''The Blood Spattered Bride'' ( es, La novia ensangrentada, links=no) is a 1972

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

horror film written and directed by

Vicente Aranda Vicente Aranda Ezquerra (; 9 November 1926 – 26 May 2015) was a Spanish film director, screenwriter and producer. Due to his refined and personal style, he was one of the most renowned Spanish filmmakers. He started as a founding member ...

, based on the 1872 vampire novella '' Carmilla'' by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. It stars

Simón Andreu Simón Andreu Trobat (born 1 January 1941) is a Spanish actor. He has appeared in more than 180 films and television shows since 1961. In 2013 he was awarded with the Nosferatu Award at the Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalu ...

Maribel Martín María Isabel Martín Martínez (1 November 1954 in Madrid, Spain), better known as Maribel Martín, is a Spanish actress. Career She made her acting debut at age seven in the film ''Tres de la Cruz Roja'' (1961),a film directed by Fernando Pa ...

, and

Alexandra Bastedo Alexandra Lendon Bastedo (9 March 1946 – 12 January 2014) was a British actress, best known for her role as secret agent Sharron Macready in the 1968 British espionage/science fiction adventure series ''The Champions''. Bastedo was a vegetar ...

. The film attained cult film status for its mix of horror, vampirism, rejection of fascism, and progressive ideas on gender and sexuality. A well-known US trailer advertising a double feature of this film paired with the 1974 horror film ''

I Dismember Mama ''I Dismember Mama'' (also known as ''Poor Albert and Little Annie'' and released in the UK as ''Crazed''), is a 1972 American horror film written by William Norton and directed by Paul Leder. The film centers on a violent sex criminal who goes o ...

'' was filmed in the style of a news report covering the "story" of an audience member who had gone insane while watching the films.

Plot

Susan, a newly married young woman still wearing her bridal gown, leaves on honeymoon with her new husband and eventually arrives at a hotel. Another woman seems to be stalking the couple from her position in a nearby car and when Susan is left alone in the room for just a few moments, she has a violent fantasy of a strange man leaping out of the closet and raping her. After her husband returns, she insists on leaving, which they do. The couple arrives at a house where the husband apparently grew up. This is where the rest of the story unfolds. The wife sees the woman from the hotel in the woods on the property but she does not tell her husband. Susan notices in the house that there are paintings up of male ancestors, but none of the wives. She is told by the servants' daughter that the wives' paintings are in the cellar. Susan notices that one of the paintings of the wives has the face cut out of it. Susan's husband tells her that the woman in the painting is named Mircala Karstein, one of his ancestors, who two hundred years before murdered her husband on their wedding night because he supposedly made her commit unspeakable acts. Susan has violent dreams involving the mysterious woman she has been seeing. She wakes up and finds a dagger under her pillow. Susan starts to become detached from her husband. The husband calls on a doctor to figure out why she is having all of these dreams and what is wrong with her. Soon Mircala is invading Susan's dreams, persuading her to use a mysterious dagger, which keeps reappearing no matter where it is hidden, to butcher Susan's husband as Mircala did hers. One day while strolling out on the beach, the husband discovers a naked woman buried in the sand; only her snorkel provides air. He digs her out and takes her home, where she reveals herself to be Carmila. Susan falls under the spell of Carmila, a vampire who seduces her and drinks her blood. The husband finally catches on that Carmila is really his ancestor Mircala Karstein and that his life is in danger. The repressed Susan's desires are awakened in the intense lesbian love affair and she embarks on a spree of bloody mayhem. They kill the doctor, the guardian of the property, and they try to kill the husband, too, but he kills them while the two women are resting in their coffins as vampires. After this happens, the servant's daughter arrives, and reveals that she was bitten too; she then kneels and allows him to shoot her once in the head. He returns to the coffin with a dagger and the scene cuts to a newspaper column declaring ''Man cuts out the hearts of three women'', suggesting that the husband was found and arrested for the three murders.

Cast

as the husband *

as Susan *

as Carmila/Mircala Karstein *Rosa Maria Rodriguez as Carol *Dean Selmier as the doctor

''Kill Bill: Volume 1''

Director

Quentin Tarantino Quentin Jerome Tarantino (; born March 27, 1963) is an American film director, writer, producer, and actor. His films are characterized by stylized violence, extended dialogue, profanity, dark humor, non-linear storylines, cameos, ensembl ...

named a chapter in his 2003 film '' Kill Bill: Volume 1'' after ''The Blood Spattered Bride''.

DVD and Blu-ray releases

The film was first shown in the US under the title ''Till Death Do Us Part'' in an edited version and then was released on DVD unedited and uncensored as ''The Blood Spattered Bride''. The DVD was first released by

Anchor Bay Entertainment Anchor Bay Entertainment (formerly Video Treasures and Starmaker Entertainment) was an American home entertainment and production company. It was a subsidiary of Starz Inc. Anchor Bay Entertainment marketed and sold feature films, television se ...

on 30 January 2001. It is presented in the English language; no subtitles or additional audio tracks are provided. The film was later reissued on DVD by

Blue Underground Blue Underground is an American company specializing in releasing authoritative editions of cult and exploitation movies on Blu-ray Disc and DVD. It was originally formed as a shell company to oversee 'making of' documentaries during founder ...

, first as part of a two-disc set with another lesbian vampire film from the early 1970s, ''

Daughters of Darkness ''Daughters of Darkness'' is a 1971 erotic horror film directed by Harry Kümel and starring Delphine Seyrig, Danielle Ouimet, John Karlen and Andrea Rau. Plot Stefan Chilton, the son of an aristocratic British family who was raised in the Uni ...

'', and then separately. In 2017, the film received a Blu-ray release from Mondo Macabro which featured English and Spanish language tracks and deleted scenes, including an alternate ending.

References

External links

*
Web Oficial de Vicente Aranda
(Spanish) {{DEFAULTSORT:Blood Spattered Bride, The 1972 films Films based on horror novels Films based on works by Sheridan Le Fanu Films set in Spain 1970s Spanish-language films Spanish LGBT-related films Spanish vampire films Films directed by Vicente Aranda 1972 horror films LGBT-related horror films Films based on Irish novels Lesbian-related films 1972 LGBT-related films 1970s Spanish films