The Curator of Schlock #330 by Jeff Shuster

The Blood Spattered Bride

More lesbian vampires. Why not? 

Jervis invited me to a special dinner last night. The guest of honor was the descendant of Wallace Jameson Volkasin III whose name is Wallace Jameson Volkasin VIII. It’s so funny. He looks exactly like the guy in the portrait. Anyway, Jervis says he’s the new Master of the House. Not to worry, Wallace has big plans for me, but he wouldn’t tell what those are. Then Jervis served us some extra salty tomato bisque as the first course. I love tomato bisque.

Tonight’s movie is 1972’s The Blood Spattered Bride from director Vicente Aranda. From the looks of it, the movie appears to be an adaptation of the classic horror novel Carmilla by Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu. It stars Simón Andreu as the husband and Maribel Martín as his wife, Susan. For the remainder of the review, we will refer to Simón Andreu’s character as Susan’s husband. Any of you remember Simón Andreu? He played the creeper in The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion. Remember that one? Good times!

The movie begins with Susan’s husband driving them to a hotel. Susan is still in her wedding dress and plans to get changed, but as she enters the hotel, she notices a mysterious blonde woman (Alexandra Bastedo) starring at her from afar. Yeah, it’s probably a lesbian vampire out to seduce her away from her creepy husband. Susan imagines a rapist jumping out at her from the hotel room closet and decides she doesn’t want to stay at that hotel. So the newlywed couple go straight to the husband’s ancestral home where she catches a glimpse of a strange woman in a white veil that we all know is the same mysterious blonde woman from earlier.

Susan wonders why there are only portraits of the men of her husband’s family hanging up for all to see. Her husband says all of the portraits of the women of the family are tucked away in the basement. Susan investigates the basement and finds one curious portrait in particular. The face is cut out of a portrait of a regal woman with several rings on her fingers, but stones on each ring are turned on the inside of her hand. Very curious. Turns out her name was Mircalla Karnstein, an old ancestor of her husband’s.

Later on, Susan has vivid dreams of murdering her husband with a crooked dagger while under the influence of the mysterious woman we’ve seen. Speaking of said mysterious woman, Susan’s husband finds her buried underneath the sand at the beach. She’s naked except for a snorkel she was breathing through the sand with. Naturally, he brings her home to be their dinner guest for the evening. She says her name is Carmilla and she wears the rings on her fingers in the same manner as the faceless woman in the portrait.

It’s not long before Carmilla is seducing Susan and dragging her off in the middle of the night to drink her blood and pollute her mind with more suggestions of murdering her husband in a violent manner. This is why you can’t invite vampires over for dinner. Soon they’ll be seducing your wife and plotting to murder you.

The Blood Spattered Bride was released as a double feature with I Dismember Mama. I need to hunt that one down.

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, and episode 443) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #329 by Jeff Shuster

Vampyres

Sometimes characters deserve to die due to their own stupidity. 

You know, I noticed a huge portrait above the entrance to this stately mansion I’ve been residing at for these past few months. The painting is of a southern aristocrat with wispy raven hair, a pasty complexion, and a stern countenance. A black cape adorns his broad shoulders and he grips a cane adorned with a silver skull at the head. I asked Jervis about that man and he told me his name was Wallace Jameson Volkasin III, the master of this estate some two hundred years ago. I’m sure none of this information will be of any importance to events I will describe on next week’s blog.

Tonight’s movie is 1974’s Vampyres from director José Ramón Larraz. Did any of you see Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula? Remember that scene where Keanu gets seduced and sucked dry by Dracula’s beautiful brides? Now imagine they made a movie out of that scene and presto, you’ve got Vampyres. If I learned anything from this movie, it’s that regular people are really stupid when it comes to dealing with vampires.

We begin with two women, Fran (Marianne Morris) and Miriam (Anulka), getting shot to death in bed after an explicit lesbian love scene. Not long after, we’re introduced to a young British couple, John (Brian Deacon) and Harriet (Sally Faulkner), driving down down an isolated highway with a camper in tow. John and Harriet notice two young women in long flowing coats hiding in trees on the side of the road. Wouldn’t you know it? It’s those two young women that were shot to death at the beginning of the movie. How can they still be running around?

John and Harriet decide to drive down an unkempt road and park nearby an abandoned gothic mansion. I’m not really sure why they do this as this mansion is creepy as all get out. Next, we’re introduced to Ted (Murray Brown), a proper English gentleman that’s traveling on business or some other unspecified reason. He picks up Fran, one of the aforementioned strange women in the woods, and drives her to the abandoned gothic mansion. She offers him some fine wine and it’s not long before their clothes are on the floor and the two of them are having a torrid affair.

Ted wakes up the next morning to find a huge bloody gash on his arm and some broken glass with his blood on it. He visits Harriet and John, who give him some first aid and a fresh cup of coffee. You’d think Ted would get the hell out of dodge, but he turns the car around and heads right back to mansion. Sure, it’s likely that Fran sliced his arm open with some broken glass in order to suck on his blood, but the sex was just that good.

Still, the Darwin Award goes to Harriet and John. It’s one thing to camp outside a vampire infested mansion for an evening, but to stay there day after day? They should have driven a hundred miles away from there at the first sign of anything unusual. Like when Harriet decides go inside the mansion to do some exploring just to find those strange women holed up in the basement, sleeping in contorted positions in the middle of the day. Or when Harriet wakes up in the middle of the night due to one of Fran and Miriam’s victims banging on the camper window only to disappear a moment later. John, of course, dismisses Harriet’s alarm, saying she just imagined it. The two of them are going to die horribly, but they had plenty of opportunity to escape. Vampyres is another creepy one, worth checking out.

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, & episode 442) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #326 by Jeff Shuster

Count Yorga, Vampire

Dracula moves to the suburbs. 

Celestial is a vampire! My hippie housemate is a vampire! She came home one night with some biker dude she picked up at a bar. Now, I wasn’t peeping or anything, but I happened to peek through the crack in her bedroom door while they were supposed to be, well, you know. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, because Celestial was sinking her fangs into this guy’s neck and blood was trickling all over the place. Now, I’m starting to think Indigo wasn’t attacked by a panther after all. I bet Jervis is in on all of this.

I have to do some research on the Hominus Nocturna so October will be Vampire Month for your humble blogger. Tonight’s movie is 1970’s Count Yorga, Vampire from director Bob Kelljan. The movie begins with a narrator giving all sorts of useful tidbits about vampires. We learn that vampires are malignant spirits who suck blood from the throats of the living. They only come out at night as they are susceptible to sunlight. They can also be killed by a wooden stake to the heart. Good to know.

The movie begins with a seance at a house in the California suburbs. The seance is being led by a Count Yorga (Robert Quarry), an immigrant to the United States from Bulgaria. A woman named Donna (Donna Anders) is trying to contact her deceased mother. Donna goes a little crazy during this forbidden ritual and Count Yorga uses hypnosis to calm her down (and make Donna his servant). You know, it’s so annoying when Bulgarian vampires come into this country to steal our women. I’m sure Count Yorga also played the Powerball his first day in America and won the 50 million jackpot.

One of the couples, Erica (Judy Lang) and Paul (Michael Murphy), give Yorga a ride back to his place in their boss van. The Count invites them in for a nightcap, but they decline. The van gets stuck in the mud. Paul convinces Erica to enjoy some sweet lovemaking in the back of the van. Afterwords, they go to sleep, only for Erica to be woken up by a fang-baring Count Yorga. The vampire knocks Paul unconscious and attacks Erica. Paul notices two bite marks on her neck and he takes Erica to get examined by a Dr. James Hayes (Roger Perry). The good doctor notices some blood deficiencies and recommends a high protein diet. Erica’s idea of a high protein diet is eating the family cat.

Dr. Hayes begins to suspect that vampirism is the root cause for Erica’s affliction. Erica is missing. Paul goes to Yorga’s mansion to find her only to get his bones crushed by Brudah, the Count’s henchmen. Dr. Hayes visits the mansion with Donna’s husband, Michael (Michael Macready), in an effort to keep the Count Yorga up until dawn with small talk. He asks Yorga if he believes in werewolves and vampires and Count Yorga says yes, but insists they leave before he becomes ill-mannered. Dr. Hayes calls the cops a few times, trying to explain the threat of the vampire, but they call him a prankster. Dr. Hayes and Michael are on their own. They carve stakes and put together makeshift crosses to take care of the Count. Too bad they didn’t realize there is more than one vampire residing in that mansion.

I don’t imagine a nice ending for them.

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.