I saw “Brides of Blood” recently on its new pristine DVD release, and I was struck by several facts. First, the film has a ridiculous plot about a nuclear-fall-out-created monster (called “The Evil One”) killing screaming native girls on the vaguely tropical Blood Island. Kent Taylor, a regular in Al Adamson films, is the so-called star, playing a scientist who is trying to solve the series of murders alongside John Ashley (dependable for bad acting). The monster is ludicrous, obviously some poor Filipino actor under a bunch of brown foam rubber. Maybe the other viewers commenting here thought the film was scary because of the heavy sinister breathing sounds that the monster makes before a kill. Okay, it’s a little creepy, but it sure ain’t all-out scary. At least I wasn’t scared. In fact, through most of it I couldn’t stop laughing. Not that it was supposed to be funny, but the film is so dated, poorly acted, and low budget that it has a certain naive charm.
The native girls have their tops ripped off before being raped and torn apart by “The Evil One.” Why the monster attacks the sacrificial native girls is never explained.
The nudity in “Brides of Blood” is tame by today’s standards. It is surprising, however, to see nudity in a film from 1968. Granted, the DVD is the unrated version (with a little goofy gore) but directors Eddie Romero and Gerardo DeLeon were certainly on to something with this film. Nudity and gore, while not new to films in 1968, were just being widely incorporated into movies at that time. This exploitation film, perhaps a classic in bad drive-in movie history, helped set the trend for the next decade of horror films. While “Brides of Blood” is hilarious in its attempts at horror (wait ’til you see Beverly Hills’ freak-out scenes), the film is also an interesting piece of exploitation movie history.
Other highlights include the weird native dancing, the virtually incoherent assemblage of scenes of “character development” and the red tint of the film that is used every time the monster attacks. Also, Beverly Hills has her clothes ripped off by the monster but we only see her bare back. Beverly Hills (Powers) is now an ordained minister in Hawaii
