“The pleasures I tried to deprive myself of assailed my mind more ardently…” –Madame de Saint-Ange (Marquis de Sade)

After I first watched it, I remember feeling cheated out of the definitive experience of A Candle for the Devil after finding out the version I watched titled It Happened at Nightmare Inn from a bargain DVD box set was heavily cut, omitting the graphic violence and nudity. I still thought it was a pretty sweet film even in its censored form, but of course that’s not the version I wanted for my collection, and so I later ordered off for a DVD-R containing the uncut A Candle for the Devil, with Esperanza Roy’s (from Return of the Evil Dead (1973)) nude scenes thankfully intact. The film has since been released on Blu-ray in 2015 by Scorpion Releasing.

Sisters, Marta and Veronica are a couple of murderesses who run a quaint little boarding house. The immodest behavior of the modern young female tourists who stay at their boarding house does not jive with Marta’s old-fashioned belief that decency and purity are better ideals for a young lady. After they discover one of their guests May (Loreta Tovar) sunbathing on their roof, much to the amusement of the local men, Marta, with Veronica’s help, very rudely starts to physically force May out of her house. While Marta is pushing her, May tumbles down the stairs and crashes into a stained-glass window and instantly dies. This initially was a tragic accident, until Marta believes she sees a religious sign in a broken, bloody piece of stained glass and assures her sister that what just occurred was an act of God. Marta hides the body while Veronica answers the front door to May’s sister Laura (Judy Geeson), who was supposed to meet her sister at the boarding house. Laura spends her time trying to get to the bottom of her sister’s disappearance while murders continue.

Marta is a character who is not able to cope with the fact that not everyone holds the same morals, values, and beliefs as she does. She has no issues with dehumanizing anyone who doesn’t fall into her ideal view of morality. She believes her victims deserve what happened to them. She takes her sister Veronica with her on her journey into being a delusional serial killer fighting against sin by ironically being the ultimate sinner.

In the battle between the evocatively scandalous and the religiously righteous, the sweet, mild-mannered Laura (Geeson) falls on neither side and is tolerant of both. Despite some reservations, she does manage to get along well with the judgmental sisters, and she is not offended by the provocations of the younger flirty, sexy female tourists. Not possessing the traits that offend Marta keeps her in the safe zone for a time, until her sleuthing causes her to get too close to the truth. Laura is a kind, even-keel character who mostly doesn’t have a whole lot to do but converse with the sisters, the villagers, and hang around with Eduardo (Winner). Her moment to shine comes in the final scene.

Bautista and Roy are terrific in their roles and have exquisite chemistry together as killer sisters. The actors play finely off of one another and do show off a good range of acting talent from outwardly pious sisters by day to killers of sinful women by night. Bautista portrays Marta as a much colder killer while Roy gives Veronica a semblance of guilt and remorse over what is happening. I’m not only convinced they are sisters, but I’m also convinced they are psychotic. One of the kills I thought packed an emotional punch, where some serious indignation is felt, is the scene where they murder a mother, Norma (Blanca Estrada), of a baby essentially because they wrongfully thought the mother wasn’t married. The moment is heartbreaking when Norma is killed desperately trying to get her baby back from Veronica.

A Candle for the Devil is a pretty grim affair that also works as an entertaining horror movie. Its two lead killers are memorable and should be considered more iconic in the history of Spanish horror. After I first watched it, I had that same feeling of enthusiasm that I had after first watching other noteworthy Spanish horror films La residencia (1969) and Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972). The gore is actually comic book level appealing, as an eyeball makes its way into a customer’s, Beatrice’s (Montserrat Julió), food, and a severed head manages to make its way into the basement wine cask, which makes for some fun stuff in this sort of depressing film that hopefully won’t detract too much from the seriousness of it.

© At the Mansion of Madness

So, here we are, nearly ten years in to writing for this site, and it would look like I’m finally getting around to covering an Emmanuellemovie… Well, not quite… In fact, Emanuelle and Joanna seems to me to be an anti-Emmanuelle movie, since I believe the literary Emmanuelle is mainly about embracing and normalizing sexual taboos. Whereas the protagonist in Emanuelle and Joanna is haunted by sexual taboos and is seemingly punished for her altruism by providence, or the scriptwriter if you prefer. I felt it was much too negative to be in line with the sexually positive but still iconoclastic spirit of the writings of Emmanuelle Arsan (Louis-Jacques Rollet-Andriane) and to me had a little more in common with the writings of the Marquis de Sade. Emanuelle and Joanna, who I’m assuming are the two women seen on the movie poster engaging in what is surely a kind of esoteric sex ritual, aren’t even in the movie. The lead sisters, alluded to in the film's Italian title, are Emanuela (Sherry Buchanan) and Giovanna (Paola Montenero). I don’t feel duped at all though, because this is the kind of shit I go for, a pleasing dark piece of dated erotica that sends its protagonist down a rabbit-hole of perverts.

This trashy variation of Belle de Jour is spoiled forbidden fruit that I’m not ashamed of indulging in. It is cheap Italian sleaze, written and directed by Franco Rossetti, that I would also like to argue still has artistic merit, mainly in how the dreams and brothel scenes are filmed. The unlikely mix of the weird and randomly perverse with the deep and emotional make this a curiosity worth hanging on to. The best parts are, of course, Emanuela’s visits to her sister Giovanna’s brothel funhouse and also Emanuela’s dreams and the way they portray her troubled psych. 

Emanuela is in a problematic marriage with her abusive creep of a husband Roberto (Brunello Chiodetti). He’s a sociopath who thinks he can jokingly charm his way through his faults, but everyone who knows him seems to know how much of an ass he is and that he’s an unreliable husband to the sweet and charitable Emanuela. She’s unhappily subservient to his whims. Sex with her husband is non-negotiable, as he expects her to submit to him without considering what she wants. He reminds me a lot of Simon Andreu’scharacter from The Blood Spattered Bride (1972).

 

It’s rumored that she tolerates him because she’s a masochist. This is incorrect, as it’s revealed through her dreams that she is legitimately in despair, but there’s a ray of light in her nightmare world in the form of a vision of a boy she longed for from her college days. There's a relatable feeling here in Emanuela's dreams, a tendency to retreat to a nostalgic past when the present makes you unhappy. But sometimes the romanticized past isn’t always so great either. 

Emanuela’s mother (Catherine Zago) is concerned about Emanuela’s sister Giovanna, whom she seems to have lost all contact with. One morning she is urging Emanuela to contact her sister. This scene is supposed to be serious, but to give you an idea of the randomness of the silly sleaze on display, during this part, when Emanuela steps out of the room, briefly, Emanuela’s young butler walks up to her mother while holding a drink tray, and instead of reaching for a drink her mother reaches under the tray for the butler’s crotch and begins to grope him, as the butler starts to nervously quiver and the tray shivers and shakes. Emanuela walks back in to the room and her mother quickly lets go of the butler and grabs her drink, without Emanuela even noticing she just assaulted her butler. Emanuela actually catches him later in the movie at her mom’s dwelling, much to her dismay.

 

On her mother’s insistence, Emanuela tracks her sister down at a brothel that she happens to lord over. When she visits, Giovanna and her assistant Angela (Angela La Vorgna) literally force Emanuela on a grand tour of her brothel that is like a funhouse of random perversions and kinks. The scene with the middle-aged man-baby is really something else. He is being nursed by a dominatrix Rosella (Marina Hedman), someone Emanuela actually knows. Naïve Emanuela is taken from room to room to be perturbed by a variety of sexual proclivities she apparently was previously ignorant of. Every sexual taboo, associated with certain characters, haunts Emanuela later that night in a fabulous menacing dream sequence, where the brothel funhouse becomes more like a madhouse. It’s all too much for her until the man-of-her-dreams, her old college crush, appears front and center, emitting a virtuous light that drives back the dark vice-filled perversions, seemingly offering her salvation from her twisted life. Problem is, in reality, this person apparently died years ago.

 

When, one day, at random, Emanuela comes across someone who has the exact likeness to the boy-of-her-dreams, Paulo (?), she is instinctively generous to him, with high hopes that he’ll be a part of her life. Paulo lives in poverty and works the streets selling packets of coloring pens. Through her connections, Emanuela gets him a job, and later during the celebration, Paulo and his hippie friends end up repaying her in the cruelest way. Her shining light and savior actually turns out to be just another scoundrel, possibly even worse than her husband. She can’t seem to cut a break. The kind and caring Emanuela seems doomed to suffer tortures dealt to her by providence. She’s a little like de Sade’sJustinein this way. The only one who is welcoming to her, and not in the most helpful way, is her sister.

Giovanna confesses to Emanuela that she is a simple sadomasochist, claiming a need to inflict and receive pain, so much so that she felt a need to manage, direct, and organize violence; hence her position as the head mistress of one of the freakiest pleasure houses. She attributes the origin of her hypersexuality to a time when she and Emanuela were children and secretly witnessed their mother having a sexual affair with the gardener before the mother goes upstairs to satiate her appetite even further by sexually engaging with their, unknowing, father immediately afterwards. Giovanna then suggests that both sisters were conceived from different fathers. The corrupted born from the immoral affair, the other born from the sexual encounter within the confines of marriage, bringing to my mind that de Sadean contrast of vice and virtue, i.e. Juliette and Justine.

I also like to think there is a quick ode to Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’sVenus in Furs here, when Emanuela visits her husband’s work associate, Andrea (Daniele Dublino), during the time she is trying to help Paolo find a job. Andrea, the bald and graceful piano player, with a wicked scar under his eye, has a deep attraction to Emanuela. (I honestly felt like he had a suspicious Ernst Stavro Blofeld vibe to him). When she negotiates with Andrea to help her friend Paulo find employment, Andrea, a little like Severin from ViF, responds by waxing poetically about how attracted he is to Emanuela and thinks of her as a Goddess. Emanuela is even draped in furs during this part. He then offers to help her if she’ll permit him to indulge in a voyeuristic fantasy he’s always had of spying on her through a keyhole while she is in the bathroom, to which she obliges. The erotic POV shot through a keyhole frame during this part is pleasantly tasteful.

  

Emanuele and Joanna does culminate into a kind of rape/revenge style conclusion for Emanuela’s husband, while Emanuela submits to what the title eludes to and likely what everyone watching this in the ‘70s and ‘80s was hoping for. I can’t say it, because even I have my limits when it comes to sexual taboos. The ending is more fleshed out in the Italian language version, whereas a lot of the ending was edited out from the dubbed English version, yet there are different parts cut from both versions, so it’s still best to watch both, in that something missing from one version can still be found in the other. 

Much of the movie is made so beautiful by the piano theme by Enzo Petti which is essentially the main theme to the movie. That recurring romantic melody just moves my soul and gives some of the scenes a certain grandiose feel that they probably don’t deserve. It’s so bitchin’ that I even find myself sometimes air-pianoing to it. 

Emanuelle and Joanna might seem a little too cheap and sleazy for one to really try and find anything meaningful in it, but despite this I thought there still ended up being many meaningful and memorable parts, which is kind of what made it a surprising delight to me. I thought Sherry Buchanan really played Emanuela with such sweetness and vulnerability that you really do care about her. She’s caring and kind-hearted and deserves so much better than the cruel existence Rossetti has fabricated for her. Paola Montenero is a nice dark counterpart to Emanuela as her vice-fueled sister Giovanna, who has this kind of cold indifference about her. Her motives are questionable since she seemed to be behind some of Emanuela’s torments and misfortunes, but Giovanna also offers Emanuela help at getting back at her husband. Giovanna’s brothel and how it was interpreted as a kind of freakshow by Emanuela was one of the biggest things that kept me coming back to this movie and is largely why I’m trying to sell it, although I’m quite aware that it probably isn’t for everyone, but if kinky weirdness and partially forgotten (that should not be forgotten) Euro-erotica are your jam, you might want to check this one out. 

© At the Mansion of Madness

 

 

I’ve always loved the supernatural femme fatale Carmilla since I was first introduced to her in Vicente Aranda’sThe Blood Spattered Bride (1972). There was something so appealing about the sapphic predatory vampiress from J.S. Le Fanu’s 1872 novella, whose influence was all over the erotic vampire films from the 1960s and 1970s I loved, and more. After I reviewed The Blood Spattered Bride, naturally, I felt compelled to read Carmilla, a short but marvelous piece of gothic literature. I loved the dark, forested isolated castle setting and the peculiar relationship that develops between Laura and Carmilla. After reading it, I felt I had hipster boasting rights to tell people who never heard of it that I knew of and read a vampire book that was written twenty-five years before the more well-known Bram Stoker’sDracula (1897). Now, the book, Dracula is much more developed, but it is astounding how many story similarities there are between Dracula and Carmilla (itself sharing similarities to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s unfinished Christabel(1816)). I don’t think there can be any doubt that Carmilla heavily influenced Dracula. 

It’s been a delight to explore different adaptations of Carmilla, such as The Vampire Lovers (1970) and Crypt of the Vampire (1964) as well as movies influenced by Carmilla like Vampyros Lesbos (1971) and Daughters of Darkness (1971). I remember thinking back in 2013 that the time was right for new Carmilla movies. I must have been asleep the last seven years, because I only recently learned that there have been new Carmilla films being made, such as The Unwanted (2014), The Curse of Styria (2014), Carmilla(2015), a Carmilla web-series that eventually got a follow-up movie called Carmilla the Movie (2017), and most recently Carmilla (2019) from Emily Harris. I just recently checked out the 2019 movie, and all I can say is, what a powerful ending. I’d say it comes pretty close to the modern Carmilla film I was hoping for.

 

One adaptation that took a long time for me to finally revisit was the French-Italian produced Blood and Roses from 1960, directed by and co-written by Roger Vadim (And God Created Woman(1956) and Barbarella (1968)). I recall being a little disappointed by how modified the original story from the book was, and I remember having a hard time paying attention a few times, but I’ve come to appreciate it for the Roger Vadim film that it is. I also see it now more as someone’s own separate creation, who used their knowledge of the book as a springboard to bring their own vision to life, with little interest in retelling the same story. There are certain elements to it that remind me of H.P. Lovecraft’sThe Case of Charles Dexter Ward (1943) as well. I’m thankful for the German DVD, released around 2014, I believe, that really lets viewers fully appreciate Claude Renoir’s lush and colorful cinematography. Blood and Roses has a top-notch look and feel to it that would inspire many Eurohorror films to come. Joe Dante said, “this picture practically invents the Eurohorror film as we know it.”

Blood and Roses is Carmilla reimagined in the present day, for 1960, in the Roman countryside, filmed in Tivoli, Italy at the Villa Adriana, a Roman emperor’s retreat, constructed from 125 to 134 ce. This ancient complex is really a marvel and is a generous locale for this kind of visual movie. The place isn’t what you’d call a castle, but my brain kept thinking it was a castle every time I watched the film. In the film, it is where a grand celebration is being planned for the engagement of Count Leopoldo De Karnstein (Mel Ferrer) to a judge’s (Marc Allégret) daughter Georgia Monteverdi (Elsa Martinelli). Presumably along for the festivities is Leopoldo’s relative Carmilla (Annette Stroyberg-then Vadim), who’s friends with Georgia but has been close to Leopoldo since she was a child. Carmilla seems to display a melancholic unease over the engagement. Could she be jealous, and if so, of who? Or is she just entranced in thoughts of emulating her supposed vampire ancestor Millarca?  

Mel Ferrer’s Count is an old school gentlemanly type who can get pretty pushy at times. He ranges between likable to churlish. He has a ballroom style dance scene with Carmilla that is really quite charming, and his piano-side fisherman mime is a light hearted brief break from the gloominess.

 

I do like the way Vadim et al. put a ghost story spin on the vampire tale. There is more emphasis on ancestral significance and Carmilla’s personal connection with her long-entombed forebear Millarca, who was said to have been a vampire and is rumored to still be entombed somewhere, waiting to return. I love the early scene in the living room, where many of the characters have gathered to discuss and plan the engagement party and the fireworks display. When the conversation tuns to vampires, Carmilla foreshadows Millarca’s return with a dreamy, reverb-heavy speech in a first-person, soft-focus, perspective that’s done in a way that feels like Millarca herself is in the room, watching everyone’s faces. A soothingly haunting harp theme is also heard that really places a nostalgic tenderness to the supernatural threat in the film.

 

On the night of the celebration, where a medieval style costume party is taking place, Carmilla, not feeling festive, is having her own one woman party in her room, drinking and dancing on her bed, refusing to come down even when Leopoldo reproaches her for her behavior, tossing a costume at her, ordering her to get dressed and come down to the party. In a drunken daze, Carmilla visits the old villa wardrobe where she is compelled to wear Millarca’s old white gown and turn heads when she finally joins the party, resembling the woman from the ancestral portrait in the villa, further foreshadowing Millarca’s return. People seem to think she is acting out or showing off, but it starts to become apparent that something is calling to her, and without really knowing it, Carmilla is heeding the call. Stroybergwandering, in a languid almost sleepwalker-like state, the smoky cemetery at night in her white dress is one of the film’s most memorable and pleasing visuals.

Mines unknowingly leftover from WWII are accidently ignited from the firework activity coming from the ancestral cemetery, which opens Millarca’s tomb and draws in Carmilla unwittingly. Carmilla seems to come face-to-face with an unseen deity that one presumes is Millarca. It’s ambiguous what really happens here. Does Millarca possess Carmilla, does she kill and replace her, having her exact likeness? Or is Carmilla just mentally unwell? I like the way the film toys with all possibilities. What is certain is that Carmilla is never really the same after returning from the ancestral tomb the morning after the ball, and her attraction really starts to shift towards Georgia.

Carmilla does become deadly at this point, and usually when she’s alone with another woman, she goes into a subtle predator mode. There’s a real striking scene where she stalks Lisa (Gabriella Farinon), a villa handmaid, chasing her through the woods like a familiar that refuses to detach from its fleeing master. The doomed seamstress can’t shake her and ultimately yields to the seductress. 

It was only a matter of time before Carmilla’s perfectly white dress was getting bloodstained, at least as a metaphorical image in a mirror. Carmilla seeing blood on her dress in her mirror image is a little Lady Macbeth-like, a reminder of Carmilla’s guilt or who she might really be. She can’t wash it away, and when she rips the bloody dress away, her breast is still fully covered in blood underneath.

Annette Stroyberg portrays Carmilla/Millarca with such grace and nuance. She daydreams a lot with an air of languor and ennui. That part towards the end where Carmilla visits the slumbering Georgia, and Carmilla can be seen lurking behind the bed frame, creepily eyeing Georgia, and around to the bedside before it transitions in to a dream sequence is really one of the most haunting highlights of the movie. It’s quick, but it has a lasting impact, and it is eerie as hell. This is when I realized that I had come to love Roger Vadim and co.’s interpretation of Carmilla here.

This Carmilla adaptation feels more like a ghost story than a vampire story, but I do appreciate the way the film handles both elements. Most of the time, it does feel like an era piece with only a few reminders of the present day like the airplane scenes that bookend the movie, with the isolated ancient villa setting making everything seem so timeless. The ending is beautiful, subtle, and emotional, a bittersweet reminder of a tragic past coalescing with a tragic present. Surprisingly the movie does feel longer than its seventy-nine-minute run time, but that might just be innate to the languorous nature of Carmilla and her affliction that she is doomed to endure. 

© At the Mansion of Madness

 

To tell you the truth, I’d like to relate my first-time experience watching Vampyros Lesbos, but I honestly cannot seem to remember a lot about it, other than that I noticed some similarities to Macumba Sexual. I do remember that afterwards, I quickly picked up Jess Franco’sShe Killed in Ecstasy (1971), which was made around the same time and also starred the sultry Spanish beauty Soledad Miranda in another arousing but also sympathetic role. 

While re-watching Vampyros Lesbos more recently, despite seeing it several times before, I noticed that I had forgotten a lot of specifics to the storyline, but I still remembered my favorite parts quite well while also realizing new favorite parts. It just seems to become more enriching upon each viewing, opening itself up further each time I revisit it. It never feels old, overwatched, or stale. Basically, it’s a real keeper that should be kept close and revisited at least once a year. Every scene is worth savoring.

I like to think of Vampyros Lesbosas modern art made into film. It subverts tradition to experiment with new vibes and moods, transposing its influences to the point that they become hardly recognizable. It’s also one sexy movie. All the familiarities of BramStoker’s Dracula are there, but on the surface, you can hardly see it at all. It feels like they decided to recreate Dracula with a superb twist and all the sensuality of an erotic and fetishized Carmilla tale, while on a sunny vacation.  

Jess Franco had a tendency to film erotic horror at these gorgeous looking vacation spots, and the effect is sometimes what fellow Jess Franco aficionados have referred to as “inverted gothic,” and this really is a spot-on description for Vampyros Lesbos. Night is day, the more usual moonlit forested landscape is instead a sun-drenched tropical paradise, the traditional candle lit dinner scene is over-looking a beautiful sunny beach front, Dracula and Johnathan Harker are lesbians: Countess Nadine Carody (Soledad Miranda) and Linda Westinghouse (Ewa Strömberg), who really do seem right for each other. This gives the film a dissonant feeling, but it’s novel and really works here. The only traditional gothic here is what has to be one of the greatest erotic stage shows put to film, but even that is set in a hip Euro-night club and is fused with zany jazz that ends up being really cool. So, despite the inverted look, there are spots where you still kind of get your Victorian fix, in a way.

The film just delivers and keeps its promise right off the bat with a tasteful and delicious erotic nightclub performance featuring the Countess Nadine (Miranda) with her human mannequin/victim (played by an unidentified actress whose face is obscured most of the time). Her performance partner is literally frozen under her spell, and Nadine manipulates, dresses, undresses and repositions her like a mannequin, like she’s her possession, and it really is something else. It is a spectacle of such beauty, delight, and sensuality. This immortal stage performance only makes up a small portion and is briefly revisited later in the film, yet it is such a significant and memorable part of the experience. I’m not sure if Anne Rice might have seen the film, but it does consist of a victim being stripped naked and murdered/consumed by a vampire on stage in front of an oblivious audience.

The most seductive addition that gives the film most of its memorability and staying power is Spanish actress Soledad Miranda as Hungarian Countess Nadine Carody. She’s beautiful, enchanting, terrifying, and sympathetic. She also has a terrific fashion sense. Her long red neck shawl not only looks amazing, it feels blood-fused and gives off the effect of blood hemorrhage in several key scenes. In the German version Countess Nadine has a deep, languid, and almost commanding voice, a real pleasure to listen to. She was dubbed by Beate Hasenau.

Ewa Stromberg is also delightful in this as well, as Nadine’s lover/prey, Linda Westinghouse. They have the warmest, most tender chemistry together. The Countess has targeted Nadine, transmitting sapphic dreams to her that Linda claims to her psychoanalyst, Dr. Steiner (Paul Muller), arouse her to orgasm. Dr. Steiner tells her that her dreams are the result of sexual frustration, and it just means she needs to find a better lover. While Linda and her boyfriend, Omar (Andrea Montchal), are at a nightclub, she is bewildered to see that the woman performing the sexy stage routine is the mysterious woman of her dreams. It’s really just part of the soundtrack, but there’s a peculiar distorted and reversed vocal audio track used in several spots of the film that sounds like a ham radio operator, which reminds me of an output signal from one antenna to another, in this case Nadine to Linda, to receive and respond to. 

It just so happens that Linda is a lawyer put on an assignment from her place of employment, Simpson & Simpson, to travel and meet with the Countess regarding a property inheritance from Dracula.

During her journey to the Countess’s lair in Anatolia, Linda stops to stay at a beach hotel where she meets Mehmet, a disturbing sadistic side character played by Jess Franco, who works at the hotel. It’s rather peculiar that even after Linda is shocked to discover that Mehmet tortures a tied-up bloodied woman (Beni Cardoso) he has imprisoned in the wine cellar, she runs away without telling anyone and kind of forgets about it. I like to think that the Countess’s remote spell on Linda is strong enough to cause her to forget the horror she saw and carry on to her destination. 

When Linda finally arrives at Nadine’s tropical lair in the “Kadidados Islands,” she comes upon the Countess sunbathing, and they break the ice pretty fast, as Nadine playfully coaxes Linda to follow her for a casual nude swim in the lake. Morpho (Michael Berling), Nadine’s hulking, mute manservant, who I continually confuse for a horny voyeur every time he skulks on scene, watches suspiciously from behind. When Morpho has his shades on, he kind of gives off a beatnik poet vibe. 

We learn during Linda and Nadine’s daytime candlelit dinner together on the beach that Nadine is the woman who Dracula willed everything to after he was destroyed. They were in love and she was the woman who made his life worth living. Colour me convinced. With Nadine’s dark demigoddess look and seductive predatory methods, I have no trouble believing she was Dracula’s love. 

Nadine offers Linda some suspicious red wine that puts her to sleep at the table. Morpho carries her to a room and lays her in a bed. She wakes up later seemingly alone. In a Rollin-esque moment the Countess randomly enters the scene from behind yellow drapes to seduce and pray on Linda.

Once under her spell, Linda is at the mercy and control of Nadine, who gently guides Linda and seduces her for blood nourishment. Linda seems conflicted, half afraid, half attracted, or possibly frozen with bewilderment. Interestingly, the music here is jazzy and full of life and love, which believe it or not is more appropriate in this case, as opposed to something darker and doomy sounding. 

It is truly a striking moment when Linda finds Nadine, the morning after their blood copulation, appearing dead, floating face up in the pool looking bloated with blood after a nice meal. This visual is both disturbing and beautiful and is unforgettable. Again, clever use of the long flowing red shawl. Linda passes out from the visual and wakes up later in Dr. Seward’s (Dennis Price) private clinic with no memory of what happened.

The clinic is a more dismal and depressing affair. The film is set in modern day 1971, but it is a little hard to tell from the inside of the clinic. It houses a mental patient, Agra (Heidrun Kussin), who’s the female Renfield. She too is bewitched and under Nadine’s influence and has an obsessive devotion to her from inside her cell. Agra is prone to erotic and shouty fits of madness. It is with Agra that I get a sense that Nadine is a vampire who truly loves her victims, as she is kind enough to tenderly bid a kind farewell to Agra, at one point, before leaving her forever.

Dennis Price’s Dr. Seward here looks, feels and acts a lot like the Dr. Frankenstein character he played in Jess Franco’sDracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein (1972). He seems to have an interest in the world of darkness, reading dark tomes and writing about his attraction to the mysterious world of vampires. Instead of trying to help the patients in his clinic, he is instead using them to get to Nadine because he wants in to her world. One of the parts with Dr. Seward that I remember most fondly is when he finally gets to make Nadine’s acquaintance, and she deems him not worthy, revealing that she’s actually come to kill him for keeping Linda from her. It’s hard to tell if Price’s heart is in the performance, but I thought his response to seeing Nadine here was actually pretty good.

The Countess’s backstory is quite intriguing. While lying in her modern crypt stretched out on a divan, languidly exhibiting a certain ennui that likely comes with living so long, Nadine melancholically reminiscences to an attentive Morpho that centuries prior she was saved from being killed by a marauding soldier who broke into her home by non-other than Count Dracula himself and that they later fell in love. She reveals herself to be a vampire convert and a protege of Dracula. With the languor and exhaustion in her voice here, I get the sense that Nadine is tired and done, almost like she is letting herself grow weak, setting herself up for her own demise. I think she’s targeted Linda because she feels she will finally be the one to end her afterlife, finding her overdue peace in death. There’s something beautifully tragic about the culmination. As Nadine puts it, "But many have become my slaves. Many women too. But then I met Linda. And now I am under her power," as predator eventually becomes prey.

Vampyros Lesbos is an ingenious film that cleverly makes use of the natural locales and small resources to great effect. There’s nothing artificial or cheap about it. The cinematography from frequent Jess Franco director of photographyManuel Merino (Marquis de Sade’s Justine, Eugenie, Count Dracula, She Killed in Ecstasy, …) is mesmerizing. I especially love the shots where you can almost feel Nadine’s fingers touching you as she reaches towards the camera in one of the film’s more prominently remembered images, digging into your brain and calling out to you, like she does to Linda. There’s really not a single dull or uninteresting shot. The way the film repeatedly cuts to insects, flying kites, Mosques in Istanbul, and what looks to be some kind of anchored fishing vessel give the film a kind of haunting presence. 

I’ve only had an increased love for this movie over the years. It’s probably as solid as they come for a ‘70s chic Euro erotica from Jess Franco. As much as I love traditional gothic horror, it’s still pretty cool to flip it upside down and turn it inside out to produce something so unlike anything else. It’s an excellent first timer recommendation for the curious and a long held classic for the longtime Jess Franco fan. But most of you already know that. 

© At the Mansion of Madness

The 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle of Vampyros Lesbos released by Messed Up Puzzles that I managed to complete. Art by Wes Benscoter

 

Lamberto Bava’s made for television Demons 5: The Devil’s Veil really took me by surprise when I first saw it. Historically, it’s been pretty rare, so, years ago, when a friend pointed out to me that the film had been uploaded to their YouTube page, I initially watched it as a curiosity (always going the extra mile when it comes to Italian horror). Being somewhat forgotten and without much praise and recommendation to go off of, I was expecting a mediocre ‘80s horror film, but the experience was really quite technically impressive and entertaining, with several memorable horror sequences. Story wise, I’ll admit, it was a little hard to stay invested the entire time, but I loved Sergio Stivaletti’s creature effects, and I really appreciated the sometimes subtle and sometimes startling approach the movie took to demonic possession. There’s just a number of really nice touches in how peculiar the characters act when it’s apparent some kind of demonic force is acting on them, a similar kind of peculiarity that I appreciated in The Church (1989) from Michele Soavi, who also stars in this.

Like many other unofficial entries after Demons 2 (1986), this film is not officially a Demons film, but I’ve always thought of it as Demons 5, so that’s what I’ve decided to call it here. 

In the lineup of Demons movies, official or not, this one is the ice level. Set in what I’m assuming to be the Italian alps in Northern Italy, a group of pro skiers are dropped off from a helicopter to beguile us with their ski moves, stylishly making their way down a long slope (the intro skiing scene reminds me of those extreme Juicy Fruit commercials from the ‘80s but with more ominous music by Simon Boswell). No one notices the crevasse slowly opening to swallow them, as the ski action is eventually halted by everyone falling in to a fissure, one after the other, like lemmings. They find themselves trapped in a sort of icy Mephistophelian rabbit hole, plagued by the evil spirit of a witch named Anibas (Eva Grimaldi).

The stage is set when one of them pulls a spiked mask off of a frozen corpse: the centuries old preserved body of an executed witch (one of several slick references Lamberto makes in this film to his father’s Black Sunday (1960)). A curse is unsealed resulting in an underground avalanche that kills one of them and forces the rest to flee and stumble upon an ancient looking underground church/monastery that leads outside to a seemingly empty snowy village. They run into a hostile dog and a blind reclusive priest (the only person there), played by Stanko Molnar (seeing Stanko Molnar, who I fondly remembered playing another blind character from Bava Jr.’sMacabro(1980), was the first of several surprises). From here on out, it’s a glorious mess of peculiar demonic possession, hyper-hedonism, and memorable horror sequences, not to mention a BDSM exorcism and what feels like a love story between man and demoness.

The characters in this film seemed a little on the one-dimensional side at first until the actors had more of a chance to shine with the possessed side of the characters. They become more cartoonish with interchanging shifts in behavior that’s a lot more fun and even kind of menacing to the viewer at times. I can’t help thinking most of the cast had a blast in this, acting like evil children.

The peculiar duality of the possessed in this film is illustrated remarkably in a brief moment when one of the characters, Nora (Laura Devoti), is by herself and scared, calling out to her boyfriend Andrea (Ron Williams), while travelling down a dark passage (pretty typical at first). But when she briefly pushes her hair back with one hand and mischievously grins into the camera before reverting back into her timid, frightened state, it was like her inner femme fatale came out for just a second before hiding away again. Perhaps the characters are not being possessed by demons, but rather the witch’s curse is causing them to get more in touch with their dark sides. I’m not sure why, but moments like this, and several others, make me feel that, while the story is so-so, the movie is composed of so many unique parts, like a treasure chest of special horror sequences.

One of my favorite horror sequences that might be a little overdrawn is the set piece involving the demonic chain around the confessional booth, where they try to overpower the priest inside. The filmic magic is in how the actors lose themselves to the possessed counterparts of their characters and the roaming camera that travels around, and around, the confessional booth in a kind of unison, with the characters swaying and convulsing as they hold hands in a spiritual chain while chanting “Anibas.” It’s technically impressive, spine chilling, and, yes, maybe even kind of cringe with how long the scene runs, but this was when I first realized that I was really loving this movie. Honestly, I could watch this sequence forever. It’s hypnotizing, but it ends up shattered when the priest’s dog comes to the rescue and breaks the trance the movie kind of puts you in here.

Stanko Molnar returns to play another blind character for Lamberto Bava. He’s an enigmatic, nameless priest who seems to exist as a failsafe in case the witch ever tries to come back. He’s the only person in this realm aside from the trapped skiers who he kindly takes in to his church, a setting that makes up a large portion of the movie. It makes for a suitably dark and creepy set that the filmmakers get a lot of use out of, particularly an epic religious alter with celestial lighting, fog, and icy wind. Molnar’s priest character is quite an innovative exorcist in that his methods include stuffing frozen holy water in to the mouths of the possessed (I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before).

So, while most of the trapped skiers are losing their minds to the unseen influence that makes them act like mischievous, giggling imps, the lead Davide (Giovanni Guidelli) seems to be immune to the personality changing influence of the witch’s curse. This is perhaps because the witch Anibas seems to want to get close to him through his girlfriend Sabina (Debora Caprioglio) (both of whose names hopefully end up tickling Nilbog fans a little). It might also be because Davide is the only one who is legitimately kind, without a dark side for the witch to exploit, so she instead attacks him through his love. Sabina, claiming that it could be their last chance, wants to get away from everyone so she and Davide can make love in a barn outside of the church. This is where the witch really fucks with him, causing Sabina to transform into this really cool looking monster in the middle of their lovemaking, much to Davide’s eventual horror.

The buildup goes full melodramatic tragic love story that feels like a good stage play but also drags a bit, with Davide being driven slightly mad due to this perceived ambiguity between Sabina and Anibas that’s also disorienting to the narrative. Davide ends up conflicted in a heartbroken way, in that he sees his girlfriend Sabina but also knows that she could also be the evil Witch Anibas. He’s not sure if she’s the woman he loves or a monster he has to destroy. Can he save her, or will he have to destroy her to end the curse?

Given some of the film’s Evil Dead influences and the way Davide goes over the top, gets splattered in the face with demonic body fluids, and becomes a demon killer of sorts with a torn-up shirt towards the end, I have to admit that I was starting to see Davide, a little, as the Italian Ash. 

I admit to underestimating Demons 5 going in. It exceeded my expectations and entertained and impressed me more than I thought it would. It does have plenty of campy B-grade horror elements, but there are a number of cool freak-out, disturbing, and scary sequences; the part where the figures in the church paintings come alive and emerge mirrors a childhood nightmare of mine. It felt like an interesting evolution of ‘80s Italian horror that I fear not enough fans have seen. Anyone who’s been sleeping on this one might be pleasantly surprised by it. 

© At the Mansion of Madness

 

A movie called Nude for Satanalready sounds pretty good without even knowing the plot. The notion of satanic panic combined with Italian exploitation resulted in an impulse buy for me. When I looked the DVD case over, I was like, “yes, please!” Plus, it’s from the same director, Luigi Batzella, of The Devil’s Wedding Night(1973) and The Beast in Heat (1977). And, it stars one of the most amazing Italian scream queens, Rita Calderoni. There’s lots of promise here. 

If you are watching the Dutch Sodemented DVD version of this film, there will be porn, as in hardcore inserts of other actors and body-doubles legitimately bumping uglies. If you think that will take you out of the movie, I would recommend one of the DVDs released by Redemption instead, or check it out on Redemption TV.

On the surface, Nude for Satan seems like a pretty low effort movie, but despite a certain cheap feeling I got from it, there’s also something authentic and ominous about it. The atmosphere and the spooky synth soundtrack, by Alberto Baldan Bembo, creeped me out, and the film did tend to grab me at times, particularly in the way it purposefully disorients you by playing with night and day perception. Even though I can’t really praise it for having the most spectacular set designs, being a fan of this medium, I did feel at home. It’s a flawed comfort movie. 

There are a few instances where ‘70s movie magic happens, such as the gluttonous dance and orgy ritual scene (complete with fog and slow-motion editing) looked over by Satan (James Harris), which, by the way, seemed pretty harmless to me.

 

Satan in this reminds me of the perilous love interest figure that’s usually found in the Satanic ‘70s pulp gothic romance novels (the ones with the beautiful covers) that the female lead usually can’t help being drawn to against her better judgement. Here, Satan embodies the caped Dracula motif but isn’t really all that menacing and is mostly a philosophy spouting romantic with unclear motives. I guess the idea is that he has deceptive charm. Now, Satan’s butler (Renato Lupi) on the other hand is a menacing creep. He’s how I imagined Saint Fond, from Marquis de Sade’s Juliette (1797), looked. Saint Fond is quite possibly the evilest character I’ve ever come across in a book, so it seems fitting to me he would be Satan’s butler.

The opening scene of a nude Rita Calderoni running through thunder and the foggy, moonlit woods, in dreamy slow motion, with her open nightgown flowing in the wind, is purely the right ascetic for this film and perfectly sets the tone. It works more like an overture to a passion opera. 

While en route on an emergency call to a stormy and sleepy village late one night, Dr. William Benton (Stelio Candellifrom Demons (1985)) swerves his white Volkswagen off the road to avoid a ghostly figure of a woman (Calderoni) that’s suddenly appeared in front of him. She vanishes, and as William is investigating, another car comes screeching along and crashes. William finds an unconscious woman, Susan, (Calderoniagain) with her body hanging out of the crashed vehicle. He carries her into his car, where she comes to. They have a brief exchange before she falls unconscious again. William dramatically grabs his gun and heads out to get help. He comes across a strange man (Harris), who’s obviously notthe Devil. He points William to the direction of a castle that just happens to be a few yards away where he might be able to find help. From here, the story, expectedly, transitions into to that familiar, cozy ‘closed circle’ setting, which involves a small cast of characters isolated in Satan’s surreal castle.

The two lead characters, William and Susan, have walked into a scenario seemingly orchestrated by the devil, in a somewhat similar vein as Mario Bava’sLisa and the Devil (1973). Not as good, obviously, but it still gets the job done for me personally. 

Two lustful ghosts, Peter and Evelyn, haunt the castle. They are also played by Candelli and Calderoni as they represent the shadow versions of William and Susan. They appear to come from a different era and are lost lovers looking for one another, but instead they find the living modern light counter parts of their lost lovers. It starts to become apparent that these ghost lovers act as a distraction to trap William and Susan in Satan’s lair, which has this magical feeling of existing outside of time, where present and past have no distinction. It’s a comforting dream, like being on a paradisical deserted island with your lover but with an underlying feeling that something sinister has trapped you in a romanticized past. It’s all very beautiful, unnerving, cozy and perilous at the same time.

When she falls asleep in the castle, instead of your typical nightmares, Susan dreams of making love with the castle’s servant girl (Iolanda Mascitti) while engulfed in white transparent fabrics set to this hypnotizing theme that sounds like feminine ghost vocals. This love scene is a kind of relaxing extended interlude before the action starts to ramp up a bit.

Shortly after Susan awakens from her erotic dream, she snoops around the castle to discover the butler engaging in quite brutal bondage with the servant girl, who also apparently has visions of meeting with the demon Astaroth (who’s also Satan’s rival) after drinking from Satan’s really big chalice (great acting from Mascitti here). Susan flees this visual in terror only to fall down a deep pit and land on a spider’s web. The film seems to be going for a terrifying scene here, but it involves an obvious looking papier mâché spider that many viewers might have a hard time getting over. I personally thought that this spider attack might have been a throwaway scene if it weren’t for Rita Calderoni’s strong response to the spider. She manages to sell her terror with her screams and overall committed performance. Rita makes it work with the way she can act out fits of hysteria that I also recall fondly from her previous work in Renato Polsellifilms. Apparently, Batzella wanted Rita for this film because he was impressed after seeing her in Polselli’sThe Reincarnation of Isabel (1973).

While Susan is caught in the spider’s web, she cries out for William, who can hear her screams from another part of the castle. He’s in bed with Evelyn (thinking she’s Susan, who’s gone crazy from the car accident). I like the way he can hear Susan crying his name while also looking into Evelyn’s face, finally realizing she’s not really Susan. I thought this was a pretty chilling moment.

I do like thetwo lead actors' dual roles in this film. Candelliis able to play it straight faced as Doctor William Benton while also chewing the scenery as Peter, his shadow self, too. I’m not too sure what the movie might be trying to say about human duality, (perhaps overcoming your dark side?) but it does provide the opportunity to cast the lead actors in light and dark roles that, although familiar, gives us the chance to enjoy the actors going for two different personalities in the same film. There is something fun about that.

Rita Calderoni is a marvelous co-lead character with facial expressions that are always en pointe for every situation. Her spirited performance is high-energy and pretty much makes the horror aspect of the film work. She acts the hell out of the final act, with one open breast in the wild that’s a reprise of a look she rocked in The Reincarnation of Isabel. 

Nude for Satan is cheesy goodness that both hits the spot and unnerves me a little with its cheap and dark content. I didn’t think it had the greatest stage sets, but it still benefits from the Castle interior and grounds of the eleventh century Monte San Giovanni Campano Castle. Some of the daytime scenes on the castle grounds just look magnificent and surreal since they purposefully pop up abruptly sometimes when it seems like it was supposed to be the middle of the night.

There’s certainly better among the Satanic Eurocult oddities from the ‘70s, such as The Devil’s Nightmare (1971), Curse of the Devil (1973), and Satan’s Blood (1978), but Nude for Satan is still such an unusual and curious find that does have its moments. It’s special to me personally, because it was one of the first times that I felt I was really going off the deep end when it comes to Italian horror.  

Nude for Satan does live up to its title in a number of ways, yet it doesn’t quite gel as a great film nor does it stand up to similar movies like Lisa and the Devil or even Batzella’sown The Devil’s Wedding Night, but I hope there’s still enough love left for Nude for Satan these days. Here’s to a Blu. 

© At the Mansion of Madness

 

The reasons for why a patchwork movie like Justine and the Whip exists aren’t clear. Some have said that it was because D’Amatowas salvaging an unfinished film from Franco that was originally intended to be another version of De Sade’sJustine. But I read in Stephen Thrower’sThe Delirious Cinema of Jesus Franco: Volume Twothat the original film was called Julietta 69 and was completed and actually had a 1976 French cinema release before becoming inaccessible. It’s speculated that Jess Franco sold Julietta 69 to an Italian production company, and D’Amato and Mattei were eventually commissioned by Franco Gaudenzi to make the mashup Justine and the Whip. Thrower also points out that D’Amato claimed in an interview from Joe D'Amato Totally Uncut (1999) that they were trying to make Franco’s films more “usable”, but the result here is an incoherent mess that seems quite unusable, at least by comparison to what the completed Julietta 69 must have been like. Maybe by “usable” D’Amato meant more commercially appealing for the time by possibly increasing the number and frequency of love scenes in the film.

Before I heard of Justine and the Whip, I was already a fan of two of the original films, so normally I would frown on a production company taking liberties with an artist’s work like this. But this is just such an interesting curiosity, as its fabrication was supervised by another favorite filmmaker of mine (D’Amato), most of the original music is replaced by a nice selection of familiar Nico Fidenco tracks that were used in the Black Emanuelle films with Laura Gemser, it features a hefty amount of footage from a highly elusive JessFranco film (Julietta 69), the title suggests a Marquis de Sade connection, and most bizarre of all, the ‘70s erotic queen Alice Arno is not even in the movie, despite receiving top-billing. So much to unpack here…

The footage that was used to assemble Justine and the Whip came from Shining Sex (1976), Midnight Party (1976), and the virtually unseen Julietta 69 (all three films star Lina Romayin the lead role). Shining Sex is like a glittery Sci-Fi version of Female Vampire (1973), and Midnight Party is a masterpiece and one of Lina Romay’s most nuanced performances. So, it’s pretty bold to just disregard these individual films and try and give them new identity as another film altogether.

It is hard to buy in to and become invested in Justine and the Whip, but my initial interest in the film was for the chance to at least see some of Julietta 69. After seeing it, I appreciate the film for being an interesting revisit of the previous films from an alternate perspective and with new music. Plus, the rare Julietta 69 footage is worthwhile. Julietta 69 did contain some captivating and quite alarming scenes of Lina in an erotic performance using a gun like a sex toy that gives some context to the flashbacks that make up a lot of the film. These gun scenes are also an intriguing addition for anyone who thinks they may have seen it all when it comes to Lina Romay.

In this sort of, but not really, adaptation to Marquis de Sade’sJustine, it is mostly Lina Romay’s show. Her character has more in common with Emmanuelle than De Sade’s perpetual victim, but tragedy is brewing nonetheless. Be prepared to spend nearly the entirety of the film in Romay’slovely company. As is usually the case, the sincerity and commitment in Jess Franco’s voyeuristic direction results in a constant intimate connection to Lina on a deep erotic level. Whether she has seduced and dominated another lover or is in despair, there’s never a dull action, position, pose, or expression in her performance. There is also a diverse collection of love scenes, including lesbian, S&M, menage a trois, and a real odd one involving death.

I was well aware of the Fidenco music used in this film from the Black Emanuelle films. Normally, I wouldn’t think these songs belonged anywhere but in their respective Emanuelle films, but I think it works here. I usually find myself swaying when the familiar NicoFidenco tracks kick in. I think this music was just meant for lovemaking in the ‘70s. They do lend a different but still suitable vibe to Jess Franco’s world. And even in the Emanuelle films, I always thought the music really captured the miracle of love and the inimitable sex act.

There is the problem of Justine and the Whip coming off so obviously as a mashup of different films, which adds to its incoherency, but I feel like anyone seeking this film nowadays already knows this going in. The flow of the film is generally made up of a long series of sexual encounters, with a lot going on in-between, and a good deal of voice-over from Justine, primarily reflecting on her complicated/open relationship to a sensitive musician named Chris (Alain Petit). She loves him, but she can’t stay away from other men and women who she encounters at parties or at the night club she and Chris perform at. I wanted to think of Chris as a sadomasochist, but when he takes to using the whip, he’s usually in a religious frenzy, getting emotional, like he’s trying to cast out demons rather than getting kinky. Justine eventually wields the whip late in the movie and shows us how it’s really done.

Now, unfortunately I struggle with following the story. I know the story is there, and there is a lot of subtitled dialogue that I still like to think enriches my mind upon each viewing. I do understand that it is an erotic tragedy, leading up to a moment I was anticipating, but the movie is just more of a vibe to relax to, especially if Jess Franco, Lina Romay, and groovy music are your cup of tea. It's just something you float through, taking in the sights and sounds. The story ends up passing through me even though I’m still absorbing and processing the good vibes and emotions. All of the footage is just gorgeous, dreamlike, and a good condensed collage of mid-‘70s Francoin good form.

It is individual segments of Justine and the Whip that are great but not necessarily the film as a whole. This is understandable since there’s only so much you can do when limited to crafting an exploitation piece of art using footage from only three separate unrelated films. If anything, it inspired me to revisit Shining Sex and Midnight Party, mainly to remember what they were like and to see what footage from those films were not in Justine and the Whip. If you have an interest in seeing different versions of films, then with this one you at least get three different versions in one. 

© At the Mansion of Madness

 

When Satan comes to town, he sets his sights on the biggest catch in The Devil’s Lover, or my personal favorite alternate title Lucifera: Demonlover. 

I don’t know why, but it’s taken me many years to revisit this Italian gothic horror. The last time I watched it was in 2009 when I picked up the pan-and-scan Mya DVD. Despite the poor picture quality, I was happy to have it, as I probably wouldn’t have ended up knowing about it otherwise, but I am surprised the film never had an upgrade since. As far as I can tell, the only way to see it in 2022 is still as a censored and murky full screen film. 

Even though it was restrained, my fondest memory of this film was the grand love scene between a nude Rosalba Neri and a clothed, caped Devil figure, played by Edmund Purdom. I was in awe at the visual of Rosalba’s sideways lying profile figure that was partially shrouded by the devil’s cape as he embraced her. It certainly has the same kind of energy as the classic reclining nude paintings, such as La Grande Odalisque by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres(1814) or The Rokeby Venus (1647-1651) by Diego Velázquez.

A colorful looking ‘70s gothic horror like The Devil’s Lover is an easy sell given the look, title, poster art, and cast of the film, but the film itself does feel incomplete and amateurish. It tries to deliver the goods, but it’s usually not enough. For me personally, it contains everything I usually want, but it doesn’t go as hard with it as I’d like. Just as it starts to show promise, it usually pulls back. This might have something to do with the censorship the film was subject to. Despite this, it still has its moments as well as a few nice touches and a fun playfulness at times. It checks off most of the gothic Eurohorror boxes, so it is a comfort film for me. The film’s also of note for featuring Italian movie goddess Rosalba Neri in a double lead role of sorts. Fortunately, Rosalbadoesn’t disappoint and her heart seems to be in it. She does deserve better and has certainly been in better, but she’s a delightful and evocative presence that does make this movie more noteworthy than it otherwise would’ve been. We’ve also got Edmund Purdom as a lustful devil figure with some seriously formidable sword dueling skills. These kind of romantic but perilous Satan characters were a thing in the late ’60, early 70s, especially as a substitute for the love interest in gothic romance novels.

The mood and setting do get your attention at the start. Young, beautiful, and chic women vs. a creepy antique castle, it’s definitely what we’re here to see, but it does take an unexpected yet interesting turn as a flashback story. 

Rosalba Neri and her two other gorgeous lady friends make for a lovely entrance onto the grounds of a castle (the Castello Ruspoli). They are crashing this castle because they heard it belonged to the devil and are looking to debunk this legend by staying the night. Seems reasonable enough.

They find a hospitable intendant who treats them to an atmospheric candlelit dinner. After being spooked at dinner, Rosalba (her present-day character isn’t named, so I’m calling her Rosalba) retires to her room and slips into a gothic night gown for bed. Later that night, she explores the castle halls with candelabrum in hand before being startled by an old portrait of a woman in flames, who Rosalba believes is herself. The castle seems to menace her at this point, causing her to pass out and awaken in the Middle Ages, into a kind of dream that’s taken possession of her, as the movie makes an abrupt tone-change here, transitioning in to a period piece that actually makes up the bulk of the film. That’s right, we’re not coming back to the castle for a long time.

Despite being bewildered at first, she becomes the soon-to-be-married virgin Helga from a small (German, judging by the names of the characters) village. What’s interesting is that in the present Rosalba has fallen into a dream to now become her counterpart from centuries prior, who is waking up from a dream in a sunny open field (that surreal and disorienting shift from a night to a day perspective always gets me). As Helga, she is a maiden engaged to a man named Hans (Ferdinando Poggi). There’s also a mystery fellow in a red hood that sometimes shows up in the background to disturb the otherwise idyllic scenario.

I was intrigued to see that Robert Woods, who I know from several Jess Franco films, is on hand as Helmut, a sword dueling romantic in tights. Helmut loves and pursues a woman named Magda (Maria Teresa Pingitore), who is instead in love with Hans, but Hans loves his bride-to-be, Helga. This love square is the central conflict for a while, so we do get a little in to soap opera territory for a time before the more fantastical elements come forward again to put the film on its path to a promised “grand guignol” finale. 

The more fantasy and sinister side of the plot is set forth when Helga learns of the superstitious belief from her mother that if any other man were to see Helga’s wedding dress before the future husband, the marriage would be cursed with the evil eye. And of course, shortly after, the mysterious man in the crimson hood sees Helga’s dress while peering into the window, cursing the wedding dress for certain. The bad vibes need to be lifted, so Helga seeks a witch in the woods to cleanse her contaminated wedding dress. The outcome to this solution is unsavory but still entertaining since it somehow leads to a ritualistic cave orgy scene with witches and vampires that passes faster than I would’ve liked.

Helga seems to become more enchanted by the curse, ending up in an apathetic state during the pre-wedding celebration after the red hooded man eventually reveals himself to be a handsome Dracula looking gentleman named Gunther (Purdom), who Helga seems to have an attraction to despite her better judgement. What’s a girl to do when the devil is after your virginity? I do like the cutaway effect before she first meets him, where Helga’s vampirized friends accost her only as a means to magically whisp her away to his lair, an old desecrated church, where he can introduce himself and incite her to ambivalent temptation and plant in her an unhealthy obsession for him. In other words, put her under his spell.

The Devil’s Lover is a winner in style but falls short in execution. An affair with the prince of darkness himself is a neat idea that really works for this kind of movie, but alas the chemistry between Neri and Purdom is superficial at best, which I don’t think is the actors’ faults. The story just doesn’t really give them enough time to be around each other enough to generate much chemistry. She met him once and is ready to forget her marriage and do his bidding to prove that her love for him is real. It’s a spell, so it requires some suspension of disbelief. Their more intimate encounter towards the end is more or less a set piece/spectacle that I thought was still the most memorable part. 

The music from Elvio Monti isn’t bad and is as low budget sounding as the film itself. I personally like it, as it has a charming kitschy quality to it as well as a folk sound at times that works well for the flashback setting. It doesn’t really quite save the film, but the cheap, almost stock sounding, music does weirdly complement the overall cheapness of the film. There's a story teller jester who enters a scene by dancing down the road while playing the film's recognizable main theme on the flute, so it convinces me the music was composed for this film and is not stock music. 

The medieval flashback setting has all of the production value of a backyard Renaissance Faire, but for viewers in the right mindset this is one of the film’s charms. The sword fighting choreography isn’t bad, but unfortunately, the special effects are very minimal (perhaps another casualty of censorship?), and the vampires are on screen for only a few seconds, but as a supernatural period-piece with exploitation trappings, there’s still some fun to be had for patient fans of satanic Eurohorror and Rosalba Neri. However, the fun parts are short and tend to underdeliver. 

Like I was saying earlier though, this one’s easy to package and sell but also difficult to recommend. 

© At the Mansion of Madness

 

Carlos Auredoriginally knew Paul Naschy from working as assistant director for Leon Klimovsky. Aured would be hired on to direct Naschy in Horror Rises from the Tomb (1973). They would collaborate in the ‘70s on three more films, with Naschy starring and Aured directing: Curse of the Devil (1973), Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll, and The Mummy’s Revenge (1975). 

Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll was pivotal in my becoming a Paul Naschy fan. It was the second Paul Naschy film I had ever seen. My initial interest in it being that it looked and sounded like a giallo, and I certainly wanted it for my giallo collection that at the time was just starting to grow beyond Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci. I had also remembered Paul Naschy from a previous film I saw as a teenager, the aforementioned Horror Rises from the Tomb, which at the time disappointed me, so I was feeling slightly dubious. After watching Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll, I had a much better time with it, and I loved Naschy’scharacter in the film, Gilles, which resulted in my eventually collecting many more Paul Naschy movies and becoming an ardent fan of his. Plus, I would end up realizing a new love and fondness for Horror Rises from the Tomb as well.

 

Some refer to Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll as a Spanish giallo, while others feel it isn’t really a giallo but more of a Spanish thriller. I personally feel it is fair to call it a Spanish giallo that’s more rustic and low-key in comparison to the more chic and stylized Italian giallo like Blood and Black Lace (1964) and The Case of The Bloody Iris (1972). I like to think the film is a part of Paul Naschy’s own Spanish giallo trilogy that he wrote and starred in: the Sitges Festival award-winning Seven Murders for Scotland Yard (1972), Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll, and A Dragonfly for Each Corpse (1975). For me, they all succeed as great gialli, but Blue Eyes resembles and feels more like the kind of Paul Naschyhorror/thriller film that I am more attached to. This usually includes an isolated setting in a time-frozen country mansion, Naschy as an ostracized but still sympathetic and relatable romantic character with a repressed monster side, and a cast of beautiful potential love interests, of which one or more will likely make their way in to bed with him. It fits alongside other Naschyfilms with similar themes such as The Werewolf Versus the Vampire Woman(1971), Vengeance of the Zombies (1973), Count Dracula’s Great Love(1973), and Human Beasts (1980). Most of these Naschy films include a familiar (and even iconic to ‘70s Spanish horror fans) old Victorian-looking country mansion, which was used in quite a few Spanish horror films of the era, including Amando de Ossorio’sThe Loreley’s Grasp (1973), Night of the Walking Dead (1975), and The People Who Own the Dark (1976). I’ve always liked to call it ‘The Spanish House of Usher’. I read in an article by Mirek Lipinski that was included with the Deimos Entertainment release of Blue Eyes that this mansion was eighteen miles outside of Madrid but sadly, in true House of Usher fashion, no longer stands today.

 

When I was listening to the DVD commentary for this film with Paul Naschy and Carlos Aured, I was intrigued by the two different interpretations to the isolated, closed setting of the country house in the film. Naschy felt that Aured liked to create a real claustrophobic world in his films, but Aured intervened, claiming that he was more of an agoraphobic and that he found the closed setting to be comforting. I have always personally enjoyed the comfort of this kind of setting, so maybe I may be a bit of an agoraphobic myself, but I certainly can see how the film works as a claustrophobic setting as well. I also love the setting in this film as its own sort of art spectacle, as is nicely illustrated when Nurse Michelle (Inés Morales) is making her long walk up the trail to the house, as we see it, up on the hill, all by its lonesome, in the distance. This is just poetry to me and certainly inspired the header to this blog.

  

Blue Eyes succeeds at being an unpredictable murder mystery with quite a memorable setting. Naschy is Gilles (one of Naschy’s references to Gilles de Rais), a rugged, lonely drifter, somewhere in Northern France, who stops at a bar to spend what looks to be his last few francs on a cheese sandwich and a glass of wine (that he virtually wastes). He unsuccessfully asks the bartender, Caroline (the late Pilar Bardem – Javier Bardem’s mother), about potential work before heading back out on the road. By chance, he is picked up late at night by an intriguing woman with a burned arm and an orthopedic hand, Claude (Diana Lorys), and offered a live-in job as a helper and groundskeeper at her isolated villa where she lives with her two beautiful sisters, Nicole (Eva León) and Ivette (Maria Perschy). Ivette suffers from some kind of psychosomatic paralysis and is taken care of by a home nurse, Michelle, and is routinely seen by Dr. Phillipe (Eduardo Calvo). The other sister, Nicole, is the young, hard-to-contain type who takes an immediate interest in Gilles, later visiting him in bed for some night time fun, much to the dismay of Claude. She doesn’t fire Gilles for this because she likely has harbored feelings for him, hinted at by the tension between them. Gilles has a smooth way of making Claude feel desirable despite her hand mutilation, which otherwise causes her to feel undesirable.

On the DVD commentary, Paul Naschy did mention, several times, Gilles having a fetishistic attraction to Claude’s orthopedic hand. Though, when I first watched it, I didn’t really interpret it this way but rather as Gilles thinking she’s being silly to think that a hand mutilation could deter him from being attracted to such a magnificent woman. The moment he kisses her and then her orthopedic hand, to me, it’s like he’s telling her I love and desire you the way you are; no need to be self-conscientious anymore when you’re with me. 

Despite getting hot and heavy at one point, Gilles and Nicole purposefully seem to lack chemistry, whereas there is a warm and romantic connection that develops between Gilles and Claude that I fondly remember the movie by.

 

Meanwhile, an unseen killer is murdering women with blond hair and blue eyes in the village to the tune of Frère Jacques. Given Gilles’ implied repressed sadistic desire towards women and the revelation that he’s actually an ex-con, and that the murders started after his arrival, it is easy to assume that he could be the murderer. The police inspector Pierre (Antonio Pica) (who’s usually near a louched glass of absinthe at the film’s bar) certainly thinks Gilles is the killer after he finds out about Gilles’ past. It leads up to a satisfying conclusion that’s farfetched but not terribly confusing.

Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll is a subtle and quite basic murder mystery. Although the first stalk-and-slash murder isn’t until nearly halfway in to the film. The killer quickly murders their victims with a hatchet and takes their eyes and drops them into a preserving solution of some kind. These murders don’t necessarily feel like the main focus, as there’s also a good story involving Naschy’scharacter, the red-herring who doesn’t preoccupy himself with solving the murders. Most of the viewer interest centers on him and the intriguing but still at times jarring situation he is in. He just wants to move on and find happiness, but his past catches up to him, because society never forgets.

I initially thought that Naschy was going to play some kind of sadist with a fixation on blue eyes, which is not quite the case. Fortunately, Gilles turned out to be a lot more nuanced and interesting, written and played by Naschyfrom the heart. Naschy realizes that no one is entirely good and wrote the ostracized Gilles as an antihero that, despite his unescapable evil past, does have a good measure of audience interest and sympathy. 

It’s a bit confounding when the police come to question Gilles; he initially assumes they are coming after him to take him back to prison, so he grabs his hidden gun and ammo and literally heads for the hills. When they catch up to him, without any real prompting, the police start shooting at him. It’s likely an excuse to have all guns blazing with a good old fashioned gun fight. Naschy stated that the intention was to portray Gilles hunted like an animal or a monster, no trial, no questions, with the police coalition resembling the classic angry mob coming for the “monster.”

 

I know it was done in a traditional manner, but the film does contain a harsh scene where a pig is legitimately killed by being drained of blood at the neck. I saw it once, but I skip past the scene on rewatches, as it was too much of a downer for me. 

Of note is the stellar jazzy score from Juan Carlos Calderón (Eres tú) that also includes surprisingly effective uses of the nursery rhyme Frère Jacques, my favorite being the grand closeout arrangement that helps end things on a real emotional note. Paul Naschy said that even at a young age he found something unnerving about Frère Jacques and thought to include the theme as the killer’s leitmotif. It was also used with real doomful portent in A Bell from Hell (1973).

Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll has a little something for the giallo and Paul Naschy fan and doesn’t disappoint on either front; plus, we get some great personalized Paul Naschy romance and tragedy that characterizes many of his films. Despite a few absurdities the story is quite solid. I’ve always loved and fondly remembered the closing scene that’s kind of demented and heartfelt at the same time. It manages to satisfy without being all that shocking. 

Like I said, it’s not the first Paul Naschyfilm I saw, but it was the first film to turn me on to Naschy, where afterwards much more DVD, and sometimes DVD-R, collecting ensued. Exploring Naschy on the internet would eventually be the main reason I got into writing about movies as well. So, in its own way (and I’m just realizing this) this movie was a partial life shaper of sorts for me. 

© At the Mansion of Madness 

 

“Only Marquis’ literature can give me a taste for living.” –Justine (Isabelle Wolfe) 

Marquis is quite the creation. I never knew of its existence until recently. It’s a little like the movie Quills(2000) but with anthropomorphic characters who look like they’ve escaped from Alice in Wonderland. It is set in 1789, shortly before the Storming of the Bastille, in Paris France. The lead character (Francois Marthouret) is an inmate of the Bastille, who is referred to as Marquis and is a talented writer of erotic, violent, and depraved manuscripts. He is not necessarily alone, for his sizeable member who goes by Colin (Valerie Kling) is his close companion, consultant, and conversationalist. In between writing various pieces of salacious stories, Marquis finds himself participating in a ploy to help free a political prisoner, Lupino (Roger Crouzet), for the sake of the Revolution. Another imprisoned woman, Justine (Isabelle Wolfe), who was raped and impregnated by the king, is eventually thrown into the same cell as the Marquis, as a corrupt priest,Dom Pompero (Vicky Messica), intends to divert the blame on to him and cover up the king’s misdeed, but Justine instead finds the Marquis to be a gentleman and an enthralling storyteller. 

 

I’d never thought I’d be writing about a French/Belgian animal costume comedy depicting a fictional (although historically inspired) account of the Marquis de Sade, with numerous characters portrayed by different types of peculiar looking animals (that were originally designed by Roland Topor). This is one of those “why does it even exist?” sort of things, but I’m glad it does. It really is funny at times and quite brilliant. The background setting of the Bastille is depressing and the human animal characters give me the creeps, but there is something beautiful about it as well, especially the classical intro theme by Reinhardt Wagner with its soprano vocals. It also has the charm of a well-done costume play that would’ve gotten my attention as a kid, even though, as the poster says, this is for mature audiences only.

Director and co-writer Henri Xhonneux and co-writer Roland Topor seem to express a fitting knowledge and appreciation for the writings and life of the Marquis de Sade in the film. The character representing Sade is respectfully presented as a talented and inspirational writer who is locked up for committing blasphemies (as an anthropomorph, he reminds me of a cocker spaniel). Interestingly, he is never referred to as Marquis de Sade, but rather simply as Marquis, with the name Sade being used anonymously by the priest, who steals and profits financially and socially from the manuscripts Marquis pens during his imprisonment. 

The film paints the Marquis as quite the kind and mild-mannered man, a “good guy” in the story (no mad sadistic side in sight). The depravity and debauchery that characterizes Sade’s writing instead surround him. The authorities and religious leaders are corrupt hypocrites who are persecuting someone who only writes about what they practice. I like the idea of the Marquis as not evil in person but rather someone who understood evil, corruption, and debauchery enough to accurately put it to paper, being witness to the most depraved and hypocritical of leaders, rulers, and priests.

 

One of the more peculiar draws here is the character of Colin, the Marquis’ fairly large sexual appendage, an adorable puppet protruding from his pants. Colin is Marquis’ friend and confidant, who he nonchalantly has conversations and civil arguments with, which is surreal and comical. He is someone Marquis debates with over writing inspiration or criticism. Colin’s face peers out from the foreskin, with the tip of his head made to resemble a brain (a source of erotic knowledge?). Colin, who Marquis consults with democratically, is also polite and soft-spoken. Marquis argues with Colin as to whether his inspiration mostly comes from his mind or the brain of his member, who speaks to him so lightly and delicately, which is funny because, knowing Marquis de Sade, I’d assume it was rather passionately and violently. Colin is fitted with a wig at one point and made to perform on a miniature stage Marquis constructed, and it’s honestly the cutest thing you’ll ever see.

 

My favorite books from deSade are Justine(1791) and Juliette (1797), the titles of which are also the names of two other significant characters in the film. They’re not presented as sisters, as in the books, but I do like the take on the characters here. The woeful Justine is portrayed as a cow, who is apparently thrown in prison to coverup that she is pregnant with the king’s child. I was surprised at the chemistry the Marquis and Justine have when she is locked in the same cell with him only to be regaled by his literature and to show such impressive ingenuity in helping to comfort and revive Colin. You really do eventually end up feeling sorry for the poor, unfortunate Justine. The noblewoman Juliette, portrayed as a horse, is a dominatrix and pro-revolutionary seducing and playing the rooster governor of the Bastille, Gaetan de Preaubois (Rene Lebrun), as a ruse for the Revolution.

 

Marquis is a weirdly fun time and a nice way to get your deSade movie fix, especially if you are a fan of the movie Quills. It’s also not really that sadistic or depraved, but it is still quite fitting for fans of Sade’s writing. Anyone interested in a cartoony, albeit adult, story set during the French Revolution might find enjoyment as well. It’s mostly live action, but there are some neat Claymation segments, particularly the story scenes from Marquis' writings as well as hallucinations and a particular Burton-esque dream he has. The animatronic animal masks and costumes, realized by Jacques Gastineau, really aren’t bad at all. My mind was tricked into believing the characters were talking animals without thinking so much about the human actors underneath.

 

It’s fairly obvious that de Sade is being romanticized here. Judging from the historical accounts of his unsavory crimes, it’s hard to imagine that the real de Sade was at all like the kind, mild-mannered Marquis from this film, but it could have been possible. It’s nice to sometimes imagine he might have been a misunderstood writer who understood vice and depravity, but I can’t help thinking he most likely was an entirely evil writer, who’s wicked philosophical writing could actually be considered dangerous.

Do not count me as a follower of Sade’sphilosophy, but as a reader of his works I do appreciate the unfiltered perspective of evil as it is innate to nature. From his writings, Sade reveals repeatedly the full potential for cruelty that we are capable of, something nature has embedded in our DNA, likely more for some than others. By being enthralled by Sade, we should not be promoting evil but learning to recognize and understand it, as well as finding some kind of curious relief and even entertainment. Just as when we want to see a balls-out horror movie that pulls no punches, we can also find an odd fulfillment from Sade’s text that reveals the cruel, twisted emotions and intentions a serial killer would have, but elaborated in such a coldly rational, captivating, and elegant way. There’s a certain kind of catharsis you can find by indulging in stuff you’re not supposed to think, read, or write, and Sade’s got us covered there. To reword a fantastic idea from John Waters, get the most out of life and read a fucked-up book. 

© At the Mansion of Madness

 

The trailer and the intro to the English edited version of Bloody Pit of Horror wants you to believe that the film is based on the writings of the Marquis de Sade. This is fair, since it is surprisingly sadistic at times, with a fair share of medieval dungeon torture devices, but it’s a lot more on the Fumetti Neri side, consciously so, as the characters in the film include a photography crew and a company of lovely cover girl models in an old castle shooting some violent and sexy material for a fumetti style photocomic book called Skeletrik. It is also influenced by the more sexually playful gothic Italian horror of the era, such as The Vampire and the Ballerina (1960), The Vampire and The Playgirls (1960), and The Monster of the Opera (1964), with an introduction bringing to mind Mario Bava’sBlack Sunday (1960). It was Massimo Pupillo’s second stab as director of a horror film, the first being Terror-Creatures from the Grave (1965) with Barbara Steele.

 

Despite displaying a knack for it, horror was not where Massimo Pupillo wanted to be. He started making horror movies so he could transition from making documentaries to making commercial films. To his disappointment, from his horror efforts, he ended up classified as a horror director in Italy. Concerned he wouldn’t be able to escape this label, Pupillogave up making horror films, which is really too bad, because the trio of horror films he did direct, which also included Lady Morgan’s Vengeance(1965), are quite interesting and notable. I always thought this small body of horror work from Pupillo would make a nice Blu-Ray boxset.

I feel like Bloody Pit of Horror is by no means obscure or even underappreciated, as it does seem to have a fan base who love it for many different reasons. It gets docked by some for cheap practical effects and minimal gore, but it is still interesting to note that the special effects are by the legendary Carlo Rambaldi (E.T., Alien, Deep Red, Tragic Ceremony, Barbarella, A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin, etc.) in the earlier phase of his career.

Over the years, Bloody Pit of Horror was a film I rarely went looking for, but it just kept finding me, first as an inclusion on one of those 50 movie bargain bin DVD collections, then later as a RiffTrax episode, next on a so-so DVD, and then finally as a beautiful looking uncut Blu-Ray from Severin. It feels like an old friend at this point who’s come a long way, and I’m happy to see it still thriving. The film itself was ballsy for its time, considering the torture spectacles in the last third of the film, but it also fits right in with the Italian gothic horror of its day while also offering a standout exuberant performance in Hargitay’s role as the Crimson Executioner. It’s easily rivalled by Antonio Margheriti’sThe Virgin of Nuremberg (1963) and Mario Bava’sBaron Blood(1972) in the medieval torture department, but this one has a higher level of energy, playfulness, and camp.

 

After the obligatory flashback intro to Bloody Pit of Horror, the setup with a sizeable group of about ten characters arriving to a castle (the famed Castello Piccolomini in Balsorano) in several vehicles almost feels like an Eastmancolor Italian counterpart to a similar setup at the start of the black & white House on Haunted Hill (1959). The movie doesn’t waste too much time populating the creepy old castle with a high volume of fun characters, such as models, assistants, a greedy business man (Alfredo Rizzo), a mild-mannered writer (Walter Brandi), striped t-shirted henchmen (Gino Turini and Roberto Messina), and a has-been actor going full misanthrope in his old castle to protect his ideals and, as he puts it, his “pure body” from the corruption of the outside world. It’s also supposedly haunted by the ghost of a 17th century executioner (the castle interiors were filmed at Palazzo Borghese in Artena).

The characters are sometimes annoying, sometimes likeable, but always fun, especially the lovely and comical models, who all seem to be having a good time while preparing and shooting a number of horror scenarios for the magazine using the castle dungeon as a photography set.

Kudos have to go to Femi Benussi, Luisa Baratto, and Rita Klein for really selling their anguish during the climactic torture scenes at the hands of the movie’s monster. A peplum actor turned dungeon sadist is just a marvelous concept, especially when he ends up looking like a mix between a wrestler and a super hero. He’s entertaining, flamboyant, and really cool, but he’s also a real dangerous prick who likes to hear himself talk, almost like a de Sadean libertine but maybe more clown-like here.

 

In addition to the antique castle ambiance, the supervillain killer, and the bevy of beauties, the torture set piece spectacles in the film are another draw. They consist of real and fictional torture devices that are not just all show, as some are put to surprisingly brutal use. Some are quite simple while others are overly elaborate, like the spider web with the mechanical spider, which is a great excuse to put a provocative woman (Moa Tahi) in spider web bondage that certainly is one of the film’s more memorable set pieces. (This scene and Hargitay’s costumed character seem to be used the most to sell the movie.) Even though it is referred to as a poisonous mechanical spider in the film, it is still quite laughable (in a fun way) though not quite as a laughable as the spider in Nude for Satan(1974).

 

Every time I hear the strange music by Gino Peguri (that’s a little reminiscent to that in The Devil’s Nightmare (1971)) over the castle visuals towards the start of the film, I’m immediately pulled into the film’s isolated world and am usually reminded of how much I like this film more than I thought.        

The camp is maintained throughout Bloody Pit of Horror, but the movie purposefully goes from playful and innocent to deadly with a terrifically high body count. I initially thought that the nature of the sadism was kind of distasteful and mean, but it’s theatrically entertaining, and I feel that everyone gives it their all. I do believe the film is self-aware of its camp value as well and is not meant to be taken seriously. It’s not like a, 'we tried so hard and failed,' but rather, 'we know this is kind of wacky and absurd, but we’re all having a fun time and hopefully the viewers are too.'

© At the Mansion of Madness

“I would like, as I said, for the lover’s place to be in the middle of the couple.” – Emmanuelle Arsan**    

Alberto Cavallone’s films are not fun. I can’t think of one I’ve seen that does not have a depressing ending. Whether or not they are entertaining might depend on the viewer’s mindset, but they are almost always enthralling in a way. You might think you’re being lured in for an erotically fun time, with films like Le salamandre (1969) and Blow Job (1980), or a film with a notorious reputation that precedes it like Blue Movie (1978), but that’s just to get you in front of the screen so the film can put a mirror in front of you, whether or not you realize it, and call you a colonizer or a degenerate (who Cavallone referred to as the “raincoat crowd”), crudely interrupting your titillation. Basically, if the film upsets or antagonizes you, then it was made for you. What’s fascinating is that the films nevertheless did well with the audiences Cavallone was hoping to annoy.  

Cavallone dismissed his own erotic thriller Zelda as a commercial effort, lacking the sociopolitical content of his previous films. On the surface, the movie does have an erotic pull to it, with the promise of interracial lesbian scenes, in a manner similar to Le salamandre. Like Le salamandre, the erotic pull ends up not being the main point of the movie, and with Zelda, Cavallone is critical, or at least dreadfully pessimistic, of the loose sex lives of married couples and the en vogue erotic film of the era while also making his film look very much like one.

Zelda is largely a flashback story, with the narrative focusing on events taking place before and after the apparent double murder of two characters: paralyzed ex-racecar champion Henry Davis (Nude for Satan’s James Harris - born Giuseppe Mattei) and his supposed mistress Clarissa (Halina Kim). The dead bodies are discovered next to one another by the horrified servant, Alfonsina (Giovanna Mainardi), one morning in Henry’s mansion. A news broadcaster announces the murder and mentions that the police are investigating. Fortunately, this film isn’t heavy on police procedural at all, as it instead explores the life of Henry and all the individuals who were involved with his life during the time leading up to his murder. The film’s story is also done partially in whodunnit fashion, but the mystery element is downplayed a bit in favor of sexual drama, lots of stock footage, and the psychological games played by Henry’s wife Zelda (who is played by Cavollane’s wife Maria Pia Luzi, credited under her acting name Jane Avril).

The character Zelda has the appealing look of the gothic horror heroine, and that’s not just because she is introduced dressed in black for her husband’s funeral. 

"Don't you think it's ridiculous, dressing in this way?" asks Zelda's daughter Ingrid (Franca Gonella).

"People expect widows to be dressed in black," Zelda replies. 

Ingrid reminds her mother what she already knows, "but you couldn't care less about Dad's death." 

"Sometimes appearances are important," Zelda states indifferently. 

Either this is a strange way for Zelda to cope, or there was obviously no love lost between the couple, but after we get to know Henry and Zelda more, through backstory, it starts to become apparent that Henry may not be entirely to blame for Zelda’s coldness.

The cast of main characters, who also include Henry’s racing buddy Christian (Debebe Eshetu) and another mistress Ursula (Margaret Rose Keil), gather together during Henry’s and Clarissa’s funeral before the film flashes back, before their demises, to the racetracks.

 

As for a pro-polyamory film, my personal gold-standard is Emmanuelle Arsan’sLaure (1976), starring Al Cliver and Annie Belle, which depicts erotic relationships in a spiritually and philosophically healthy way. Zelda is on the exact opposite end, as it does not have good things to say about polyamorous relationships. Viewers might think they are in for some hot and steamy menage a trois, but what unfolds is a bad faith cautionary tale. Being an erotic thriller, this is fair enough, but the hazards that seem to come with the sexual freedom of certain characters in Zelda is a depressing reminder of the myth of free love, right in the middle of the ‘70s when the dream was so beautiful, too.

My favorite erotic philosopher Emmanuelle Arsan (Louis-Jacques Rollet-Andriane) believed we as humans, in order to escape the “childhood of humanity,” must begin to fully embrace the possibilities of eroticism. To quote the character Jean from the book Emmanuelle 2, when he is referring to his wife Emmanuelle’s lovers, “they are only expressing their love, and they aren’t my rivals, they are my allies.” In the philosophy book L’hypothese D’Eros, Rollet-Andriane argues (among many erotic arguments) that a third person in a relationship is beneficial in preserving it and can even help couples find greater happiness, particularly in the chapter titled Six Feet on Earth. Here in Zelda, it’s almost like the movie is saying, ‘you’re deluding yourself if you believe that.’ This sort of transgression takes its toll on Henry mentally, causing him to want to disappear, but Henry has a hard time resisting the temptation of that third beautiful lover his wife continues introducing into their marriage.

 

The sinful trap of libertinage is represented by the insatiable Zelda, who seems to be the driving force in maintaining the threesomes between her, her husband, and an extra woman. We’re not sure how long this has been going on, but the first woman in the story to be brought to bed with them is the coquettish Ursula. While initially welcome into the bed of the married couple, the third partner in the threesome is ultimately seen as an intruder to be shamefully sent away, as soon as Henry starts to express a desire to return to normalcy (not to mention the shame he feels for the effect it must be having on his daughter Ingrid, who is privy to her parents’ deviant sex life). After briefly escaping his perceived debauchery by throwing Ursula out, so he can be alone with his wife, as he puts it, Henry makes a brief return to tradition where he can be more in his element. Henry is kind of the “competent man” stock character; he hunts, he finances race car drivers, he drives race cars, he scuba dives, and he can pilot a glider plane.

 

It isn’t long after Ursula is ousted that Zelda fully recruits Clarissa, Christian’s wife, into their love life. Henry can’t help but continue to return to the decadent threesome with his wife, almost like an addict, and this makes him ominously foreshadow his own demise. “At a certain point you have to have the courage to go away forever…” Could this perceived toll that libertinage has on Henry be deliberate? 

Henry’s survival from his suicide attempt that leaves him paralyzed is farfetched. While piloting a glider plane by himself, in mid-flight, he shoots himself in the head and later wakes up in the hospital with the lower half of his body paralyzed. Zelda still maintains a third lover in Henry’s continued misery as the film moves along towards its lowkey and dark denouement.

 

Zelda has an absolutely evocative close out scene, with the camera slowly roving over what appears to be nude bodies in an orgy, with unfamiliar actors, but no one looks like they are having fun. Rather they look like they are suffering. The tired gazes and lethargic motion of the entwined lovers almost suggest that eroticism is ultimately empty and like a prison or almost like one of the seven circles of hell instead of a place of sexual bliss and freedom. It also looks really cool (and reminds me a little of the sexual dystopian artwork of Serpieri) and kind of gives the closeout a little more of a punch with the help of the synth and percussion heavy Henry Theme by Marcello Giombini. Zelda Theme is also an ethereal piece that works really well with the filtered stock footage of galloping horses in the film.

There’s more going on than just Henry’s threesome depressions, as Zelda is a bit complex, with a whole lot of stock footage; apparently over 30% of the film is stock footage, which pads it of course but didn’t seem to drag it down too much for me. I did sometimes get confused as to whether the narrative was supposed to be in the present or the past at certain times, and I had trouble keeping up with all of the characters too at first. It does take more than one viewing to resolve and figure out what’s going on and take in the movie’s themes, which made me happy to decide to review it, because there’s a surprising amount of depth to it. 

As an eroticism enthusiast, I’ve come to realize that I’m part of the target audience Alberto Cavallone was hoping to annoy with a film like Zelda. And weirdly enough, it’s become one of my favorite movies. 

© At the Mansion of Madness  

* Curti, R., (2018). Mavericks of Italian Cinema: Eight Unorthodox Filmmakers, 1940s – 2000s. McFarland & Company, Inc. 

** Arsan, E., (1974). L’hypothese d’Eros. Editions Filipacchi.

 

Cover art by Justin Coffee

 “A woman will sometimes forgive the man who tries to seduce her, but never the man who misses an opportunity when offered.” – Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

I’m hoping that in the coming months and years, more and more people discover, and hopefully enjoy, the unfairly banned and relatively forgotten Spanish horror Raúl Artigot’sThe Witches Mountain thanks to Mondo Macabro’s recent release of the film. Lured by its title and because Patty Shepard was in it, I first saw the film as a VHS rip on YouTube back around 2013, and was really floored by how atmospheric and beautifully haunting it was despite the low picture quality. I’m usually easy to please in this area, but every DVD-R and download of this film I came across was quite soft looking and really showed the film’s age. Anytime I thought to review it, I was discouraged, and mildly depressed, by how much the poor-quality screengrabs undersold the film, so I kept holding out for a decent release someday. Years went by, and I personally started to give up hope, so it was miraculous news for me when the HD upgrade of The Witches Mountain was finally announced. There was a significant delay after the Halloween presale, but I thought it was worth the wait.

 

Spanish filmmaker Raúl Artigot only directed three films, and of those three, The Witches Mountain is the only one I’ve seen. Artigot worked more extensively as a cinematographer, who I was already familiar with as director of photography for Eloy de la Iglesia’sThe Cannibal Man (1972), two Jess Franco films, Les démons (1973) and La maldición de Frankenstein (1973), and Amando de Ossorio’sThe Ghost Galleon (1974). The Witches Mountain, his first movie as a director, which he also co-wrote, is an interesting and ill-fated one, as it was never released in Spain. 

According to an article by Ismael Fernandez included with the Mondo Macabro release as well as David Flint’s humbling commentary track, some of the extras playing witches in the film felt they weren’t being paid enough for night time shoots and decided to take it to the authorities and additionally make allegations that they were forced to appear nude in the film. With nudity in film at the time being prohibited in Francoist Spain, the film was put under investigation. Nude scenes, although not of the actors making the allegations, were supposedly discovered or revealed to be planned (the details are hazy here) for the export version of the film, and it was enough for the film’s release to be prevented in Spain. However, a US print made its way to the US and illegitimately fell in to the public domain.

 

It takes a hot minute before getting to some of the film’s more delicious sequences, but The Witches Mountain really is a delightful witchy folk horror that is quite spooky at times with a certain magic to it that for me is a little bit Suspiria in the mountains, partially in the way the movie draws you in to its otherworld of sorts. This is done to tremendous effect thanks to the natural locale of the Asturias mountains (Picos de Europa) that in the film seem isolated and mysterious but are very much occupied by an arcane and, at first, mostly unseen witches’ coven, with rightly ambiguous motives. It’s obvious to viewers that the two lead characters, Mario (Cihangir Gaffari) and Delia (Shepard), are caught in a siren song (I like to think of the main vocal theme as that same siren song). The anxiety slowly builds, as they venture further into the natural environment, however seemingly accommodating, of whatever predatory force might be luring them in. 

I can’t say that the sensational and disturbing, yet misleading, opening scene doesn’t get your attention. It’s a false start in tone, but it does help to give a little more noteworthiness to the early presence of a certain character who will have significant relevance a lot later. 

The first lead character, the admirably ‘70s photographer Mario, is introduced after the opening stinger. His deal is made known early on. Desperately blowing off an offer from his ex-lover, Carla (Mónica Randall), Mario cuts his vacation short by calling his publishing firm and demanding a solo photography assignment, which just so happens to involve travelling deep into the film’s title mountain. On his way there, he manages to meet and befriend the second lead character, writer Delia, after photographing and approaching her on the beach.

I imagine Mario was meant to be seen by viewers of the era as a kind of it-guy, or a role model of sorts: the stylish, free loner, untamed, out in the wild landscapes, with his mojo camera and epic ‘70s stache, frequently clutching a cigarette in his teeth. If they put him on a horse, I would’ve easily thought of him as the European Marlboro Man. It’s hard to tell if we’re supposed to like him, but I kind of like him. 

(Men, what’s stopping you from bringing this look back???) 

 

Delia does reject Mario’s request to visit the mountain with him initially, but, as if a spell has overtaken her, she oddly changes her mind, and the two head towards the mountain in Mario’s Jeep. 

The stop at the Inn at the base of the mountain is a further mood builder, slowly introducing the mountain as something ominous and better avoided. And it’s an excuse to really utilize Victor Israel in his relatively limited but memorable role as the creepy Innkeeper. 

Delia seems to be lured by an entity sourced from the mountain, causing her to exit the inn in a trancelike state while Mario is asleep. Noticing she is missing, Mario has to drive out and fetch the dazed Delia, still in her nightgown, and bring her back for breakfast before they make their ascent.

 

While out taking photographs on the mountain, Mario’s Jeep is stolen by an unseen individual/ghost, a plot device that leads them to a supposedly abandoned village where they eventually come upon Mario’s stolen car on the side of the road. It is here where they are welcomed in to the drab home of an accommodating elder woman, Santa (Ana Farra), seemingly living all alone. 

It’s been a slow buildup up to this point, and the slow buildup continues, but things start to get more interesting, creepy, and novel, particularly Mario’s photography exploration of the village where unseen figures show up on film, and a late-night funeral procession (my personal favorite part) that’s like right out of a dream.

Being primed by seeing Patty Shepard as an evil vampire queen in Paul Naschy’sThe Werewolf Vs. The Vampire Woman (1971), I was expecting her to be the main villain when I first watched it. This isn’t quite the case, but she does seem to be given the May Queen treatment for esoteric reasons that appear to involve possibly mating her with some kind of male sex slave who the witches keep chained up in a cave nearby (I do wish the movie explored this aspect a little more). The scenes with the chained man are brief and mostly just hinted at. I have a hard time recognizing him here, but the male slave is played by the hulking Spanish horror regular Luis Barboo. 

The witchy chanting in the main musical theme (by Fernando García Morcillo) is both spooky and lovely. It sounds like it flits between Latin and English (sung by Alicia González, sometimes in multi-layered vocals that reach some seriously epic heights at times), and I swear I hear a new phrase every time I watch the movie. It’s been rightfully compared to Antón García Abril’s chanting theme from The Blind Dead films, and it is equally effective here.

It’s fair to say that The Witches Mountain is slow and uneventful for the most part, but it does have some key haunting moments, and I really like the gloves-off climax. It’s one surprisingly gorgeous and mesmerizing horror film where a couple of modern ‘70s folks essentially find themselves in a dark fairytale, and something about it does get under your skin a little. I can’t help thinking that if Mario went around with a movie camera instead, I could also imagine this somehow working as a found-footage film, had those existed yet. 

It’s too bad that this film was banned before it was released in Spain. One can’t help wondering if it might have helped kickstart a more prolific directing career for Raúl Artigot. I only had to see it once to know there was something special here, but it was hard to watch again in the former low-quality version that was only available for a while, which just seemed tragic for such a visually bewitching film. Again, I’m definitely grateful for the new release from Mondo Macabro (released in its original widescreen format for the first time). It’s been an absolute delight rewatching it now. 

© At the Mansion of Madness

A weekend getaway at a resort hotel with your significant other is most people’s idea of a relaxing holiday, but having to hide out in a creepy, possibly haunted hotel with your mistress for the weekend, because your wife turned up murdered, sounds like a more interesting time to me. 

Death Falls Lightly is one of two thrillers directed and co-written by Leopoldo Savona (the other being Byleth – The Demon of Incest (1972)) that I commend for its unusual and multidirectional approach. You’re not really sure what they’re going for, but you kind of like it anyways. Like Byleth, it’s a little hard to compare to other films of its ilk, since it’s kind of an oddball example. It reaches for different ideas, perhaps one too many, while maintaining that appealing ’70s Euro-genre ascetic, so you’re getting something both different and familiar at the same time. Whether or not it’s actually any good is somewhat difficult to tell by the film’s end. 

I personally find this one delightful, as it is a bit of a jack-of-all-trades genre movie that borrows from crime, mystery, giallo, erotic, fantastical, psychological, and occult horror, so it’s like there’s a little bit of something for everyone. It is mostly centered around a claustrophobic and somewhat dark and depressing hotel. Interestingly, this movie predicts The Shining during a few moments, and my mind even thought a little of Silent Hill at times.

A pawn for political corruption, Giorgio (Nude for Satan’s Stelio Candelli), has returned to Rome from his trip to Milan to find his wife murdered at home. Since he was transporting drugs for politicians, he cannot reveal to the authorities that he was in Milan during the time his wife was murdered. He doesn’t seem too sad about his wife but more worried about himself. Knowing he will be considered a suspect by the police, Giorgio barges in on his solicitor, a judge, Magistrate Magrini (Watch Me When I Kill’s Fernando Cerulli), at his home to demand that he finds him an alibi or else they’ll all go down. It’s eventually decided, for the time being, that Giorgio must hide out for the weekend in a grand eighty room, supposedly empty, hotel in the middle of the noisy city. For company and presumably to make sure his sexual needs stay fulfilled, Giorgio also insists that he bring his mistress, the sumptuous Liz (Night of the Damned’s Patrizia Viotti), to hide out with him. (Because that won’t further exasperate the scandal.) 

 

This one takes a number of interesting directions, starting when Giorgio and Liz isolate themselves in the hotel. The stage is initially set for a scandalous love affair that does play out for a while. What was peculiar to me is that Giorgio not only brought his mistress, but he also brought a projector to screen an Italian erotic film. As he puts it to Liz, “Italy produces more than most.” It’s fair to say that pornography was much more of a novelty back in 1972, and the experience does seem to turn them on, as they are eventually driven to make love while the film plays in the background (a clip from Savona’s own Byleth), visually amplifying the erotic energy of the scene.

Predictably, cabin fever starts to set in, and eventually the two begin to quarrel verbally and physically. It takes Giorgio’s odd decision to carry a hysterically kicking and screaming Liz into the shower with him to cool the fight off, in what is a clothed version of the painted scene used for one of the film’s movie posters, which makes me wonder if a nude version of this scene has ever existed.

The movie takes an interesting turn when it is revealed one night that Giorgio and Liz are not alone, as strange hotel denizens show up. Is the movie taking a potential ghost story route or is it some farfetched scheme? The answer is not surprising, but I do like this new route since the film has been a bit claustrophobic up to this point without really seeming to be going anywhere; the new mystery ends up being a welcome and intriguing change.

Things get weirdly bizarre when Giorgio witnesses the Innkeeper, Adolfo (Antonio Anelli), murder his wife (Lella Cattaneo) in a hallway; and, in a bewildered state, Giorgio finds himself inexplicably helping to dispose of the body, before the innkeeper happily joins his own mistress, Marisa (Rossella Bergamonti), to celebrate. If Giorgio did in fact murder his own wife, something we as an audience are unsure of, then this scenario would oddly mirror his own situation. There’s this suspicion that, being the only one to have seen the innkeeper, maybe this is all happening in Giorgio's head, until Liz herself spots a ghostlike woman, Adele (Veronika Korosec), wandering the halls.

Adele happens to be the innkeeper’s creepy but beautiful daughter, who’s usually doing something evocative, be it singing to herself while crouching in her room with a doll, relaxing in a bathtub with a tethered live monkey (who no one addresses) swinging and frolicking in the background, or looking real cool performing an occult ritual, just to give the movie a little more memorability. It’s all kind of irrelevant to the main story (or perhaps she’s some kind of catalyst to get Giorgio to confess?), but she’s still awesome and probably my favorite character. Adele just comes out of nowhere and gives the film a fantastical edge. Her parts are also where Luciano Trasatti’s (Count Dracula, Bloody Pit of Horror) cinematography shines (that and the shot through the balustrades of the spiral staircase).

 

Stelio Candelli’s character is unlikable, but he is likeable as an actor here. I enjoyed his acting range in Nude for Satan, and he makes for a good lead in Death Falls Lightly, playing the elegant and fashionable, but morally questionable, ‘70s gentleman. Most women he comes across just seem to offer themselves to him. He also brought to my mind other male leads from the era, such as Peter from Evil Eye (1975) and even Herbert from Delirium (1972). 

I usually feel conflicted when the film wraps up. I first thought the conclusion to Giorgio’s ordeal was quite dubious and anticlimactic, but I am starting to see it a little more as being similar to waking up from a dream. With the allusion shattered and the truth revealed, Giorgio’s nightmare is over and life carries on, for better or worse.

I’d say, there’s not much reason to be picky or too demanding with a movie like Death Falls Lightly. It delivers quite a lot in its modest runtime. I like to refer to it as a creepy hotel giallo, but that doesn’t quite do it justice, since there’s a lot more going on. 

There’s a hard-hitting Sabbath/Hendrix inspired rock soundtrack, with vocals from Mack Porter, that you can’t help vibing to during the moments that it hits; there’s still a suitably creepy component to the soundtrack that gives the hotel an ominous identity in the film. The hotel interiors are not beautiful and exotic (as one might expect more in a Jess Franco film) but rather plain, dull, and depressing, yet it suits the tone of this film. I couldn’t help noticing that when the hotel seems to become “haunted” all of a sudden, there’s a surreal touch, where instead of the boring standard linear hotel stairs that we’ve seen up to this point, there’s more focus on a lavish spiral stairway, with a fancy balustrade design, perhaps symbolizing a kind of descent into madness. It’s like the hotel transforms a little alongside the movie.

I hope to be wrong, but Death Falls Lightly seems doomed to obscurity at this point. It’s understandable since the movie does have its issues and will likely appeal more to giallo fans who’ve explored deep enough into the genre to eventually come across it, but there really are a lot of remarkable elements to look for in it. Writing a review for it has been somewhat of a rewarding experience as well. I had it on the backburner to review for quite some time, and I didn’t even catch that an upgraded version became available a few years ago. It really is the best time to check it out. It’s a treat for those fortunate enough to have a taste for this sort of thing. 

© At the Mansion of Madness

 

Horror films are more traditionally associated with anxiety and sleepless nights. Funny, then, how we tend to look towards horror sometimes to wind down after the day. Now, I love to be scared and shocked just as much as any horror fan, but what about a horror film that can have the opposite effect, one that puts you to sleep through relaxation and comfort? Thanks to the usual languid pace and soothing dark ambiance, a lot of older gothic horror films can serve as a pretty good example of this, such as the gothic literary mashup Night of the Damned. 

Directed by Filippo Walter Ratti and written by Aldo Marcovecchio, Night of the Damned is a quaint little ‘70s Italian gothic horror that hits a lot of the right notes when it comes to style, mood, and atmosphere. Sure, there is better to pick from, but something about this film made me want to revisit and connect with it on a deeper level. The Poe-inspired world is worth getting lost in, and it appeals to my love for the supernatural femme fatales who reign from their remote dark castles, with the occult and hedonistic rituals that usually accompany them.

This is somewhat familiar fare if you’ve been digging around vintage gothic Eurohorror for a while. You’ve probably seen most of this before, but I’m assuming you’re here because you also love this stuff and can’t get enough of it. It’s good for the collectors of this type of film, and, if you can bare a somewhat convoluted and slow narrative, there’s a considerable amount of enjoyment to be had as well, with beautifully dark visuals, a macabre meld of death and sex, and the lovely company of Patrizia Viotti (Death Falls Lightly, 1972) and Angela De Leo (Juliette de Sade, 1969). I will say though, with an effectively creepy interior castle being the common setting, the movie suffers a little for not having a single castle exterior establishing shot. I mean, there are brief glimpses of small portions of the castle when the leads arrive, but why not show the whole picture?

Night of the Damned fuses literary inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe’sThe Fall of the House of Usher (1839) and Sheridan Le Fanu’sCarmilla (1872) and wraps it in the classic witch’s curse theme, topped off nicely with that 1970s gothic and erotic horror aesthetic. It starts out a bit like House of Usher, but in the 1970s, and eventually turns into Carmilla by way of Elizabeth Bathory. I like the result even if the movie is overall lacking a bit in the story and set piece department. The provocative, and not to mention fabulous, music with female vocals in the film, by Carlo Savina, is recycled from Amando de Ossorio’sMalenka (1969). I like it, and it does nicely fit here, too. I mostly recall it being used during the opening credits and closing scenes in both films.

Jean (Pierre Brice) and Danielle (Viotti) Duprey are a savory couple about to fall into some unsavory business. It’s established from a newspaper article that Jean Duprey is a lucrative journalist with a talent for exposing criminals. Turning down a personal phone call from the minister, Jean is apathetically relaxing on his couch, after his latest journalistic victory, and enjoying his tobacco pipe and comic cartoon strips while Daniele reads excerpts of praise to him from a newspaper. Downtime doesn’t last very long when you’re a man like Jean Duprey, because adventure calls in the form of a letter, with a royal seal, from a dear old friend of his, Prince Guillaume de Saint Lambert (Mario Carra). The letter contains a kind of poetic riddle with an encoded distress call from Guillaume. Jean must refer to his Charles Baudelaire poetry book, previously gifted to him from Guillaume, to decode the message with additional help from Danielle. Maybe something was lost in translation, but I tend to have a difficult time following along as Danielle and Jean ponder over the text and flip through the pages of the book, but what is gathered is that Guillaume could be in grave danger and likely needs Jean’s help. Why would Guillaume have to encode his distress call and not be more direct about it? I imagine it’s because his outgoing mail gets thoroughly screened, likely from someone in his own household.

 

The distress call works, because Jean and Danielle are off to visit Guillaume at his creepy castle that hasn’t seemed to change much since the Middle Ages. After arrival, they are met by a pretty but sketchy looking maid (Daniela D’Agostino) and Guillaume’s beautiful but sinister looking new wife Rita (Angelo De Leo), who alerts them that Guillaume is not well. (I always love the way these kinds of horror castles always come with a stock maid, whose job here is to look suspicious in the background, while lurking around lighting candles. She might just be an innocent bystander. Come to think of it, she kind of vanishes from the movie at one point without really being accounted for.) 

When Jean visits Guillaume in his room, it starts to feel like we’re in The House of Usher suddenly. The conversation scenes between Jean and Guillaume are grim and depressing, with Guillaume in a frantic and weak state, mentally and physically, referring to a dreadful family curse. He alerts Jean that he has discovered a terrible secret in the old books and papers in the castle library, but his delirious state keeps him from clarifying specifically what he’s discovered. It isn’t difficult to guess that maybe Guillaume’s wife and the creepy doctor (Alessandro Tedeschi) she has treating him might also have something to do with what is happening to him.

Guillaume’s suffering eventually ends with his passing one night. His funeral procession that follows seems sinister, as it is conducted in a cultlike manner that does not seem to be honoring him but rather prepping him for something evil. 

Eventually, Guillaume’s cousin and sister, despite being in remote locations hundreds of kilometers away from the castle, are mysteriously abducted, at different times, and fed to a deadly black mass orgy (the reinstated ritual orgy scenes are visually rough looking and probably could have been wilder, but they are still nice to behold). The orgies take place in some hidden smoke/fog-filled dungeon and are overlooked by none other than Guillaume’s evil widow, Rita, atop her throne. The later discovery of the dead bodies with their breasts clawed and their relation to the Saint Lambert family has detectives and Jean puzzled (a brief scene, where one of the bodies is discovered, was shot in the same hotel where Death Falls Lightly (1972) was also shot, which also starred Patrizia Viotti). Jean continues residing in the castle, utilizing the library to get to the bottom of what is happening. Ultimately, Danielle falls prey to Rita and her black masses. Will Jean defeat the evil witch and save his wife from the ravages of the lesbian orgy?

 

Night of the Damned somehow manages to deliver on a visual and thematic level. I like the gloomy environments and the inevitable feeling of doom. It has just about everything fans look for in this kind of genre film. With great cinematography from Girolamo La Rosa (Sex of the Witch, 1973), the interiors of the castle kind of give off the feel of an isolated world that I try to get lost in when watching the film. 

When analyzing it, the story to Night of the Damned really isn’t bad; it probably could’ve been executed a little better. I guess it kind of fails as a mystery movie, since a mystery element is introduced and is heavily focused on, but it’s executed in a way that doesn’t really keep you interested and ends up not offering much in the way of originality or any real surprises. It doesn’t have the most inspired wrap up either, but it does suggest that the adventures of Jean Duprey may continue… At least, not if Danielle has any say in the matter.

 

I did like the small cast of characters and thought they were quite memorable. Alessandro Tedeschi has a creepy, unnerving, and dialogue-free role as a false doctor who doesn’t seem like he should be anywhere near poor Guillaume. Pierre Brice is not a bad lead, if a little bland. His lead role as the hero, Jean Duprey (a bit of a swap for Poe’s Dupin), ends up feeling more like a detective than a journalist. He is actually a good guy who doesn’t seem to make any mistakes. I would’ve preferred someone a little more flawed or amoral. It is a little annoying when he laughs at or dismisses Danielle’s nightmares and anxieties regarding the castle. It also seemed unnecessary for him to keep Danielle at the castle after Guillaume’s death, seeing as the place wasn’t good for her mental health. They nonetheless do seem to have a healthy marriage otherwise.

 

Angela De Leo’s role as the evocative Rita Lernod / Tarin Drole is another dark, visually bewitching villainess alongside the likes of roles by Rosalba Neri in The Devil’s Wedding Night (1973) or Anne Libert in A Virgin Among the Living Dead (1973). She’s like the witch versions of Carmilla and Elizabeth Bathory, who also has the sexual predatory characteristics of a lesbian succubus. 

Aside from the light-hearted scenes at Jean and Danielle’s home that bookends the movie, Night of the Damned is one of the darkest and slowest Italian gothic horrors I’ve come across. It is quite subdued without much in the way of excitement. It slowly rolls on like a funeral procession, possibly a little too slow, even by Eurocult standards, as this one tends to drag at times, so many viewers might be relieved when everything is quickly wrapped up at the end. But if slow, moody horror doesn’t bore you too much and you really enjoy dreary gothic ambiance, then this one can also be relaxing, almost with an ASMR quality to it at times. So, if you are looking for something to watch before bed, then why not fall asleep to Night of the Damned. 

© At the Mansion of Madness

 

I thought this German / Italian co-production kind of had a classic comic book feel to it (something kind of in the vein of EC’s Crime SuspenStories). It’s also been compared to the krimi thriller, with all the fixings of a crime fueled storyline, only instead of a detective or Scotland Yard, the criminal foil and justice comes in the form of the supernatural beyond. There’s also no denying that the 1920s setting, primarily in a gloomy haunted mansion during a long meditative séance, hosted by none other than Luciano Pigozzi, with a bunch of stranded shady characters seeking shelter on a dark and stormy night is gothic horror as fuck. This is the kind of gathering that I consider a good time.

For some reason, The Unnaturals took a few watches before I was finally comfortable remembering all of the characters, their names, and their relation to one another. It feels like it might be more complex than it needs to be, so it is a rather challenging watch the first time around. If it weren’t for the appealing look and style, not a lot of people would likely care to revisit it, but I sensed it was worth taking a few more deep dives into the film, and I’ve come to decide that The Unnaturals is a pleasurable and relaxing little crime thriller overlapping gothic horror. 

So, I mentioned a primary setting in a dark atmospheric mansion, but this one also has flashbacks galore. I do like this format since you get to learn more about the vice-motivated characters and why they might actually be in the grip of the ever-prevalent hand of cosmic justice (almost predicting Tales from the Crypt 1972, a little). Plus, the dramatic flashbacks to ballroom parties, deadly love triangles, and fox hunting in open fields do help break from the claustrophobia of the closed off house setting. Although, unlike the usual anthology/portmanteau style film, the flashbacks are not separate stories but make up a single but complex backstory relating everyone present.

While watching The Unnaturals, I remember thinking that it would make a pretty good book. It turns out the film is based on a short story Eppure bussano alla porta (roughly translated to “Yet They Knock on the Door”) by Dino Buzzati. 

There’s quite a bit of setup before we get to the seance; we actually don’t get to the mansion until twenty minutes into the movie. The film takes its time to set up its main five players, starting in (what better place for the rich and decadent) a casino during the roaring ‘20s.

Business tycoon Archibald (Giuliano Raffaelli– The Long Hair of Death 1964) and his lawyer / accountant Ben (Joachim Fuchsberger - Dead Eyes of London 1961) are meeting up at a casino on a rainy night before travelling by motorcar to a place in Brighton. They need to deliver important estate documents in the morning that Ben has recently prepared, now that a ten-year statute of limitations period has passed. Along for the trip are Archibald’s administrator Alfred (Claudio Camaso - A Bay of Blood 1971) and his illicit lover Margarete (Dominique Boschero - Argoman the Fantastic Superman 1967) (who’s also Archibald’s mistress). Waiting in the backseat of the car is the gothic lesbian domme mommy, er, I mean, Ben’s business and pleasure partner Vivian (Marianne Koch– A Fistful of Dollars 1964), who seems to have an intense fixation on Margarete.

 

After everyone piles in, during the car ride, we get to know these characters a bit more during a flashback segment from, apparently, ten years prior, as we learn that Archibald was regularly cheated on by Margaret with the, then, newly hired Albert, who in turn was cheating on his love, Diana (Gudrun Schmidt). Both women were pulling strings for Albert’s success with Archibald’s business. It’s revealed one night that while Albert and Margaret were making love in the greenhouse, a lovelorn Vivian had watched the two lovers from outside through a window. Movie audiences in 1969 would be forgiven for assuming Vivian is also in love with Albert, but as we find a short time later, she really lusts and broods over Margaret. It shouldn’t be surprising that none of this (Albert and Margaret’s cheating, Archibald and Ben’s shady estate dealings, and Vivian’s sexual aggressivity) is going to end well.

Back in the present, the Brighton-bound motorcar eventually gets stuck in the mud, and the scoundrels are forced to take refuge in a nearby mansion (the rain drenched walk through the thunder and woods to the house is actually done quite well, with rain effects, swinging branches, and enthusiastic performances from the cast). 

When they arrive to the grounds of an old hunting lodge, the “uninvited” guests just kind of help themselves to entry, as the door seemingly opens for them. With the tempest outside, it’s assumed the proprietors will understand.

Once inside, they come across a strange man played by Pigozzi named Uriat (sometimes spelled Uraia in the subtitles) who seemingly is quite welcoming and hospitable to the travelers in the storm. His spooky mother (Marianne Leibl), a kind of psychic medium, happens to be stuck in a trance, unable to hear or see anything. The medium mentions a name that alarms both Ben and Archibald, who soon find themselves joining Uriat and his mother in reconvening the séance in order to try and break her out of her trance and learn more about what is going on. Meanwhile, Vivian takes a weary Margaret to a room upstairs.

 

TheUnnaturals could have been a plain old story about crime, greed, and deceit, but there’s an added touch of the erotic with the inclusion of the sexually aggressive sapphic vixen Vivian. She broods in her lovelorn state, craving the love of a younger woman, Margaret (as well as Elisabeth (Helga Anders) during flashback segments). Vivian gives the film its edginess. I like to think that she is the cool one in the group, as she usually stands out, looking pretty badass in the background during some of the séance scenes. I can’t help feeling that Margheriti might have been channeling the predatory lesbian vampire a little with Vivian. It’s likely that we’re not supposed to like Vivian, but what can I say? This wouldn’t feel like much of a Eurocult film without her. 

Like with the previously reviewed Night of the Damned (1971), this one suffers from a lack of exterior establishing shots of the haunted house. Seeing as this is a Margheriti film, I’m surprised we didn’t get at least a mansion miniature for the exterior (as in The Virgin of Nuremberg 1963). Nonetheless, the interior set is quite marvelous, being a bit more on the dark and creepy side with plenty of atmosphere, prominent lightning effects from a grand blue window in the background, and stuffed animals scattered about the place. As I realized when watching Simona (1974), animal taxidermy is an interesting metaphor for the stagnant preserved past in a time frozen mansion.

 

The Unnaturals has to contain one of Luciano Pigozzi’s finest roles and one of his finest moments during the climax. Fans of the usually mild mannered Pigozzi won’t want to miss seeing him lose his shit at one point in this. 

I get that TheUnnaturals may not be as meaty with its mystery storyline as it tries to be. The intense but old-fashioned soundtrack by Carlo Savina does lend a bit more excitement to the mystery. It’s also a bit convoluted and hard to follow, and as I said, it took a couple rewatches before it began to sink in a little. The flashback parts are supposed to take place ten years before the present narrative (if it weren’t for the hair color change on Archibald and Ben, you wouldn’t really be able to tell), but it feels more like a couple days or maybe a week prior. Despite its faults, we do get a pretty cool buildup and payoff. You don’t really have to be closely following to know that the characters are not good people and that something will eventually have to give with regards to justice (or is it vengeance?).

 

When I first watched it, I couldn’t quite decide if I had come across something special with The Unnaturals. I was eager to revisit it to take in more and hopefully elucidate it a little more for myself. Despite familiar genre conventions, there is something unusual about it. It’s beautifully and creatively shot by cinematographer Riccardo Pallottini and is in need of another physical media upgrade. It does have a pretty unique if awkward structure, numerous segments that will stay with you even after forgetting some of the finer details of the storyline, and unlikeable characters who still have appeal. The dialogue is actually pretty good, especially that coming from Uriat, his mother, and Vivian when she is in full seductress mode. 

If anything, it’s another worthwhile Margheriti film off the checklist for anyone looking to explore more from the genre diverse filmmaker. I would think it would pair well with a blackberry wine, the same “Blood” Uriat indulges in. 

© At the Mansion of Madness