BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Iseerphia All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

Leoni Haney Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

echanove Catalonian director Jorge Grau made in Spain in the 60s films as nice as "Una historia de amor", or as interesting as "El Espontáneo". In the 70s he also reached commercial success with the not negligible "La Trastienda". Always with a very personal style, most of the times very elegant too, as it can be seen at the end of his career in movies so underrated as "El Extranjero de la Calle Cruz del Sur" or "Tiempos Mejores".In the seventies he also made in joint production with other countries some horror films, like the funny and disturbing "No profanes el sueño de los muertos" or this cult and historical approach to the vampires myth. Both films are probably which he is probably best known internationally. The trouble with "Ceremonia Sangrienta" is that in my opinion it lacks of the gracefulness in the stage of other of his films, it hasn't those polish camera movements, and it is plenty of zoom movements and closeups.May be someone can say that help the story creating a creepy atmosphere but it is not only a formal matter. In my opinion there are also in the script some aspects not enough developed, like the relation between the marquis and his wife. In that sense, the character of Lucía Bose is far more plenty of information for the spectator than Espartano Santoni's which is not completely clear about his feelings and willings.Anyway, the film has creepy moments and probably is a " must see" for horror (and blood) lovers, specially if you like some kind of 'soft gore' with a certain doses of morbid sex. One odd thing is that you don't know if the marquis is a vampire or not. And the ambiguous final has some impact too.

Leroy Gomm Here the infamous Elizabeth Bathory is aided by her husband Karl in acquiring virginal blood to help preserve her youth and beauty. Karl fakes his own death and masquerades as a vampire to fool the ignorant and superstitious villagers about who is real blood fiend is. There is an odd and uneasy alliance between Elizabeth and Karl, because Karl doesn't love Elizabeth, but rather it's his own sadistic indifference towards the mob which fuels his cruel abductions. Mean spirited and bleak, Grau's film treads the same Gothic landscape as Witchfinder General and Mark of the Devil, where the downtrodden are at the whim of the wealthy and powerful, preying on their fears and superstitions. Gothic horror fans will delight to the attention of realism and detail and perhaps it's total lack of camp, however this comes at a price as so much of it takes a serious approach that the shocking scenes happen matter of factually. It is paced rather slow, dreadfully so for modern viewers I might imagine.

EyeAskance When a vain countess is accidentally splattered with droplets of her nubile female servant's blood, she notices a more youthful quality to the appearance of her skin where the blood had been...thus begins the horror of THE FEMALE BUTCHER, and it's not just another tawdry, matter-of-course Liz Bathory digest fraught with obligatory lezvamperotica. This is a great looking and attentively directed Gothic mini-classic, purposeful in its treatment of a grim story involving a pontifical, influential madwoman's rabid lust for virgin blood. It's vividly delineated, and acquaints the viewer with stimulating, aptly-played characters. It should also be noted that this expounding of the Bathory legend is purportedly truest to the 'de facto' circumstances. A subtly composed Euro-chiller, perhaps even a tad overmuch so, but quite jarring, nonetheless...this is high priority viewing for horror fans of every stripe. 7.5/10

Steve Nyland (Squonkamatic) This is a painful, cold, unpleasant but ultimately fascinating entry from the Spanish horror boon that is probably the definitive Elizabeth Bathory treatment, making Hammer's "Countess Dracula" look silly and trite in comparison; that film is a period costume romance compared to BLOOD CASTLE. This is a serious movie that lacks a single light hearted moment, and is a great example of the unbearably suffocating sort of period horror suggested by Michael Reeves' CONQUEROR WORM, which uses the conventions of period horror -- castles, nightgowned beauties, foggy wastes -- to con the viewer into thinking that they are going to get the push-up bras and lesbian nuzzling that these movies usually involve.What you get is actually anti-erotic, much like Reeves' film, unless the idea of watching people suffer is something that gives you a rise. I like this movies' lack of sensationalism, giving us a straightforward almost scientific explanation for the vampirism in question, and providing a sort of tragic Spanish soap opera element to give us the motivations for the murders. The film is indeed slow, but fans of this kind of stuff will be drinking it in, with Jorge Grau's astute eye for period detail, lighting and atmosphere easily putting this on the same plane with films like "Count Dracula's Great Love", "Count Dracula" and the Rollin efforts as amongst the most distinctive films from the Eurohorror boon. No other movie looks quite like LEGEND OF BLOOD CASTLE (or FEMALE BUTCHER, as it is known in it's uncut form), and few have such an unrelenting, claustrophobic air of dread and sheer decrepidness as LEGEND OF BLOOD CASTLE, which completes the CONQUEROR WORM comparison chart by culminating in a series of Inquisitional torture scenes that far surpass the vampire murders in terms of brutality and horror.So perhaps that is Grau's ultimate comment: yes, the Bathory legend speaks of just awful, depraved atrocities, but nothing is quite as atrocious & barbaric as Man's own inhumanity to their fellow Man, and especially with the hypocrisy of the Church feeding the fires of hate. HIGHLY recommended, but not for those with short attention spans or the squeamish alike. And word to the third: The cover shown here is NOT the same movie (that's BLOOD CASTLE, not LEGEND OF BLOOD CASTLE) and beware of a recent North American DVD pressing by a company called MYA: They used a nudity free print with a fullscreen transfer. I've got versions of this film in three languages from twice as many countries: You want the Finnish subtitled English language print called BLOODY CEREMONY. Trust me.7/10