The Brides Wore Blood



Centuries ago, the DeLorca family patriarch was interrupted while in the process of conjuring evil spirits. For what purpose, we don’t know, but it probably wasn’t for anything good. But ever since that time the family has been plagued by a curse which causes the male heir to turn into a vampire and for his wife to die in childbirth. Juan, the eldest DeLorca son, is currently the bearer of the curse and is in the midst of slowly changing into a monster. But his uncle Carlos is determined to end the family’s plight once and for all. Problem is, he doesn’t know how to do it. So Carlos contacts a renowned psychic to help him break the curse that haunts his family. And what luck! She says it’s possible! All he’ll need is an incantation, and the help of four unsuspecting young women that he’ll have to lure into his home…



I’m back with The Brides Wore Blood, another low-budget, locally made Florida movie (with a pretty cool name and poster) that I’d never heard of before! And what a shame too, because unlike Sting of Death, I know EXACTLY where this one was made! St. Augustine! Now, some other reviews I’ve perused claim it takes place in Jacksonville (likely because the end credits mention a production company in Jacksonville), and while some of the interiors may have very well been shot there, I assure you that almost all of the exterior, and many interior scenes, were all filmed in St. Augustine. I know, because I went to school there and walked around many of those same places myself. Enough so that I recognized them instantly. If pressed, I could even tell you a couple of the streets they were filmed on.


I know EXACTLY where this is…. Is that sad?


See! It’s this one right here! I went and took an updated shot for you!

The reported DeLorca “castle” that’s mentioned in many film summaries and you frequently see throughout the movie, is actually Ponce de Leon Hall, once the main body of the old Hotel Ponce de Leon, but what now comprises Flagler College’s female dorms, dining hall, and some administrative offices. And considering how much of it there is, I’m fairly certain that this couldn’t have been one of those “guerilla” filming projects, because it’s not just exterior shots of the hotel they could have just run by and gotten some quick footage of. They filmed several scenes from inside the lobby area, the dining hall (I’d recognize those fancy windows anywhere), and even the upper levels and the damn roof. The Roof! I never got to go on the roof! So either they had to have had permission from the school to film there, or they were some of the stealthiest filming crew/burglars to ever walk the earth. And the production must have had at least some money to their name, because there’s also at least one crane shot that they filmed in the middle of an intersection, and I’m sure the rental costs for those things and holding up traffic didn’t come cheap. Or maybe it did, and things just weren’t as crowded back then. Either way, it’s nice to see that they clearly put at least some thought into their scouting locations. So I actually really enjoyed watching this, just because I could pinpoint all the familiar landmarks and see how things have changed. The movie’s like an interesting little time capsule of the downtown area.




Like here. See that restaurant there in the back on the water? It’s not there anymore. They tore it down a couple years ago and are building a new one. *sad violin music*


Extra updated shot, because this amuses me. My angle is a little off , and the bushes have overgrown the top of the left building, but I assure you this is the same spot.

Okay, now that I’m done with that little personal bout of excitement that I’m sure nobody else cared about other than me, let’s get into the movie proper….

It’s, uhh… It’s not that good, to be honest. It’s really one of those films that had a lot of good ideas, just not the skill or funds to properly pull it off. The acting is probably sub-par, at best. And towards the end old uncle Carlos’s constant attempts at trying to convey sympathy for the ladies were starting to get really annoying. Kept spouting things like, “Oh that poor thing. She’s such a nice girl. I’m sorry she has to go through all this.” Like, bitch please. She wouldn’t be going through ANY OF THIS if it weren’t for you, so maybe F off with your fake concern. But on the other hand he’s also the only one that you can tell really bothered to fully know his lines beforehand.  So I can’t hate him too much. The framing and cinematography also aren’t all that great, but I think a lot of that is due to them being forced to work within the confines of that old building they were in. When they actually have room to move around, it looks a tad better and they get a bit more creative.



The effects, if you can call most of them that, are really hit or miss. Some of them don’t look too bad for such a low-budget film. Still really iffy, but not “plastic baggies filled with colorful shit and floating in the water” levels of iffy. Like, you can tell they probably had at least a semi-competent effects/make-up person on hand who maybe went and then flunked out of cosmetology school or something. But then on the flip side, all the vampire “teeth” they were using looked horribly fake. Like the filmmakers went down the street to Woolworths the day before filming (I’m only half joking. There really was a Woolworths about a block away) and bought a value pack of those extra fake-y plastic vampire teeth you use at Halloween for a nickel. So, not great, but at least they tried.





But of course the biggest ding against the movie is the story itself. And it’s another of those “they tried, bless them” moments, that just doesn’t gel. Like, the idea is fine, but it falls into too many low-budget horror traps. Most of the plot is pretty slow and plodding, several story beats don’t make any sense (though watching that one guy trip on the stairs and basically jump over the railing in order to “fall” to his death WAS highly entertaining) and I can’t be certain, but I’m pretty sure that the ending pretty much guarantees that the DeLorca descendant we see at the beginning of the film can’t exist. Oh, and the movie just ends without any clarification. So there’s that. But I kinda already knew the story wouldn’t be that good, just based on the opening. Which starts off with a young post-coital couple on a bed in some dungeon looking room. And then they find a box. And in that box is the diary of Carlos. And so they read the diary, turning the entire movie into one long flashback. And then like, two minutes later Carlos gets his own flashback scene. So we’re barely five minutes in, and we’re already having flashbacks within flashbacks and… Yeah, that was kind of my hint that the story was gonna be a mess.


And then we never saw them again, so their inclusion was pointless…

So sadly, I can’t imagine that a lot of people would be all that impressed with The Brides Wore Blood. It’s a decent concept with some good ideas, some lovely atmosphere and a GREAT location (okay, I may be biased on that last point). But other than some of the scenery and those abysmal teeth, I don’t think anyone’s going to find this one to be too memorable. Though I do feel I should at least give the filmmakers some credit for the effort they put into it and some of the creative workarounds they used for their limited equipment. For instance, I did kind of like how they seemed to only have one decent light at their disposal for night time shots, but instead of lighting the whole area, they used it to properly light the actors (bless them) and then make things like every entrance way the actors were walking into look like a giant pit of foreboding darkness. Which is a very simple thing to do really, but it does go a long way to making almost everything feel creepy and moody as hell. So kudos to them for working with what they had. It still may not be a great movie, but hey: they tried, bless them.

The Brides Wore Blood is available on a variety of streaming services.

The Brides Wore Blood is also available on DVD but is, perhaps unsurprisingly, out of print.

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