Product Details

• Actors: Ewa Aulin, Lucia Bos, Lola Gaos, Silvano Tranquilli, Espartaco Santoni
• Directors: Jorge Grau
• Format: Dubbed, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: Spanish
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Mya Communication
• DVD Release Date: June 9, 2009
• Run Time: 88 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001SGEUDI
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #93,281 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

LEGEND OF BLOOD CASTLE - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Covered Version of a great film, September 2, 2009

By 

John M. Bernhard - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Legend of the Blood Castle (DVD)

It's worth noting that this dvd from Mya utilizes a covered print, ie: nudity filmed for the movie is replaced by 'covered' shots so the film would pass censorship rules in the Franco ruled Spain of the 70's.
This is not what the director intended and not what fans want from a 70's exploitation horror movie.
This is a wonderful film, but Mya has chosen the cheaper, easy route and delivered a dvd that is sure to annoy fans of the film. Buyer beware.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars vampirism, May 22, 2009

By 

Bartok Kinski "A casual stroll through the lu... (Prague) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Legend of the Blood Castle (DVD)

The director of the film, Jorge Grau, is less known than other Spanish "fear makers" of his generation like Jesus Franco or Paul Nashy. But with only three films (this one and the excellent Pena de Muerte and No Profanar el Sueno de los Muertos) he proves an incredible ability to create disturbing and compelling horror films.

Ceremonia Sangrienta is for me not only his masterpiece, its also the best attempt to do horror cinema in Spain, its as good as other countries with longer horror traditions like the United States, United Kingdom or Italy. The story is fascinating. It proposes a new point of view of the classical myth of the vampire, more realism than existed in the moment that was made the film, and really visionary.

Visually the film is equally splendid. The photography of Fernando Arribas, present in a lot of Spanish horror films like La Cruz del Diablo, Horror Express or the recent Memorias del Angel Caido, is simply extraordinary, giving the film the appropriate color and light.

The cast is perfect, especially the sensual actress Lucia Bose, but its the work of Jorge Grau behind the camera that makes this film so interesting. The tempo has ups and downs and progresses with the force of a train in the night, the mise in scene is classical and stylish at the same time, and I have no doubt that Grau really had known how to capture the essence of vampirism in images.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars 4 Star Movie 1 Star DVD, December 8, 2009

By 

none - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Legend of the Blood Castle (DVD)

The movie is a pretty startling gothic telling of the Countess Bathory tale. Think of a good Hammer movie with a Spanish/Italian flavor. Well acted and dubbed, it's not your usual Euro-trash.

Image quality looks good on a 4:3 tube TV, but on a widescreen TV (the disc is non-anamorphic in a 1.77:1 aspect ratio) blacks look blotchy. I can tolerate that. A couple of times when there is action and the camera or actors move quickly there is a weird ghosting issue. It's very infrequent and I can deal with that, too. The thing that bugs me is that 19 times (maybe more, but that was my count) throughout the movie the image pauses for a split second. Imagine a DVD layer change pause occurring that many times for the entire duration (starts around 7 minutes and continues through to the end credits) of the movie and you have an idea of what it's like. I read another review on the web that mentioned this (they didn't seem as bothered by it as I was) so it's not only the disc I got. I've also read a couple of reviews for the Island of the Fishmen MYA disc that mention that one having the same defect.

Also on the 2 out of 3 DVD players I tried it on the DVD would go straight to the main menu when I tried to rewind. The pause issue was the same on all 3 players.

So there you have it. I returned mine for a refund. If you can tolerate the defects it's worth a look, but if this sounds like something that would bother you then stay away.

And MYA please get your act together, these movies deserve better, and at the price you're asking for them the fans deserve better, too.