The Blood Spattered Bride

Director - Vincente Aranda (Mad Love, The Naked Eye)
Starring - Simon Andreu (Die Another Day, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian), Maribel Martin (The Holy Innocents, Roots of Evil), and Alexandra Bastedo (Batman Begins, The Agatha Christie Hour)
Release Date - 1972
Genre - Horror
Tagline - "When the honeymoon was over the terror began"
Format - Bluray (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

           Here we go with more Mondo!  As I slowly work my way out of these backed up reviews I decided to hold myself a little Mondo marathon.  After watching Spider and the fantastic The Fox with a Velvet Tail I decided to go with The Blood Spattered Bride.  The first two in my marathon were new to me but The Blood Spattered Bride is one I had actually heard about.  In fact, I owned a copy of the film on DVD from Blue Underground.  I never actually got around to watching it but I still knew of it somewhat. I want to thank Mondo for sending this one my way to check out.  I really enjoyed it!
     The film follows a married couple on their wedding night who venture to the husband's castle to live with his servants.  Things don't start out well for the newlyweds when she is raped in the hotel room while he parks the car.  Things go even darker when he starts beating her and forcibly makes her have sex in public.  This changes when she learns about the history of his ancestry and a woman who poisoned her husband.  Later he finds a nude woman on the beach buried in the sand.  Soon the two women are found kissing at night and sleeping in a coffin in the basement making everyone believe they are lesbian vampires.  Soon blood starts to flow when their true intentions are revealed.
       I never had the opportunity to see the film but I was under the impression it was a completely different film than what we got.  The movie we do get is something I was not expecting and does not reflect the title that well in my opinion.  The acting in this one is solid but I do struggle at times with the casting.  The two female stars of the film just don't fit their characters.  I could not see them as the character they are portraying which made most of the scenes feel awkward.  The supporting cast is solid but there is several scenes where there is no conviction to their dialogue.  They just spit their words out and move on.  No consistency at all.  I really liked the story for this one even though I feel the title is misleading.  I was expecting a black widow type story where a bride kills her husbands on their wedding night.  Instead, we get a rather unique tale centered around a family plagued by murderous women.  This was a solid story.  It did struggle with pacing issues but was well written.  Finally, the film does have some blood.  No gore and minimal effects but it does have blood.  Overall, The Blood Spattered Bride is a great addition to any horror fan's collection.  The film has some great atmosphere and a fun story.  Check it out.