The Bloodstained Lawn

Il prato macchiato di rosso (lit.  'The Red-stained lawn[1]') is a 1973 Italian film directed by Riccardo Ghione.[3][page needed ]

Emilia-Romagna, Italy, early seventies. A Unesco agent discovers that blood is contained in a bottle of wine produced by a well-known Italian winery. A couple of hippies in their wanderings come across Antonio who accompanies them to the villa where he lives with his sister and brother-in-law. In the sumptuous house the two young men meet strange characters: a gypsy woman, a prostitute and a disquieting drunkard. The landlord, Michelino Croci, reassures them by saying that he is only a wine producer and loves to host strange people. In reality, Mr. Antonio is a madman who created a mechanism, a sort of robot capable of sucking blood from human bodies.

Italian film critic and historian Roberto Curti described the film as mixing elements from the gothic genre, the thriller and a little bit of science fiction.[1]

Shortly after the release of director Riccardo Ghione's previous film A cuore freddo, Ghione was working on his next film titled Vampiro 2000 which was shot in the village of Fiorenzuola d'Arda.[4] Ghione announced a different film during this period, an adaptation of Il male oscuro, the autobiography by Giuseppe Berto, which never came to fruition.[5] Vampiro 2000 eventually became retitled as Il pratto macchiato di rosso.[5]

Il pratto macchiato di rosso was distributed theatrically in Italy by Drago Film and had its premiere on 2 March 1973 in Fiorenzuola d'Arda.[1][6] The film grossed a total of 56,364,000 Italian lire domestically on its initial release.[1] According to Curti, after the film's release it vanished into obscurity to only be brought back to attention on a home video release around 2017.[6]

Curti declared that Il prato macchiato di rosso retained a small level of notoriety in the village of Fiorenzuola where the memory of the shooting of the film remained vivid still in 2018.[7]