La malédiction nuptiale

I saw this film under the very promising title of The Last House on Massacre Street, which automatically brought to mind gritty grindhouse classics like Last House On The Left, The Last House on Dead End Street, and The Last House on The Beach, and the more recent The Last House in the Woods. Unfortunately, the movie proved to be far from the gruelling shocker I had hoped it would be: instead, I got a film that is 90% psychological and 10% supernatural, but only 50% entertaining, the action suffering from some serious pacing issues, a lack of scares, a dearth of blood and guts, and a twist ending that, while fun, seems more suited to an episode of Tales From The Crypt than a full length movie.

The film opens with a young couple, David and Barbara (Arthur Roberts and Robin Strasser), paying a visit to the house that Barbara built, the building to become their home once they are married. But their future together doesn't go quite as planned when, on their wedding day, Barbara catches her new husband getting it on with his ex-girlfriend Ellen (Iva Jean Saraceni); wigging out, Babs wounds David with some scissors and then drives off in a rage. In the following weeks, David shacks up with Ellen, but the pair are menaced by mysterious phone calls and sinister events.

Director Jean-Marie Pélissié conjures up some reasonable atmosphere, making particularly good use of Barbara's sprawling unfinished house in the film's finalé, but other scenes seriously drag, especially the wedding reception, which goes on and on (coming second only to The Deer Hunter as The Most Boring Wedding Party Scene in the History of Cinema). Some gnarly violence would definitely have helped to shake things up a bit, but all we get is a decapitated chicken and a lame axe attack, making it the least exploitative 'Last House' movie of them all.

"The Bride" follows a vengeful young woman whose husband cheats on her on their wedding day with an ex-flame. The bride disappears, but her beau and his recent indiscretion find their lives tormented.

Written by John Grissmer, who later directed the offbeat thriller "Scalpel" (1977) and the utterly bonkers gorefest "Blood Rage" (1987), "The Bride" is a swift, surreal, and all-around entertaining horror flick that is very much of its era. While it was obviously a low-budget effort, there is some fantastic cinematography on display, and a jarring guitar-based score that amps up the proceedings.

While the film excels visually, its budget limitations instead show themselves in the sparseness of the plot and the overall short runtime (barely an hour and fifteen minutes). There are really only a handful of scenes and settings, and four characters, so it's a small affair (no pun intended); it seems like the production attempted to stretch the material as far as they could with what they had. While I think the plot the could have been thickened up a bit, there are still a handful of twists and turns packed into the swift runtime. Future soap star Robin Strasser plays the lead unhinged bride with audacious flair, while John Beal understatedly potrays her wealthy father. The other two actors portraying the groom and his ex-girlfriend are also solid. The finale of the film is well-done, and there is some truly nightmarish cinematography inside the half-finished estate that the titular bride was building for herself and her lover.

All in all, "The Bride" is a sturdy, small film that is effective in its conciseness. There is not a lot to it, but the filmmakers make off well with what is there. It's similar in tone to another short, low-budget horror flick from the era: 1977's "Axe." An appreciable, genuinely weird film. 7/10.

The terrible production values are a major problem with "The House That Cried Murder" and it's a shame, as the ending is just terrific and it could have been a good film.

When the story begins, Barbara insists to her father that she is going to get married....even though her father doesn't trust her shifty fiance. Well, it turned out daddy was right and the wicked fiance didn't even wait long to begin his nasty ways. His old girlfriend shows up at the reception and he boinks her while everyone is celebrating the nuptuals! Barbara walks in on them and, not surprisingly, she goes nuts on him. She then runs out of the reception...and isn't seen again for some time.

In the meantime, the horrible husband doesn't do a lot to hide his awfulness and he shacks up with this old girlfriend. Soon, however, the pair are tormented by someone...someone bent on driving them over the edge! What's next? See the film.

The basic plot and finale are great. The problem is that the music is god-awful as are most of the production values. It just looks cheap and the director managed to make the least of an excellent story. Hardly worth seeing.

A rich man's daughter Barbara marries David,one of her dad's employees.She built herself a rather strange looking house on the field.During the wedding David kisses his former girlfriend Helen.Freshly married Barbara sees love-making session,stabs David's arm with a pair of scissors and flees in her bloody bridal gown.Strange things begin to happen for example Barb finds decapitated head of a chicken on her pillow and David has ghastly nightmares."The House That Cried Murder" is an overlooked psychological horror with several creepy scenes.The soundtrack is pretty bad with one of the worst wedding bands ever captured on screen,but the climax is wonderfully eerie and bizarre."The House That Cried Murder" deserves to be seen.8 out of 10.

The Bride- AKA "No Way Out" (British title), "The House That Cried Murder" and "The Last House on Massacre Street" (re-release titles), "Scream," "Wedding/Marriage of the Dead" and "Wedding Night Slaughter" (Euro titles) is a 1974 supernatural/psychological thriller about a young couple who decide to get married. On their wedding day, the Bride walks in to find the Groom cheating on her with his ex-girlfriend.

That's where the fun starts. The hysterical Bride attacks him with a pair of scissors and ends up running off, never to be seen again. But when mysterious phonecalls and vivid nightmares start plaguing the man and his girlfriend, could something sinister be afoot? The film was shot over a three-week period in June 1972, reportedly for less than thirty thousand dollars (which was very low even for that time). The film struggled to find distribution and and sat for almost two years before hitting the grindhouse and drive-in circuit, usually as the B-film in a double feature. (This helps to explain in part why the film had so many titles. It was often paired with other "House" movies of the time like "The House That Vanished" and "The Last House on Dead-end Street.") The film is a poverty row concoction yet makes up for it in stylized cinematography that betrays its meager roots. Unconventional lighting, odd shooting angles and good use of color really help sell this film during its few generally eerie scenes. It goes to show that you could churn out a decent horror film without resorting to schlocky special effects and cheap gorefests.

But other than that, the movie is kind of weak from a story standpoint. I've only ever seen the 71 minute cut and not the 85 minute version, so I don't know what else is lurking in the longer cut. But I can only imagine that the long version trods along at a sllooooowww pace, because the plot is so simple that the story is more than adequately told in the short version.

The canned soundtrack is very poor, even in comparison to other cheap horror films of the era. The "LA LA LA LA" love theme that pops up throughout the movie sounds like it was lifted from one of those softcore Italian "Emmanuelle" pictures from the mid-70's. Every now and then though the soundtrack is used to good effect when it jarringly blares out during some of the more creepy scenes.

The acting ranges from mediocre to downright horrible. Future sitcom and soap opera mainstay Robin Strasser is at times convincing in the title role and at other times takes "hysterical overacting" to a new level.

So in a nutshell, the movie plays out like an overlong "Night Gallery" segment but manages to conjure up some of the atmospheric nuances that Hammer and Amicus Studios were turning out at the time. Sadly the movie has fallen into the public domain and a lousy film-to VHS master seems to be the only thing floating around on the bootleg circuit. As of this writing the movie is available on youtube and on DVD as part of the "Blood Bath 2" 2-disc collection. (I am hesitant to purchase the set because I'm afraid that it's going to be the same transfer I already have, which is not very good.) I'd like to see this cleaned up (and maybe paired with another similar movie) for proper DVD release, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.