Baron vampire

The closet thing to a remake of Mask of Satan(1960) that Mario Bava ever did was this film. The plotline is the opposite of Mask of Satan(1960) where in this film the witch is not evil. Gli Orrori del Castello di Norimberga/Baron Blood(1972) is an atmospheric supernatural thriller with marvelous cinematography and some good scare scenes. The main source of inspiriation for Baron Blood(1972) is Antonio Margheriti's The Virgin of Nuremberg(1963). Its interesting that Baron Blood(1972) takes place in the birth country of Adolph Hitler. Baron Otto Von Kleist seems to symbolize the atrocities committed by the nazis during the mid 1930s to mid 1940s.

Mario Bava did Baron Blood(1972) right after the controversial blood letting of A Bay of Blood(1971). Baron Blood has some gore scenes but without frequency and show stopping manner of Mario Bava's previous film. Baron Blood was the first and only time that Mario Bava did a film away from home as he didn't like to leave Italy. The music by Stelvio Cipriani is very good. The chase scenes in the film are some of Baron Blood's most exciting scenes. The death of Fritz is a reference to La Maschera del Demonio(1960) and Sei Donne Per L'Assassino(1964).

Elke Sommer doesn't do much in the role of Eva but she does look arousing in short dresses and mini skirts. Elke Sommer would give a much better performance in her next film for Mario Bava called Lisa E il Diavolo/Lisa & the Devil(1974). Joseph Cotten's performance as the evil Baron Otto Von Kleist brings to mind his role as the "Merry Widow Murderer" in Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt(1943). Baron Blood(1972) is not in the same league as the best of Bava's supernatural films such as La Maschera del Demonio/Mask of Satan(1960), La Frusta E il Corpo/Whip & the Body(1963), Operazione Paura/Kill Baby Kill!(1968), and Lisa E il Diavolo/Lisa and the Devil(1974) but is still better than any horror film from Hollywood from the 1990s til now. The set designs for the castle are excellent. The mysterious figure that appears on top of the castle at the end of the film gives me chills everytime I watch this movie.

Mario Bava is one of the greats of horror cinema, but I wouldn't judge his importance by 'Baron Blood'. It isn't close to his best work. While stylishly directed (to be expected being Bava) and with plenty of atmosphere, it is low on both suspense and gore, and sets up a potentially dynamite premise (the resurrection of an evil Vlad The Impaler-like maniac hell bent on revenge), then goes nowhere much with it. One or two sequences are outstanding, but overall it's a major disappointment, and the usually excellent Joseph Cotton (who did some strong genre work in movies like 'The Abominable Dr Phibes' and 'Soylent Green') is a bit of a let down in the title role. Even so, no Mario Bava movie can be dismissed entirely, and for all its flaws it's still worth watching more than almost all of Hollywood's recent puerile and uninspired horror output.

A young man travels to Europe and visits the ancient castle of a rather notorious ancestor called Baron Blood, a man whose name is still not very popular in the surrounding villages. Seems the Baron was a bit of a sadist, just in case the "Baron Blood" title didn't give it away already. Our young hero, Peter, meets Elke Sommer, and instead of breaking into the castles dungeon in the middle of the night and having sex like any normal hot young couple in the early 70s,

these two brilliantly decide instead to perform a centuries old ritual designed to raise the dead. When will these people learn? The Baron rises, seen first as a Phantom-of-the-Opera type guy with a face like a spoiled casserole, and later as a wheelchair bound and Maybelline dependent Joseph Cotton.

This really isn't a bad little film. There's some great spooky lighting techniques, some even better funky music and some gorgeous shots of the European

countryside. The ancient, crumbling castle is a wonderful set and the death

scenes are quite gruesome, especially the one featuring an Iron Maiden-ish

casket and a guy who looks a LOT like the late great Peter Lorre. In a nice twist, there's even a centuries-dead witch who turns out to be the GOOD guy! (Or girl, as the case may be) The acting isn't that great, but it doesn't make this an unwatchable film by any means. The story seems loosely based on the life of

Vlad the Impaler, but still manages to be original and interesting. A nice feeling of dread permeates the entire film. One of Bava's best efforts.

Peter goes to Austria to relax after getting his MA and to..."find his roots." He stays with an uncle who shows him the castle that belonged to his dead ancestor (aka Baron Blood), who was notorious for his torture chamber. He meets an architecture student named Eva and they find out the Baron was cursed under a witch's spell. So they decide to invoke the Baron's spirit. Why? Because Peter can't pass the chance to get to know one of his ancestors. Really. This is the worst Bava movie I've seen so far. Not to say it was bad. Baron Blood is very stylish and entertaining, gruesome, suspenseful, and the sets are great. The main problem is that the plot is absurd and the characters and their apparent motivations are extremely stupid. The horrid 70s song that opens and closes the movie should have never been recorded. My Rating: 5.5/10

Mario Bava's BARON BLOOD is a fine a tribute to the monster movies of Hollywood's golden age. So evocative of that period is this film that it takes not even a moment's thought to mentally recast Boris Karloff as the Baron, Nan Grey as his intended victim and to tune away the vivid Technicolor into haunting black and white.

As in FRANKENSTIEN or THE MUMMY, the evil in the film is unwittingly unleashed upon the world by the film's hero. In this case it is American Peter Kleist, who returns to the German castle of his ancestor Baron Otto Von Kleist. Even though he is aware that his ancestor, nicknamed "Baron Blood" was a sadistic monster who butchered and tortured the people of the countryside, Peter foolishly recites an ancient spell capable of resurrecting the Baron. The restored Von Kleist immediately resumes his homicidal ways, and now Peter, assisted by the beautiful Elke Sommer as a local historian, must find a way to undo what he has thoughtlessly wrought.

In the classic horror films of the 1930's the monsters were iconic and unforgettable, while the heroes were bland and almost entirely irrelevant. After all, who remembers who played the "hero" opposite Lugosi in Dracula or Karloff in THE MUMMY? (For trivia's sake it was David Manners in both films.) No, the villain/monster may have spent much of the picture lurking about off screen, or skulking in the shadows, but nevertheless he was always indisputably the star of the show.

BARON BLOOD maintains this link to its cinematic forbearers. Antonio Cantafora's Peter Kleist is satisfactory, but eminently forgettable, while Joseph Cotton, obviously having a ball, is terrific in his villainous role. Cotton's performance as the resurrected Von Kleist is spot on perfect, filled with evil charm and malevolent glee. He dominates the screen in the best tradition of the movie monsters of old.

In fact, there is only one significant departure from the classic monster films. Even in the days before the Hayes Commission, blood and gore were rarely seen and usually only suggested in Hollywood motion pictures. BARON BLOOD was produced without such restrictions and, though mild when compared to more recent horror films, it does contain some explicit moments that would have been completely unacceptable in the 1930's. Even as a tribute to the grand old days, it must remembered that BARON BLOOD was produced to appeal to a contemporary 1970's audience. Bava however realized that things modern will inevitably intrude upon the classic, and made light of this by placing soda pop machines in the halls of the Gothic Von Kleist castle and having prerecorded screams available in the Baron's torture chamber at the flip of a switch.

Not as arty as LISA AND THE DEVIL, not as graphic as BAY OF BLOOD, BARON BLOOD is often unjustly overlooked, or simply dismissed as a minor effort of Mario Bava's later period. Such hasty judgments do the film a great disservice. If BARON BLOOD has less of the striking cinematography of Bava's best films, it must be argued that such innovation would be out of place in a film striving to recapture the look and atmosphere of the original Hollywood horror movies. If one accepts the movie for what it is, a fine tribute to the genre's past, then BARON BLOOD is a great success, both as a homage and as work unto itself.

BARON BLOOD has been released in numerous VHS and laserdisc editions. The DVD release from Image Entertainment is probably the best example of the film currently available, featuring an uncut 1.85:1 widescreen presentation of the film, complete with the original European musical score, which was replaced when the film was released theatrically in North America.