Woodyanders Sweet, fragile, virginal young bride Susan (well played by fetching brunette Maribel Martin) and her aloof wealthy husband (a solid performance by the handsome Simon Andrea) spend their honeymoon at a huge swanky mansion located in the country. Susan falls under the dangerous spell of wicked and seductive lesbian vampiress Mircalla Karstein (a hypnotic portrayal by bewitching blonde Alexandra Bastedo). Can her husband save Susan before it's too late? Writer/director Vicente Aranda, adapting Sheridan Le Fanu's classic tale "Carmila," relates the absorbing story at a deliberate, unhurried pace, firmly grounds the plot in a plausibly mundane remote rural setting, delivers a generous sprinkling of tasty female nudity, punctuates the quiet and subdued tone of repressed sexuality and seething depravity with startling moments of brutal and graphic violence, and does an expert job of creating and maintaining a compellingly dark, erotic and mysterious dreamlike atmosphere which becomes more increasingly eerie and unsettling as the narrative progresses towards a shockingly bleak and nihilistic downbeat ending. Better still, there's a provocative lesbian/feminist subtext at work throughout which gives this picture a little extra substance and impact. The three leads are all uniformly excellent in their roles. Maria-Rosa Rodriguez likewise impresses as pesky twelve-year-old girl Carol. Fernando Arribas' sharp cinematography offers a wealth of striking surreal images (for example, the husband finds Mircalla buried naked in the sand at the beach wearing just a snorkel). Antonio Perez Olea's funky'n'moody score further enhances the spooky nightmarish proceedings. Well worth seeing.

trashgang Heard a lot of this flick, not easy to find over here but by looking overseas I caught me my copy. Immediately from the start I found out for me that it was a Giallo. It is a slow starter, it takes exactly 40 minutes before the real stuff is happening. The storyline is okay and acting is okay, but there is some suspense missing for me, I'm not that Giallofreak as others so it has really be good for me to find it a good flick. I have seen the uncut version so the nudity, typical for those area of giallo's, is intact. At the end you have a bit of that Giallotwist. Maybe it's a bit too old, 1972, to survive his age up to the standards of today. The blood runs now and then but it isn't flowing frequently enough to make it creepy. Anyway, it's watchable so if you can grab yourself an uncut version, don't hesitate.

Scarecrow-88 A vulnerable, virginal young bride, Susan(Maribel Martin)slowly unravels upon moving to her husband's(Simón Andreu)ancestral castle estate due in part to nightmares involving a vampiress names Mircalla(Alexandra Bastedo, without make-up)who motivates a growing hatred for men and heterosexual sex. A dagger turns up and seems to always return to Susan's hands and the film shows possible danger looming for the husband's life after we witness a horrifying dream sequence where Mircalla convinces her to stab him viciously. A local doc(Dean Selmier)seems to be the only one the Susan's husband can confide in regarding her declining mental state. Soon, a human Mircalla(..identifying herself as Carmilla)is found by the husband buried under sand(?!)and given a guest room for the night. Soon Susan and Carmilla are holding hands as they stroll at midnight to the ruins of a castle, emerged a bit in water, which holds the crypt of Marcalla..Carmilla begins to take the blood of Susan turning her into a vampire and violent slave securing a wrath which many men amongst the husband's inner circle find out unfortunately first-hand. Whether it be the doc or groundskeeper, Susan obeys Carmilla's command, burying the dagger into torsos or slashing and hacking wildly like a madwoman(..one even receives blasts to the face with his shot-gun). The quiet, delicate Susan has become an unstable, destructive cold-blooded vessel for Carmilla to exact her rage towards the opposite sex. Susan's husband will have to take matters into his own hands or else the blood-shed will continue without end. Young 12-year old Carol(Maria-Rosa Rodriguez)is also being used by Carmilla as a tool to capture Susan.I know this opinion might not be popular, but I was rather disappointed with this particular tale based on Carmilla. I didn't find it particularly erotic, although there is some nudity(Martin's gown and bra are ripped away by Andreu in both a rape fantasy, with him wearing a stocking over his head molesting her, and the real sexual confrontation which occurs with a much closer view of the event). The height of this film should be the budding sexual relationship between Carmilla and Susan, but this seems rather abandoned with director Vincente Aranda instead focusing more on bloodshed. The dagger stabbings are rather bloody and intense with Susan plunging the blade in multiple times with red going all over the place. The setting is of course atmospheric(..what is it about these European locales that adds so much to horror films?)and the particular season seems to be Autumn with Winter on the horizon. I have no problems with the "slow burn" approach and consider myself a patient movie viewer, but I have to admit to looking at my watch a few times..the film often crawls. I felt that the husband waits a bit too long to move into action, and why he allows Susan to fall under Carmilla's spell instead of leaving the estate or seeking proper guidance(..he obviously is wealthy and could probably get his wife the best psychiatry money could afford)bothered me. He sits idly by and lets Susan slowly sink deeper into the abyss, Carmilla's hypnotic grip tightening. I do believe others will rate this film much higher than me based on how nice it looks visually, but I found the story a bit padded and this should've been more erotic than it turns out to be. Most of Carmilla and Susan's love-making is hinted at through the dialogue of the doc than elaborated on screen. Aranda instead opts to show Carmilla biting her on the neck pulling away before they embrace in lesbian passion.

Paul Andrews La Novia Ensangrentad, or The Blood Spattered Bride a sit's more commonly known amongst English speaking audiences, starts as a man (Simon Andreu) & his newlywed wife Susan (Maribel Martin) move into his large ancestral home that come complete with servants (Angel Lombarte & Monsterrat Julio). At first things seem perfect but it's not long before Susan starts to see a mysterious woman (Alexandra Bastedo) in her dreams who seems to leave a dagger for her on her bed one night, a dagger that keeps turning up no matter how hard her husband tries to get rid of it. While doing some detective work Susan discovers that the woman in her dreams resembles one of her husbands ancestors, Mircalla Karnstein. Meanwhile her husband has found a naked woman named Carmilla buried on a beach so he decides to take her home, as you would. Straight away Susan notices that Carmilla looks exactly like the woman in her dreams, now her dreams are about to turn into nightmares...This Spanish production was written & directed by Vincente Aranda & I thought it was OK but a bit confused. The script is based on the novel Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu which I have not read so I cannot compare them. The plot is a bit of a mess in this one, lots of scenes come from nowhere & frankly go nowhere. There are some really strange scenes in it as well, the strangest of which has to be the bit when the guy finds Carmilla buried a few inches under the sand on a beach with just her fingers & snorkel sticking out of the ground. As he digs her up he discovers she has a pair of goggles on & nothing else as he pays close attention to unearthing her bare breasts. I'm sure she was grateful. Now, most of us in his place would find the whole situation somewhat odd but this guy just takes it in his stride & takes her home. There's all sorts of nonsense about the servants child & her putting the dagger in Susan's bed which she may or may not have but it's all very vague. I could go on like why does Susan fall under the spell of Carmilla so easily? Is it because she has been bitten & Carmilla is a Vampire? Well Carmilla is never shown with fangs, she quite happily walks around in the daylight & no mention of Vampires is ever made although she does sleep in a coffin, with Susan. Having said that I thought it was watchable in a strange sort of way.Director Aranda does an OK job, the film is split between visually dull & extremely stylish. The scene set in a pigeon cage with the birds fluttering around is particularly cool although I can't get that bizarre beach scene out of my head. For some reason Susan's husband is never referred to by name during the film, not one person calls him by name, strange. There is some nudity & sex plus a rape in a dream, the gore was disappointing as a few stabbings is all we get. For the animal lovers out there there is a scene when a fox is snared in a trap in obvious distress which is then shot dead at almost point blank range.Technically the film is alright, it's generally well made throughout. The acting seemed OK but it's pretty obvious that it was dubbed.La Novia Ensangrentada is a strange film, it's something a bit different but at the same time I didn't exactly love it. Worth a watch if you like Euro horror but there are better films out there.