"The Blood Spattered Bride" is a tough film to sum up. A very loose adaptation of Sheridan Le Fanu's classic of lesbonic vampirism "Carmilla," it's the mean-spirited cousin of a Jean Rollin film, a less explicitly erotic movie than José Ramón Larraz's "Vampyres," and a cruel, Freudian amplification of the themes explored in Hammer's adaptation of the same source material, "the Vampire Lovers." It's a frequently beautiful film that depicts an unflinchingly nihilistic vision sex and sexuality that borders on outright misogyny.
The story chugs off to what I initially perceived to be a slow start. There's almost an hour of film dedicated to the first days of Susan's marriage to her unnamed husband. The virginal bride approaches her wedding night with dread, her vivid nightmares of rape foreshadowing things to come. At first liberated by her husband's sexual appetite, it becomes clear that she has a growing fear and revulsion towards him. His behavior escalates from that of an eager groom to downright rapeyness as it seems he won't allow Susan a moment's peace.
It becomes apparent that there's a family history of such behavior when the husband reveals that Mircalla Karstein, one of his ancestresses, murdered her husband on their wedding night because he asked for "unspeakable" sex acts. It's this murderous taint on the females of the family that has led the husband to hide all portraits of females in the basement. Issues? This gent's got a subscription. In fact, there are only four female characters in the film: Susan, the grandmotherly housekeeper, the housekeeper's twelve-year-old daughter, and a mysterious stranger. 
Enter said mysterious stranger in the form of Carmilla (I see what they did there), a mysterious woman that the husband unearths on a trip to the beach. You read that correctly--things just took a turn for the fantastique, friends! Carmilla's arrival signals the turn of the movie from symbolic to downright surreal, making all that exposition oh-so-worthwhile. The sexual tension between the two female leads is evident from the get-go--there's a wonderful scene where the husband prattles on about his various hobbies and collections while Susan and Carmilla exchange Significant Looks and cheek caresses. LADIES! Get a room. No--really. Get a room. And bring a camera. We like that kind of stuff in the Empire, trust me.
The mostly-off-screen erotic entanglement of the women is far more convincing (let alone compelling!) than Susan's relationship with her husband. It's left a bit vague whether her attraction to Carmilla is purely supernatural, or whether it's as a result of preexisting sublimated lesbian desires. Susan's odd behavior has been firmly established prior to Carmilla's arrival, signaling that her seeming hypnotism by Carmilla is as likely a result of her established "hysteria" as that of any sort of supernatural intervention.
Images of inversion abound, even providing an underpinning to the film's violent setpieces. Carmilla wears her rings on the inside of her fingers, a quirk that will come to characterize her thralls as well. She wears a snorkel in the sand when the husband discovers her. The ultimate act of inversion is that of a woman stabbing--penetrating--a man, which occurs in a startlingly graphic and unexpected dream sequence mid-way through the plot.
It's hard to talk about this film without mentioning its ending, which I won't reveal here. Suffice to say, it's violent, shocking and borders on hateful. To be a woman in the universe of this film is to court death--to be tainted and dangerous. The thorough nastiness of the film's finale was surprising to me, and while my initial reaction was unpleasant, I've got to commend any movie that Goes There and carries through its themes with a take-no-prisoners attitude.
I've heard other reviewers posit that both genders come off rather poorly in this film, and perhaps my own gender colors my perspective, but I've got to tell you guys--I was 100% rooting for the lesbians. Sure, they might be man-haters, but if the dudes would just leave them the fuck alone rather than talking about them acting "like cats in heat" and being "perverts," maybe everybody could coexist. I mean, it might be a rather tenuous, sometimes stabby coexistence, but still. I know I don't want to live in a world without lesbian vampires, do you?
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This is one of my favorite films in one of my favorite subgenres, and it's a testament to its power that it can still be shocking and emotionally effecting to jaded modern audiences. Or at least to me.
I do have to take a little issue with one of your readings, however, Empress:
At first liberated by her husband's sexual appetite, it becomes clear that she has a growing fear and revulsion towards him.
I don't think Susan is every really liberated by her husband's appetite--I mean, in one of the earliest scenes they're on their honeymoon and check into a hotel, and while she's waiting for him to come to the room, she has a horrifying day-mare about a masked assailant (who is obviously her husband) coming in and raping her! As a result, she refuses to stay at the inn and consummate their marriage there, as hubby had obviously hoped, pressing on instead to the familial estate.
I'm not going to make an argument that the hubby is a great guy--far from it, his scenes at Mircalla's grave (snapping the bone they find there) show him to be a right bastard, and another early scene where he stalks wolflike outside the pigeon coop where Susan has locked herself to avoid his advances is gorgeous and chilling in its symbolism--but obviously there's a sexual incompatibility from the get-go there, and a less charitable viewer could say that at least some of the anger and subsequent hostility comes from his admittedly rapacious sexual appetite knocking up against Susan's perceived frigidity and fear of being violated. (The old Staying Pure Till Marriage Conundrum--Good Girls are meant to keep any and everything out of themselves until blessed by God, and then they're supposed to just open up and take it--it's little wonder a lot of women found the transition difficult to process.)
Of course the family history of he-man woman-hating doesn't do hubby any favors, and he obviously buys into it--but Susan's reticence and later disgust with his advances ("You're like a puppy, waiting to get his food!" I think she says) would seem to reinforce for him those unhealthy traditions.
And for me, that's the tragedy of the thing--Traditional Ideas of Gender Roles and Sexuality hitting up against Modern Sublimations of Same. Susan didn't want the traditional marriage--she's way more into beautiful beach babes, obviously--but got trapped in one thanks to (we assume) societal pressure. Hubby should have been more understanding, but he too is a prisoner of Tradition, albeit a remarkably destructive one in his case.
I know you didn't want to spoil the ending, but that last shocking image, right before the newspaper headlines--isn't that about how innocence and good gets killed by these destructive sexual ideas?
Anyway, sorry to ramble on. FWIW, I was rooting for the lesbians too. :)
Vicar, liebling, precious creature! It was upon your esteemed recommendation that I checked out this film--I'm delighted to see you checking in here :)
>>she has a horrifying day-mare about a masked assailant (who is obviously her husband) coming in and raping her!
Indeed, and there is her moment of gasping fear during the initial consummation. However, a few short minutes later, she's calling him a satyr and giggling during their rendezvous in the crypt (as well as beaming broadly when the husband whisks her away from her flower arranging). I'm disinclined to think, given the care taken with crafting the rest of the movie, that this can be chalked up to bad acting--it seems like a deliberate choice meant to imply a certain amount of mixed feelings on Susan's part. I kind of liked the ambiguity.
>>And for me, that's the tragedy of the thing--Traditional Ideas of Gender Roles and Sexuality hitting up against Modern Sublimations of Same
Absolutely--that's the crux of the film! I'm with you :) However, this is not to say that everything's drawn in black-and-white. It's the puzzling parts that make the film work. (also the boobs)
Still, I'm sticking with this math:
Hott Eurolesbians > Pock-Marked Misogynist
I need to revisit this movie, as I haven't given it a spin in probably 9 or 10 years. You would find it interesting, I think, to check out Simon Andreu in Eloy de Iglesia's Hidden Places, as a businessman who falls in love with a young boy from the streets. Very sensitive and compelling drama from the director of Cannibal Man.
"The Blood Spattered Bride" is a tough film to sum up.
And yet you have, quite superbly! You have, as always, blinded me with your blood spattered science.
Sounds like something right up my alley. Great write-up. I'll have to check this one out.
Oh yeah. I started a new blog called Sugar & Spice. I hope you'll check it out. I'm adding your blog to my blog links on it.
Thanks for the recommendation, Arbogast. I'll definitely seek this film out! A quick Google for de Iglesia's work has surely piqued my interest.
Kitty, you always warm the cockles of my tiny, black heart. *scritches you under the chin*
Keith, the new blog looks awesome! I can't wait to see what gets posted over there. I'll definitely be keeping my eye on Sugar & Spice!
It's my favorite Lesbian Vampire movie. Better than DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS, VAMPYRES, THE VAMPIRE LOVERS, etc. And is Maribel Martin hot or what?
Anonymous--I completely agree with your assessment. Maribel Martin is one foxy lady. I'm all aflutter to see her in "A Bell From Hell," which has collected dust on my DVD shelf for ENTIRELY too long!
Great review. I am surprised that you don't mention, and didn't in your reply to the The Vicar of VHS above, the scene in the woods in which Susan is lifted off her feet by her husband--by her hair no less--and then forced to fellate him. From this point on we can't really view him as just being passionate, he is being violent. He is, in legal terms, committing rape. Of course, we didn't mention this scene in our review either, but there is just so much that can be said about this film...
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