The Brides wore Blood – review

Director: Bob Favourite

Release Date: 1972

Contains spoilers

Take a look at the movie poster I’ve headed this review with. Personally I think it is absolutely marvellous and it is about the best thing about this absolute mess of a movie.

The film begins with a guy and his girl in a makeshift bed. He finds a secret compartment in the wall by him and opens it up, finding a small locked chest belonging to his Uncle Carlos (Paul Everett) – who died ten years before. The chest contains a journal that outlines the strange hidden history of his family. This is the last we see of these two as the film goes back in time, showing us the history as laid out by Carlos.

It seems that the DeLorca family was cursed. Carlos’ grandfather was doing an occult ritual that was interrupted and it resulted in him being turned into a vampire and caused him to kill his wife. Concerned about his nephew Juan (Chuck Faulkner), Carlos goes to see a spiritualist named Madame Von Kirst. She then shows him a vision of grandfather in action – so we get a further cut back.

Von Kirst has a plan to rid Juan of the curse, but it will be dangerous. To this end she suggests to a young lady named Yvonne (Dolores Heiser) that she go on a trip to the town where the DeLorca mansion is. Once there, Yvonne and three other girls, Laura (Jan Sherman), Vickie (Rita Ballard) and Dana (Delores Starling) are all invited to visit the house for a tour by mute, hunched servant Perro (Bob Letizia).

What is it about young ladies on the early 1970s. One invite to a house by a sinister henchmen and they all gladly go along. As it is, Carlos turns out to be the perfect host and shows them the mansion without incident. Juan is away at the time and Carlos invites them all round for dinner the next day.

To dinner they go and meet Juan, who drugs Yvonne. Whilst she is taken to lie down, the others assuming she is drunk, Laura says she has to leave – she is meeting her guy in town. Yvonne is taken to bed and the two other girls are convinced to staying with her. Meanwhile Laura hasn’t got very far, Perro has kidnapped her.

Carlos is going to use her in a ritual, as an altar, which will cause Yvonne to become pregnant with Juan’s child and lift the curse. Hold on a second… wasn’t the curse that he would choose a bride, get her pregnant and then kill her. It seems the cure is remarkably similar to the curse itself. Anyhoo, Laura’s boyfriend disturbs the ceremony and all Hell breaks loose.

All hell is some decayed looking guy being sinister and stalking the young lovers whilst Vickie has her throat ripped out, Dana is vampirised and Yvonne is impregnated. This means that Juan becomes a full vampire also and Carlos must try and lift the curse from the unborn child. You know what though, all Hell breaking loose is deathly boring and doesn’t plot very well either.

The vampires are scared of the cross, as it was evil spirits that created them. They can be staked through the heart and sunlight is deadly. They are also able to be confined to their cofins by Von Kirst – so long as no one goes in the room, go figure.

The acting is blooming awful and chief offender is the unnamed actress who plays Madame Von Kirst. Honestly she was so wooden you could have carved her into a stake and dealt with the vampires with her. One never gets a full take on the character but it does seem she is trying to lift the curse – by replicating it.

Other big offenders are Letizia whose sinister henchman is laughable, looking like a mime version of an igor type character. We should also make mention of Starling who, as the vampire Dana is utterly ridiculous – and not just because of the comedy fangs.

The story itself is confused and the film itself so boring it is untrue. I mean this thing really drags. To be honest, with a competent director and cast an interesting psycho-drama could have been made out of the film but on all levels it falls flat.

Never-the-less, I love the poster. 1 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.