countess Mircalla . Eerie as well as evocative musical score by Antonio Perez Olea . Colorful and luxurious cinematography by Fernando Arribas , being shot on location in Isla De La Toja, and Santiago de Compostela, A Coruña, Galicia, Spain ; adding a decent set production by Juan Alberto Soler. This known character from Sheridan Le Fanu novel "Carmila" has been adapted several times , such as : ¨Twins of Evil" directed by John Hough , ¨Lust for a Vampire¨ (1971) played by Yutte Stensgaard , ¨ Daughters of Darkness¨ by Harry Kumel , Love for a Vampire""The Vampire Lovers aka "To Love a Vampire" played by Ingrid Pitt as Mircalla Karnstein and "Alucarda" and recently Lesbian Vampire Killers (2009) , among others .The motion picture was professionally directed in his particular style by veteran filmmaker Vicente Aranda . He directed a series of award-winning movies firmly establishing him as one of the best Spanish filmmakers . His usual film editor is own wife , Teresa Font . Vicente is an expert on literary adaptations ,as he has adapted four novels by Juan Marsé Canciones Amor en Lolita's Club (2007), El Amante Bilingüe (1993), Si Te Dicen Que Caí (1989) and La Muchacha De Las Bragas De Oro (1980). Vicente often shoots strong erotic scenes , being ¨jealousy¨, a customary issue in his films . Vicente has been working from the 60s with ¨Fata Morgana¨ , Las Crueles¨ , ¨Novia Ensangrentada¨ , ¨Clara es el Precio¨ , among others . His greatest successes were intense dramas with plenty of sex such as ¨Amantes¨, ¨Pasion Turca¨ , ¨Si Dicen Que Cai¨ , ¨Intruso¨ , ¨Tiempo De Silencio¨ , ¨Carmen¨ , along with a delinquency tale : ¨El Lute¨ I and II starred by Imanol Arias , his fetish actor along with Victoria Abril (They have worked together 12 times) and specially the historical story titled ¨Juana La Loca¨ also dealing with jealousy and ¨Amantes¨, easily the best of the numerous films of Aranda .

Perception_de_Ambiguity In the form of a story about a newly wed woman who we witness losing her virginity the exploitation-y titled 'The Blood Spattered Bride' thematically covers a lot of the same and similar grounds to 'Valerie and Her Week of Wonders' albeit very much focusing on all the psychosexual aspects. Where "Valerie", summed up, is a film about a girl's sexual awakening after her menarche (=first menstrual bleeding) and all the other realizations that can result from that awakening, for example about religion and the government, "Bride" is about a young woman's sexual awakening (her age is never specified, the actress was about 18 years old at that point) which makes the woman fall into a psychotic state that makes her feel fear and disgust of men so this character's psychology isn't dissimilar to Catherine Deneuve's in 'Repulsion', it also roughly covers the events of one week although just like in "Valerie" it seems like development in a compressed form, showing a psychological evolution that usually would have to take considerably longer.Despite the supernatural elements in the story other than in "Valerie" one is prone to take the ongoings in the film literally because of its mundane visual style and the relatively coherent plot that wouldn't obviously suggest a symbolic reading although if one takes things on face value here it would be a rather ridiculous and unintelligently written film, but if taken metaphorically, always with the theme in mind, it's just the opposite. There certainly are quite a few surreal touches, though, both movies also include a good share of vampirism as well as lesbianism although neither of them really is a vampire, a horror nor an erotic movie, at least they aren't predominantly any one of those things.Another prevalent theme (especially as "Bride" reaches its conclusion) is that of the inspirational power of history as well as having a certain responsibility to act upon sacrifices other people made in the past, in this specific case especially in regards to feminism. Carmilla, the vampire with lesbian tendencies who becomes increasingly more real, is like a figure conjured up by the bride's fears and desires and that figure is a resurrection of a person that really existed within the fiction of the film, most likely materialized in idealized form to fit the bride's purposes.Although I think the film is feminist in its intent it interestingly has no qualms to come off as misogynist at times (especially in the first half) when showing the often violent male oppression and sexual dominance since, unlike "Valerie" or 'Repulsion', it doesn't choose a point of view, it's (almost) as much the husband's film as it is hers. I think the sympathies are clearly with the bride (which makes the ending all the more refreshing) but thematically the husband's male psychology is almost as fleshed out as hers and his psychological torture can at times also be felt.While I obviously think that thematically it's a great and intelligent movie it's certainly a minus that if taken literally the movie doesn't hold up well. Visually it's largely unremarkable although it does have its moment, especially one gory fantasy sequence in the middle section and the much talked about surreal beach sequence offer some notable visuals. The characterizations are coherent and believable but I wouldn't go as far as to call any of them well-developed. In one scene the movie's themes are actually blatantly spelled out with the characters reading out of psychology books that quote Plato and Jung. This being my first contact with Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla novel possibly helped my appreciation of the film, had I read the book or seen other films that were based on it things might look differently, but I haven't.

lazarillo There have been no less than FIVE classic European horror films based on the Sheridan LeFanu classic story "Carmilla". There was the creepy, expressionistic Carl Theodore Dryer film "Vampyr" back in the 30's. There was the famous Hammer period horror film "The Vampire Lovers" (which itself inspired two sequels). There was Roger Vadim's very French New Wave "Blood and Roses". There was Harry Kumel's superior, if somewhat overrated, "Daughters of Darkness". And there was this one, a Spanish film, which is perhaps the most exploitative and also the most bizarrely surrealistic of all of them.The plot involves a man (Simon Andreu) and his young bride (Maribel Martin), who are on a seaside honeymoon. The woman suffers from a kind of sexual hysteria where she hallucinates strange men coming out of the closet and raping her. Interestingly though, it is the man who first discovers the lesbian vampire (Alexandra Bastedo). In what is undoubtedly the most arresting image in the film he digs her up from the beach sand where she is buried (for some reason) wearing nothing but a snorkel mask! (And demonstrating the film's exploitative pedigree, he first uncovers her sizable breasts). Of course, it isn't long before the lesbianism starts in earnest. The film is marred somewhat by a very ham-handed ending, but one that is also quite a statement (perhaps unintentionally so) on the reactionary machismo of Spain in the late Franco era.This movie has an interesting if somewhat obscure cast. Simon Andreu was in a number of Italian giallo thrillers with fellow Spaniard Nieves Navarro (aka Susan Scott) and her Italian director husband Luciano Ercoli. He would stage a kind of comeback years later with a supporting role in Roman Polanski's "The Ninth Gate". The young and beautiful Maribel Martin was in three classic Spanish horror films in the late 60's/early 70's--"The House that Screamed", "A Bell from Hell", and this one--so it's both strange and regrettable that she completely disappeared soon after. British actress Alexandra Bastedo had a much longer career, going back at least to William Castle's "13 Frightened Girls" in 1963 and as far forward as Freddie Francis' "The Ghoul" in 1975. But she was almost always relegated to supporting roles, so it's good to see a lot more of her here (both in terms of the size of her role and the sparseness of her wardrobe).The ending of the available prints seems rather truncated, perhaps suggesting censorship (although it's doubtful even this print ever played in Franco's Spain). It would be nice if someday another print would turn up with a smoother ending (and maybe a longer nude, lesbian clinch between Bastedo and Martin). Here's hoping anyway.