7/10
Gripping but Lots of Wasted Space
31 January 2007
I've just recently discovered the Italian horror film. This one is pretty decent. I could have been much improved with a little effort at editing. Everything is set up nicely for revenge. You have the evil of witch burning as an innocent victim is set afire. She curses the people who put her there and we all know she'll be back. Nasty stuff begins to happen in the dukedom as the plague begins to decimate the population. The bad guys prosper pretty well, isolated from the rest of the rabble, but then a young woman (Barbaba Steele) returns. To keep her quiet, the patriarch of the castle pushed her off a cliff. She comes back to help her sister who has been forced into an ugly marriage with the young master. There are a series of efforts to kill this woman and things come to a satisfactory ending for the audience. The problem is the pacing. It drags on and on. There are these meandering trips through the castle, seemingly going nowhere. The whole effort to cover up a murder seems so convoluted. Let's just say there are simpler ways to go about these things, especially when you wield a lot of power. Still, I mostly liked it. Visually it is interesting and the acting is quite good.
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