I was looking forward to this one and can't help but feel a little disappointed considering the director involved and Barbara Steele being in it. It's yet another Gothic horror set in an old dusty castle, and gets off to a good start, but starts meandering about halfway through and doesn't quite recover.
As I said though: Good start. Barbara Steele's mum has been a ccused of being a witch following the death of a count (who was actually killed by his nephew). While Steele is trying to get her mother a reprieve by hitting on the count's brother, her mum is lit up like a good cigar and curses the count's family (wait – does that not mean she was a witch?) . Steele herself thinks she's off the hook before the count's brother (who is now the new count) throws her off a waterfall, leaving only her younger sister to fend off these horny noblemen.
Anybody who knows anything about Barbara Steele knows that she never stays dead for long and while we start getting bogged down in the plot involving the nephew wearing down and marrying Steele's now grown up sister, Steele comes back to life and some sort of murderous pseudo love triangle develops which involves an awful lot of people wandering around a castle (including of course, secret passages, crypts, and all that stuff). My attention started wandering around the time the nephew and Steele started conspiring.
However, this is an Antonio Margheriti film and therefore there are a few elements to keep you going, like the plague that strikes the people, and Umberto Raho as the local 'told you so' priest, and a corpse suddenly growing back it's flesh, but I was expecting more ghostly goings on and less love triangle, wandering about stuff.
As I said though: Good start. Barbara Steele's mum has been a ccused of being a witch following the death of a count (who was actually killed by his nephew). While Steele is trying to get her mother a reprieve by hitting on the count's brother, her mum is lit up like a good cigar and curses the count's family (wait – does that not mean she was a witch?) . Steele herself thinks she's off the hook before the count's brother (who is now the new count) throws her off a waterfall, leaving only her younger sister to fend off these horny noblemen.
Anybody who knows anything about Barbara Steele knows that she never stays dead for long and while we start getting bogged down in the plot involving the nephew wearing down and marrying Steele's now grown up sister, Steele comes back to life and some sort of murderous pseudo love triangle develops which involves an awful lot of people wandering around a castle (including of course, secret passages, crypts, and all that stuff). My attention started wandering around the time the nephew and Steele started conspiring.
However, this is an Antonio Margheriti film and therefore there are a few elements to keep you going, like the plague that strikes the people, and Umberto Raho as the local 'told you so' priest, and a corpse suddenly growing back it's flesh, but I was expecting more ghostly goings on and less love triangle, wandering about stuff.