This is indeed a Horribly bad Film. Firstly, I would like to start off by saying, I am not really a fan of these 60's/70's early color horror films, to which some might ask: "Very well... then what business do you have watching and commenting on this movie?" Simply I like Christopher Lee, and was naive enough to think that a horror film can be both frightening AND plausible, and as I was going down the many comments to see what people had to say about this film, it was the comment of "This film emphasizes realism rather than surrealism" Which was enough to make me spit.... or at least add a comment. So of course as I will be examining the plot elements of a sort of "mystery" plot, there may be spoilers.
The following is the sort of "realism" which made me hate this film. Firstly, the wife character loses consciousness by fainting twice in this film. Everyone knows that women often used to faint because they wore corsets, but the woman in this film does not wear one, she simply faints the first time out of "fear" we suppose, when she finds a dead body, and the second time she faints when she sees one of the castles servants. "this is after being chased by a maniac, fending him off and rescuing a woman who he deformed in front of her with starving rats" I would consider this to be much more traumatic than simply seeing one of her servants who she is not sure she can trust after finding her wounded husband in a bizarre robe for no apparent reason. Furthermore, it is annoying and VERY poor writing to have the main character lose consciousness inexplicably at 2 very vital plot points, and extremely lame to think that a person would so easily be able to confuse seeing a dead person, then fainting, with having a dream. what do REAL people do when they see a dead body?? ...CALL THE POLICE! Another very lame instance is when the woman enters a room, sees only immobile statues, then leaves, and shortly after she leaves, one of the statues comes to life. Scary? No. But comical that a deranged killer has nothing better to do than pretend to be a statue for minutes on end. Furthermore, the fact that he's been able to walk freely around this castle for years and years and years is ridiculous "as would be the case if we're to believe he was there since the fall of the Nazis" A clear reason why Christopher Lee's character was made to know the killers identity, though frankly, all the servants would all have to, as little sense which THAT would make to be honest. Also the husband being trapped in the water chamber for much of the latter parts of the film only to escape after spending half an hour in there before diving under water and managing to escape merely by hitting against a random block of stone on the ground. Now let us get onto the "red herrings" as they were described by other commentators... 1. the woman is fleeing the castle, only to find a statue of the hooded figure on the floor in front of the exit. Why is it there? Who put it there? apparently someone who enjoys lugging around heavy ironic statues of deranged killers as a practical joke and can manage to do so silently. To me this was almost like the film making fun of itself, but most importantly, it wasn't scary. 2. There is a FBI agent roaming around the castle grounds at all hours without any apparent cause "he talks with the woman early in the film"
Stylistically, the reasons used by many people who commented on this movie to say it was GREAT are the exact reasons why I found it horrible. The music is SO over the top for most of the film that it is annoying. For example, the woman is given sleeping pills to help her sleep, but she instead throws them on the floor, then as the husband comes back to kiss her goodnight the music comes on BLASTING "dun dun duuun DUN DUN DUUUUN!!" ... ooh no he might see the pills and!.. ?? ...say: "oh so you dint take your pills. How sad."??? this same music comes back to torment us once more as she is walking around the castle, and what does she find? NOTHING... oooh sweet Jesus! ...then again as she is running along the outside of the castle it comes again... And when it comes to a stop? nothing. She stops running. It is hard to emphasize this, but with music SO over the top with either nothing to be scared of, or no scare at the end, it comes across as very boring and lame. Only in the later moments of the film does the music truly begin to invoke real suspense, but frankly, by this time we are bored of the same 2 bars of music. Another aspect I found very tedious and unsuspenceful, was for much of the early movie all we really have is this woman walking and running around the castle aimlessly looking for her husband... or looking for SOMETHING.. and very aimlessly, which given the fact that it reminded me of a very funny comedy sketch from SCTV did not help at all. In the end, this may be one of the best early horror films ever made in Italian dubbed cinema, but just as a movie in GENERAL, among all movies, it is a very very poor piece of cinema. All I can say is that I lament the fact that Christopher Lee did not get better roles, as he is a good and powerful actor, who to me was the only good thing about this film.
The following is the sort of "realism" which made me hate this film. Firstly, the wife character loses consciousness by fainting twice in this film. Everyone knows that women often used to faint because they wore corsets, but the woman in this film does not wear one, she simply faints the first time out of "fear" we suppose, when she finds a dead body, and the second time she faints when she sees one of the castles servants. "this is after being chased by a maniac, fending him off and rescuing a woman who he deformed in front of her with starving rats" I would consider this to be much more traumatic than simply seeing one of her servants who she is not sure she can trust after finding her wounded husband in a bizarre robe for no apparent reason. Furthermore, it is annoying and VERY poor writing to have the main character lose consciousness inexplicably at 2 very vital plot points, and extremely lame to think that a person would so easily be able to confuse seeing a dead person, then fainting, with having a dream. what do REAL people do when they see a dead body?? ...CALL THE POLICE! Another very lame instance is when the woman enters a room, sees only immobile statues, then leaves, and shortly after she leaves, one of the statues comes to life. Scary? No. But comical that a deranged killer has nothing better to do than pretend to be a statue for minutes on end. Furthermore, the fact that he's been able to walk freely around this castle for years and years and years is ridiculous "as would be the case if we're to believe he was there since the fall of the Nazis" A clear reason why Christopher Lee's character was made to know the killers identity, though frankly, all the servants would all have to, as little sense which THAT would make to be honest. Also the husband being trapped in the water chamber for much of the latter parts of the film only to escape after spending half an hour in there before diving under water and managing to escape merely by hitting against a random block of stone on the ground. Now let us get onto the "red herrings" as they were described by other commentators... 1. the woman is fleeing the castle, only to find a statue of the hooded figure on the floor in front of the exit. Why is it there? Who put it there? apparently someone who enjoys lugging around heavy ironic statues of deranged killers as a practical joke and can manage to do so silently. To me this was almost like the film making fun of itself, but most importantly, it wasn't scary. 2. There is a FBI agent roaming around the castle grounds at all hours without any apparent cause "he talks with the woman early in the film"
Stylistically, the reasons used by many people who commented on this movie to say it was GREAT are the exact reasons why I found it horrible. The music is SO over the top for most of the film that it is annoying. For example, the woman is given sleeping pills to help her sleep, but she instead throws them on the floor, then as the husband comes back to kiss her goodnight the music comes on BLASTING "dun dun duuun DUN DUN DUUUUN!!" ... ooh no he might see the pills and!.. ?? ...say: "oh so you dint take your pills. How sad."??? this same music comes back to torment us once more as she is walking around the castle, and what does she find? NOTHING... oooh sweet Jesus! ...then again as she is running along the outside of the castle it comes again... And when it comes to a stop? nothing. She stops running. It is hard to emphasize this, but with music SO over the top with either nothing to be scared of, or no scare at the end, it comes across as very boring and lame. Only in the later moments of the film does the music truly begin to invoke real suspense, but frankly, by this time we are bored of the same 2 bars of music. Another aspect I found very tedious and unsuspenceful, was for much of the early movie all we really have is this woman walking and running around the castle aimlessly looking for her husband... or looking for SOMETHING.. and very aimlessly, which given the fact that it reminded me of a very funny comedy sketch from SCTV did not help at all. In the end, this may be one of the best early horror films ever made in Italian dubbed cinema, but just as a movie in GENERAL, among all movies, it is a very very poor piece of cinema. All I can say is that I lament the fact that Christopher Lee did not get better roles, as he is a good and powerful actor, who to me was the only good thing about this film.