Love Brides of the Blood Mummy

Director - Alejandro Marti (Elisabet)

Starring - George Rigaud (Striptease, The Black Pearl), Michael Flynn, and Catherine Franck (The French Love, Circle of Love)

Release Date - 1973

Genre - Horror

Tagline - "To stay alive, he needed her body and her blood"

Format - Bluray (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     As my October horror binge continues, I find myself watching a wide range of titles ranging from animated horror flicks to movies with very loose horror elements that was sent over for review. When I started my month long journey, I had intended on reviewing the three new Mondo Macabro releases closer to Halloween because they looked like fun atmospheric pieces that would be perfect for spooky season. The first film in my Mondo Macabro marathon was the 1973 film Love Brides of the Blood Mummy which was also released as Lips of Blood. 

      The film follows an Egyptologist who travels to a secluded castle that is rumored to be owned by a wealthy collector with several Egyptian artifacts. When he arrives he is greeted by a tale from the owner about opening a sarcophagus that had a perfectly preserved body in it that was not mummified. Instead, the body was in a state of hibernation and when awoken it had to rape, torture, and then drain women of their blood daily in order to survive. 

      When I finished my viewing of Love Brides of the Blood Mummy, I headed over to Letterboxd to leave my rating of the film when I noticed that several friends has previously seen the film. Their ratings were atrocious. This made me a bit curious, so I head over to imdb and noticed the user ratings there as well. Genre fans seem to seriously dislike this one but I found it very enjoyable. Hell, I thought it was a perfect film to toss in to prepare for Halloween. The imagery and atmosphere is damn near perfect for the season but I was a little turned off by how rapey the story is. Regardless, I thought it was a great addition to Mondo Macabro’s catalogue. The acting in this one is very uneven. Some of the characters are very well cast while others felt like they were cast on the fly and in a very big hurry. I really enjoyed the character of John the Egyptologist and the collector that owns the castle. The imdb page for this is a bit of a mess so I opted out of mentioning names but these two characters were perfectly cast and acted. However, the supporting cast was clearly tossed together on the run. The story for this one will be quick to remind genre fans of the period pieces coming out of Hammer and Amicus at the time. In fact, there was so many vampire period pieces at the time that this one feels like it was originally going to be another one that was quickly changed to be a mummy film with a lot of the plot remaining intact. Honestly, I like it but I can’t help but wonder if I would like it more if it was a traditional vampire film. I don’t really care for the whole “mummy” angle when this one is not really a mummy. Looking back, it’s almost as if it was meant to be an Egyptian vampire but that is never fully explained or explored if that was the case. Finally, the film has some light blood on the neck and a lot of skin. If you’ve seen a vampire film from the late 60s to early 70s then you know exactly how the blood and effects are handled with this one. Overall, Love Brides of the Blood Mummy has a questionable story but the main characters and imagery more than make up for the questions you may have. It’s not a film that has a lot of replay value or a cult fanbase but if it fun for a late night watch especially if you want something simple and straight forward to dig into. Mondo Macabro did a great job with this release.