Il Rosso Segno della Follia [A Hatchet for the Honeymoon] [Blood Brides] *** (1970, Stephen Forsyth, Dagmar Lassander, Laura Betti, Femi Benussi) – Classic Movie Review 7825

Director Mario Bava’s typically stylish 1970 giallo film Il Rosso Segno della Follia [A Hatchet for the Honeymoon] stars Stephen Forsyth, Dagmar Lassander, Laura Betti, and Femi Benussi. The screenplay is written by Santiago Moncada.

Stephen Forsyth stars as the handsome, 30-year-old John Harrington, the cleaver-wielding owner of a bridal design house, who murders young brides-to-be who have modelled his bridal fashions in a bid to unlock a repressed childhood trauma over the death of his mother. When he decides to murder his older wife Mildred (Laura Betti), she becomes a ghost that will not leave.

The main cast are Stephen Forsyth as John Harrington, Dagmar Lassander as Helen Wood, Laura Betti as Mildred Harrington, Jesús Puente as Inspector Russell, Femi Benussi as Alice Norton, Antonia Mas as Louise, Alan Collins as Vences and Gérard Tichy as Dr Kalleway.

Il Rosso Segno della Follia was shot in Barcelona and Rome with the working title Un’accetta per la luna di miele, completed in October 1969 and released in Italy on 2 June 1970.

It was released in the UK as Blood Brides by Tigon British Film Productions in 1973 and in the US by GG Productions on 9 February 1974.

It is available on DVD as Hatchet for the Honeymoon [Region 1] [US Import].

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7825

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