(Italy, 1963) Christopher Lee and Dahlia Lavi star as illicit lovers. He’s sternly sadistic and favors the quirt. She’s helplessly hot for him, but consumed by guilt and shame. She’s also surrounded by people with secrets of their own and motives for murder, not least her wimp husband. There’s also a ghost, secret passages and weird monks. Never was a heroine more tormented, nor delivered to a more unsettling climax.
Director Mario Bava turned his location–a spooky Italian castle—into a beautiful gothic nightmare with his gloriously lurid lighting and camera work.
Bava, just in case you don’t already know, was a visual master who spent most of his career creating gaudy beauty and high tension on miniscule budgets.
If you like what you see, check out his Blood And Black Lace. It’s even more delirious and the movie that invented an entire genre, the giallo. Think mystery movie content with a horror movie sensibility.
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