Customer Reviews

The Blood Rose

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First off, this film is a retelling of Georges Franju's 'EYES WITHOUT A FACE' (1959), which was also a French flick, and a damn good one, and NOT 'The Brain That Wouldn't Die' as stated by one reviewer. It bares no resemblance to any Roger Corman film either that the French supposedly modelled their horror after. The other reviewer stated, "long on talk, short on sex" and promptly trashed it, but these types of Eurohorror cult flicks were deliberately paced this way, like it or not. Apparantly, neither reviewer knew anything about these types of films, letting expectations and predjudice speak instead. But I'm not picking on these guys, even Amazon has Howard Vernon incorrectly listed as the director, when in fact Claude Mulot directed. I can understand someone expecting it to be trashier considering the dubious epithet "the first sex-horror film" that's attached to it, though there is a reasonable amount of nudity here for the time. The plot is an elegant, mildly erotic take on a popular Eurohorror theme, as done by many, including Jess Franco's 'THE AWFUL DR. ORLOFF' (1962), which also starred Franco regular Howard Vernon. Actually, it exudes a rather classy atmosphere peculiar to French horror cinema, and though the film may be lacking logic at times, it is a compelling mixture of elegant sleaze and Gothic eeriness, similar to other Mondo Macabro releases such as 'MILL OF THE STONE WOMEN' (1960), 'THE DIABOLICAL DR. Z' (1965) (also by Franco before he became a hack), 'GIRL SLAVES OF MORGANA LE FAY' (1971) and 'SEVEN WOMEN FOR SATAN' (1974), all of which are worth checking out. As someone once said, "A rose by any other name..."

Film is quite a rip off of The Brain That Wouldn't Die. The French, outside of Les Diabolique, don't make very many horror films and these, according to a friend of director Mulot, are developed by watching Corman's Edgar Allen Poe series or others from different countries. Anyway, the whole premise is built around the idea a young model will be lured into artist Vernon's castle and be chosen to have her face transplanted onto his wife's burnt and disfigured image. Of course, like the other film, this feat is impossible to complete even in the movies so a series of absurd circumstances allow the pretty young model to escape the planned operation. The plastic surgeon hangs himself and Vernon even cuts the ropes loose from her chair where she is tied up! Nudity is also minimal to an almost PG level. Film needs badly to focus on one effect and complete it. I might add, it's also hard to believe these six feet tall ladies can be held captive by two 4 foot tall midgets.

It's pretty trashy (with the midget rape scene) but overall it's long on talk and short on sex.