THE BRIDE FROM HELL (1972, original title Gui xin niang) is a second-tier Shaw Brothers horror film with no big stars, made before the genre really got going in the late 1970s with the likes of the full-blooded BLACK MAGIC films. This one plays out as more of a genteel, old-fashioned ghost story with a few supernatural bits added to the mix. The story sees a traveller taking refuge at a secluded house, where he accidentally views his hostess naked in bed. To spare her further shame, he marries her, but his extended family become convinced that she's possessed by the spirit of an evil ghost...
As a Shaw film this has plenty going for it, not least the usual exemplary sets and costumes. The ghost FX are quite crude even by '70s standards but I still got a kick out of them. But it's the writing where this falls down a bit. A lot of it feels very repetitive and padded out so that in the end I was feeling a little bored by the whole experience. The whole subplot with the overweight servant who's scared that his own wife is a spirit is also overdone and tiresome. The ending is very abrupt and anticlimactic. It's just not a film I could fall in love with despite being a big fan of the genre, so it gets 6/10 for effort.
As a Shaw film this has plenty going for it, not least the usual exemplary sets and costumes. The ghost FX are quite crude even by '70s standards but I still got a kick out of them. But it's the writing where this falls down a bit. A lot of it feels very repetitive and padded out so that in the end I was feeling a little bored by the whole experience. The whole subplot with the overweight servant who's scared that his own wife is a spirit is also overdone and tiresome. The ending is very abrupt and anticlimactic. It's just not a film I could fall in love with despite being a big fan of the genre, so it gets 6/10 for effort.
