La novia ensangrentada (1972)

Director:

Vicente Aranda

Writers:

Vicente Aranda (writer)
Sheridan Le Fanu (novel)

Release Date:

April 1974 (USA)

Genre:

Horror

Tagline:

The revenge of a young bride on her wedding night!

Plot:

A young husband's sexual fantasies frighten his new wife and cause her to seek advice from Carmilla...

Plot Keywords:

Supernatural | Female Frontal Nudity | Breast Removal | Pubic Hair | Lesbian Scene

Cast

Simón Andreu	...	Husband
Maribel Martín	...	Susan
Alexandra Bastedo	...	Mircalla Karstein
Dean Selmier	...	Doctor
Ángel Lombarte	...	Carol's father
Montserrat Julió	...	Carol's mother
Maria-Rosa Rodriguez	...	Carol (as Rosa Rodriguez)

Also Known As:

Blood Castle
Bloody Fiancée
The Blood Spattered Bride (USA)
Till Death Do Us Part (cut version)

Runtime:

100 min | USA:82 min

Country:

Spain

Language:

Spanish

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Isla de La Toja, Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain

Company:

Morgana Films

Trivia:

The Anchor Bay release of the film is in English, also dubbed in English to clean up the Spanish accents of the actors attempting English throughout. It is not likely that a Spanish language version of this film exists.

Goofs:

Continuity: Susan draws a portrait of Mircalla Karstein, on which Susan's husband doodles in the upper right-hand corner. Later, when Susan looks at the drawing, her husband's doodling is missing.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Hell's Highway: The True Story of Highway Safety Films (2003)

good early 70's Euro-horror

This is a Spanish variation on a story by Sheridan LeFanu called 'Carmilla'. It involves a young man and his younger bride encountering a mysterious woman at his ancestral home and finding out that she is not what she seems. It's a bit of slow going at times but it's beautifully filmed and was enough to keep my interest. Most interesting is the scene where the husband finds Carmilla on the beach in a snorkeling mask, buried except for her hand and the tube from her mask. He, of course, takes her for a person with amnesia and brings her back to the house, which is the first mistake, because she and the wife get rather chummy quite quickly. Lots of excursions into the woods and such. Unlike some other directors this one chose to leave some of THAT to one's imagination and I have no problem with that. At any rate the husband is, of course, somewhat upset and therefore does some probing into a mysterious woman that seems to be one of his ancestors, and finds that perhaps a portrait in the basement with a missing face and this woman that he found are one and the same. 200 years later. Well. Anyway, this is a tad on the slow side at times but always well done and mostly tasteful, not that I care much about that but sometimes that actually adds a bit of class, incredibly enough. 8 out of 10, if you're a Euro-horror fan you'll most likely find something to like in this.