La malédiction nuptiale

The 70's were such a great time for horror. Horror films were being churned out due to the glut of drive-ins and grindhouses desperate for content and so many filmmakers were only too happy to supply them with films to show. The Bride a.k.a. The House That Cried Murder is one of the strange films that could have only been made at this time.

Sometimes feeling like a feature length Twilight Zone or Tales From the Crypt episode, The Bride revolves around a man engaged to marry a spoiled rich girl who's caught making out with the ex on the day of the wedding. Needless to say, this drives the titular bride insane and she attacks him with scissors and runs away. Where is she? Perhaps at the strange modern home she just had her father build her in the country? Or is she plotting an elaborate revenge plot on her would-be husband?

The Bride keeps the audience on their toes throughout even though its chills are of the strictly PG variety. By the time you get to the insane finale, all bets are off. The Bride is one that lingers with you for awhile after you've seen it. I highly recommend it.

"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.

I absolutely LOVE those gloriously enticing and typically 70's horror titles starting with words like "The House That…". These juicy titles, usually in combination with a wonderfully creepy movie poster and tagline, often formed the biggest selling arguments for contemporary low-budgeted underground exploitation flicks. Productions like these couldn't always rely on overwhelming special effects or spectacular action sequences, so an extra tantalizing title is more than welcome. "The House That Cried Murder" is a downright fantastic slice of seventies' terror, and I'm actually surprised that it isn't mentioned more often by fellow genre fanatics. The film has a terrific albeit absurd plot, original twists and unexpected surprises, delightfully over-the-top performances and – most of all – a uniquely macabre and ominous atmosphere. The peculiar Barbara is a spoiled rich girl who gets everything she wants simply by shouting out the words: "Daddy, I want that". With daddy's money she designed a strange isolated house in the countryside and now she has her mind set on marrying the hunky David, even though her father doesn't trust him one bit. And right he is, as Barbara catches David smooching with his ex-girlfriend Ellen on their wedding day! So Barbara stabs him in the arm with scissors and hysterically drives off in her blood-spattered wedding dress. Two weeks later, Barbara is still missing but both David and Ellen suffer from vividly terrifying nightmares. David is lured back to Barbara's dream house, where they were supposed to spend their married life together, unaware of the ghastly surprise that awaits him there. "The House That Cried Murder" is a sick and twisted tale of horror with a marvelously gruesome finale. The director exactly knows when to mount the suspense and makes great use of eerie music (although it's more like noise) and set pieces. The titular house forms an eccentric decor as well, as it looks gloomy in its unfinished state. It's a really a shame that too many sequences are so dark you can barely see what is happening. The acting performances are good, especially Robin Strasser as Barbara. She's a totally bonkers and mildly petrifying shrew, but I love her anyways

The Bride (1973)

** (out of 4)

Barbara (Robin Stasser) goes against her rich father's wishes and marries David (Arthur Roberts). She believes their life is going to be perfect until minutes after their wedding she discovers him with his ex-lover Ellen (Iva Jean Saraceni). Most women would just cry and move on but not Barbara as she plans on using every way possible to haunt and destroy the two.

This film has been released under several different titles including THE HOUSE THAT CRIED MURDER and LAST HOUSE ON MASSACRE STREET, which was obviously an attempt to try and cash in on the Wes Craven film. I think this is the perfect example of a regional horror film that just didn't quite have enough going for it so the distributor had to keep changing up titles to hope it would draw in some crowds. THE BRIDE isn't an awful movie but at the same time it just doesn't have enough going for it to make it a complete success.

The best thing about the film is the fact that you can feel it's region. The film was shot in Connecticut and it just looks quite different. I mean, there hasn't been too many movies shot there so this here kind of just strikes you as watching something new. The locations were quite good and the film also benefits from just being very weird. There are silly moments where the bride and his man are just romantically walking around and it seems like a commercial for gum or something.

There's one brutal murder that is quite shocking in its own way. The biggest problem with the movie is the fact that there's just not much going for it storywise. The man and his new woman are constantly having nightmares or receiving strange phone calls. None of this contains any suspense. The direction doesn't add any tension to the film and it just seems very flat. The performances are decent but they all manage to hit a few bad notes throughout.

THE BRIDE will be worth watching to fans of horror films but it just doesn't have enough to make it worth viewing for others.

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.