Les Amants d'outre-tombe

NIGHTMARE CASTLE (Mario Caiano - Italy 1965).

Barbara Steele is the wife of a brutal count. Brutal counts don't take half measures and when he finds out that his wife has been unfaithful, he tortures her and her lover and puts them to death, removing their hearts from their bodies in retribution. Time passes and he remarries a beautiful and unsuspecting young woman. Soon she is experiencing horrendous dreams and apparitions. It appears the spirits of his former wife and her lover have returned to exact their revenge. Then various forms of torture, electrocution(!) and distorted dream images follow.

This film is 80 percent atmosphere and some scraps for story and acting. The first twenty minutes will get your attention, but the middle part is slow and talky with some "plot elements" being played out. But still worth seeking out for lovers of early Gothic horror with quite a haunting Gothic atmosphere and an unusual strong cast for this kind of film. The fine score by Ennio Morricone is a major bonus in this interesting little mystery.

Camera Obscura --- 6/10

'Night Of The Doomed' is an excellent Gothic thriller, full of mystery, atmosphere and chills. The stunning Barbara Steele, arguably the most beautiful Scream Queen of all, plays a duel role as an unfaithful wife, who is tortured and murdered by her scientist husband (Jess Franco regular Paul Muller), and the wife's mentally fragile sister. Muller marries the sister in an attempt to keep his hands on his late wife's fortune, needing the money to help finance his experiments. His new bride finds herself going through some increasingly strange experiences, which unbeknown to her seem to be caused by her dead sister's attempts at revenge from beyond the grave. This is a first rate example of a melodramatic supernatural thriller. Steele and Muller are both excellent and well cast, and their performances added to the stylish black and white photography, and an above average Morricone score, make this is a real treat for fans of Italian horror and giallo.

Of course Nightmare Castle used to scare the hell out of me as a kid when I saw it on late-night TV, it's not exactly scary anymore but it's still a lot of fun to watch as I discovered buying it on DVD. Brings back a lot of memories of staying up late in a dark room watching old horror movies on the late late show, TV certainly has lost a lot of charm since the late 70's as you rarely find gems like this on anymore. Heck you'd be lucky to even find a late late show anymore, let alone old horror movies. But anyhow, good to see this one again.

Laughable dialogue doesn't detract too much from this moody, sometimes disturbing Italian Gothic. The story seems to be loosely adapted from an M.R. James ghost story called "Lost Hearts". Although the torture scenes in the uncut version are remarkably strong for their time, there are other things that are more disquieting. Most hideous of all is the character of Solange, the maid, whose youth has been restored by a dead woman's blood. When she speaks of how the blood grows cold and heavy in her veins, it's a very unsettling moment. The black-and-white photography is beautifully atmospheric. Ennio Morricone's music is more conventional than usual -- especially the mazurka that represents Muriel, which is too simple and sentimental for a Barbara Steele character... but the tremendous Fugue for organ which dominates the soundtrack deserves special mention. In spite of its lapses, and with apologies to Mario Bava, this is still my favorite Italian Gothic horror film!

All right, the writing is something to be desired, but this movie is so richly photographed and the great '60's Scream Queen Barbara Steele is so alluring that it hardly matters. This movie uses Steele to full advantage, and even casts the sultry, sinister star in a dual role, much like Mario Bava's classic BLACK SUNDAY. Babs stars as a faithless wife who, along with her lover, is tortured to death by her vengeful-husband. However, her hubby finds that this may not have been the great revenge he thought it would be because his wife left her inheritance to her mentally unbalanced sister(Steele again, this time in a blonde wig). Of course, being the sadistic, money-hungry, conniving little swine that he is, he decides to marry his sister-in-law, and drive her to complete hysteria so he can commit her to the local loony bin and claim the family fortune for himself. Naturally, things don't go exactly as planned, but I won't give the rest of this weird little gem away. Shown in the US in a severely cut version that is so butchered, it's hardly worth watching. The original full-length European version is rare, but definitely worth seeking out.