THE BLOOD ROSE tells the story of artist Frederic Lansac (Philippe Lemaire, THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MIRROR) who throws over his mistress Moira (Elizabeth Tessier, FRUSTRATION) for the beautiful and innocent Anne (Anny Duperey, STAVISKY). More upset at Lansac skipping her party where she plans to show him off, Moira dressed as a fairy tale evil queen shows up uninvited to Anne and Frederic's wedding party and causes Anne to fall into a raging bonfire disfiguring her. Anne has her death announced and shuts herself up in Lansac's castle. Lansac hires pretty nurse Agnes to take care of Anne while he runs his business in the city (a beauty institute that uses poisonous hybrid plants for skin treatments). Lansac makes the acquaintance of professor Romer (Howard Vernon of AWFUL DR. ORLOFF, who dubs himself on the English track) who takes care of the plants by day and surgically transforms the faces of criminals by night. Lansac blackmails the professor into trying to restore his wife's face using living transplants. Jealous of Agnes' beauty, Anne kills the nurse with one of the poisonous plants. Her disappearance prompts the interest of her sister Barbara who poses as a writer doing a tour guide of ancient chateaus and is deemed by Anne to be the perfect face donor.

Part surgical horror, part gothic fairytale, all Eurosleaze, THE BLOOD ROSE begins nicely with shots of a beautiful, crumbling chateau and nicely melds period gothic settings and clothing of the countryside with sixties pop art and clothes of Paris but it cannot resist such outre French fantastique touches as a pair of servant dwarfs in caveman furs, poisonous plants, and the like. While the stylistic juxtaposition is interesting, plotting-wise the familiar elements of the surgical horror films (the investigating, disguised heroine, abducted female donors, police investigation, and mad doctors) clash with the gothic romance and result in uneven plotting and pacing. Advertised by US distributor Allied Artists as "the first sex horror film" the erotic content is mild by the standards of only a year or so later in European exploitation and the special effects are unconvincing (never a strong point in French low budget genre film which most of the benefit from naive smears of red lipstick, runny fake blood, and pale pancake, here it is more noticeable because the reveal of Anne's scarred face doesn't have the impact needed due to the poor effects). Long unavailable in English-speaking countries (apart from a very rare American tape from the dawn of VHS), THE BLOOD ROSE is still a worthy diversion and a good introduction to French cult cinema of the sixties and seventies.