Ceremonia Sangrienta/ The Legend Of Blood Castle
With the girlfriend out for the night, I have the chance to watch some films that she is unwilling to sit through! This includes badly dubbed costume Gothics of the 60s and 70s, so I have not yet had a chance to see Jorge Grau's 1973 take on the Bathory legend.
I rated it; a most enjoyable film. It's not without its problems - some of the editing decisions are clumsy and/or odd, and the narrative gets very confused in the last thirty or so minutes. But what is good about the film outweighs this: it looks amazing, really evoking the period with superb costume and set design; the performances are great, especially the haunted looking Lucia Bosé in the lead; it's crawling with an atmosphere of mystery and dread which is sustained successfully throughout. And it's a decent story well told! Furthermore, surely the lovely Ewa Aulin has never looked lovelier than her doe-eyed, ginger-haired appearence here?
It's not as assured an effort as Grau's famous Living Dead At Manchester Morgue, but it's nonetheless a great period horror, more like Merino's The Hanging Woman.
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