The Long Hair of Death opens at the end of the 15th Century, with Helen Karnstein (horror icon Barbara Steele) begging Count Humboldt for mercy regarding her mother Adele Karnstein, who is to be tried as a witch (trial by fire), having wrongly been accused of killing the count's brother. As the Count takes advantage of Helen, promising that nothing will happen to her mother until he is present at her trial, his son Kurt (George Ardisson) goes ahead and burns Adele in front of her youngest daughter Lizabeth. As she goes up in flames, Adele curses the count and his son. Later, the Count disposes of troublesome Helen by pushing her over a waterfall, but allows Lizabeth to live, the girl growing up on his estate.
Years later, the now adult Lizabeth (lovely Halina Zalewska) attracts the attention of loathesome Kurt, who pressurises her into marrying him. What he doesn't know is that Helen has returned from the grave and, with Lizabeth's help, is out for revenge.
Despite stylish direction from Antonio Margheriti and impressive black and white cinematography by Riccardo Pallottini, Italian gothic horror The Long Hair of Death is a dull affair, with a deathly slow pace and a hum-drum plot that delivers clichés by the creaky cart-load: a creepy castle complete with secret passageways, vengeful descendants of a woman wrongly executed for witchcraft, a plague laying waste to the population, and a murderous aristocrat with designs on a beautiful but unwilling maiden. While such tried and tested horror ingredients can equal a lot of fun, here it proves boring and disappointing, Margheriti failing to bring much life to proceedings. The director did the whole gothic thing much better the very same year with Castle of Blood.
Years later, the now adult Lizabeth (lovely Halina Zalewska) attracts the attention of loathesome Kurt, who pressurises her into marrying him. What he doesn't know is that Helen has returned from the grave and, with Lizabeth's help, is out for revenge.
Despite stylish direction from Antonio Margheriti and impressive black and white cinematography by Riccardo Pallottini, Italian gothic horror The Long Hair of Death is a dull affair, with a deathly slow pace and a hum-drum plot that delivers clichés by the creaky cart-load: a creepy castle complete with secret passageways, vengeful descendants of a woman wrongly executed for witchcraft, a plague laying waste to the population, and a murderous aristocrat with designs on a beautiful but unwilling maiden. While such tried and tested horror ingredients can equal a lot of fun, here it proves boring and disappointing, Margheriti failing to bring much life to proceedings. The director did the whole gothic thing much better the very same year with Castle of Blood.