Blood Rose [Import]

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..."

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