|
|
"Castle Of Blood delivers terror with all the skill of an Italian marksman, which is to say, sporadically, rarely hitting the target..."
|
Imagine an "Edgar Alan Poe" horror flick which doesn't even pretend to be based on an Edgar Alan Poe work, in which Poe appears as a supporting player! Then imagine the whole thing sunk in sumptuous scenery and lashings of cobwebby atmosphere, all but wasted by a lackluster plot. And. finally, imagine Barbara Steele headlining this oddball flick. The result is a film that may be entitled Castle Of Blood but is remembered today primarily because it is also the...
By J. KNIGHT Castle Of Blood has been released under a number of titles. The classiest title is the French Danse Macabre, while most of the other titles start with Castle Of/Tomb Of/Coffin Of... and end with Blood/Terror/Horror. Mix and match as you please. Castle of Blood is a prime example of 1960s Italian Horror. It's directed by Antonio Margheriti who also gave us the cinematic gems Cannibal Apocalypse (1980), Yor, Hunter From The Future (1982) and many other assorted thrillers, shockers and schlockers.
The star is the beguiling Barbara Steele, the 1960s version of Christina Ricci. Steele's best-known films in the genre are the Mario Bava classic Black Sunday (1961) and Ricardo Freda's The Horrible Dr. Hichcock (1962). Steele's exotic beauty and ability to play either waif or seductress (or both, as in Black Sunday) made her an icon of sixties horror cinema and fueled many an adolescent's romantic fantasies.
I remember in particular the one where I'm working as a stable hand and Barbara enters wearing a peasant dress, and...but I digress. Castle Of Blood delivers terror with all the skill of an Italian marksman, which is to say, sporadically, rarely hitting the target. Now, I know that assessment won't win me any friends among the fans of Italian Horror. But even the fans must admit that Italian Horror tends to serve up enormous mounds of atmosphere with only the occasional dollop of plot or continuity.
Castle Of Blood positively drips with atmosphere. I dare say there is atmosphere in every frame. If atmosphere were food, Castle Of Blood would see a family of four through the severest winter. Unfortunately, there isn't much else, including sense. The film's credit sequence informs us that the movie is adapted from a story by "Edgar Poe." Note, they're not claiming the story is by Edgar Allan Poe, which is lucky since he never wrote a story called "Danse Macabre" or, for that matter, "Castle of Blood." I'm not sure whom this "Edgar Poe" is but I'm keeping my eye out for him.
Ed Poe's story opens in an English tavern where Edgar Allan Poe (or maybe Edgar Allen Poe or Edgar Alan Poe or Edgar Al N. Poe, played by Sylvano Tranquili) relates to a comrade the story of "Berenice." A journalist, Alan Foster (Georges Rivière) overhears the tale and learns the remarkable fact that every word is true! In fact, Poe relates, all of his stories are true and he is merely, like Foster, a reporter. Okay, so right off the bat one of the world's great fantasists is reduced to Jimmy Olsen, but I didn't care. I knew that the filmmakers wouldn't just throw an idea like that at us if they weren't going to pay it off. Maybe Foster would encounter famous Poe characters or become trapped in situations that he would escape through his knowledge of Poe's writing.
Maybe the Castle of Blood would be a compendium of hideous Poe-inspired torments...pits and pendulums and people sealed in walls and telltale hearts pumping under the floorboards. After all, why bother to establish such a premise if you're going to totally ignore it throughout the rest of the film? Why, indeed? But that's what Castle Of Blood does, veering away from the idea like a wrong turn discovered too late.
Instead, Foster introduces a second theme by stating that he is not afraid of the dead, but of the living. Poe's friend introduces himself as Lord Thomas Blackwood. Blackwood claims to possess a castle from which no one emerges alive, a castle in which, one night a year, the dead must replay over and over the acts that led to their deaths. As luck would have it, this is that very night! A wager is offered and accepted that Foster will be unable to survive one horrifying night in the Castle of Blood. Poe, Blackwood and Foster ride out to Blackwood's castle that night. Poe and Blackwood drop off the reporter and ride away before any of the ghastly horrors materialize.
The atmosphere is palpable as Foster wanders through the castle grounds. He encounters gravestones! He spies a kitten! He walks into bare tree limbs! He enters a barn filled with wagon wheels! There's that terrifying kitten again! (Better prod it with your walking stick, Foster.) And then, he makes the most incredible discovery yet...a piece of lace! Foster picks it up with his walking stick, feels the cloth, smells it. Yes, there can be no doubt. This is a piece of lace! But what is a piece of lace doing in a barn? Why, the very notion fills one with dread! Foster leaves the terror-filled barn and ventures into the castle proper. Now the atmosphere kicks into high gear. Doors creak! Fosters finds a suit of armor! A window is open! A stopped clock chimes the hour. Foster is startled by his own reflection! A portrait of a lovely lady shimmers! Is there to be no respite from this unrelenting atmosphere?
Eventually, Barbara Steele appears as Lord Blackwood's sister, Elisabeth, bringing with her something like a story. She and her brother quarreled over Elisabeth's love for a humble gardener, and since then she "has been dead" to him. She's familiar with her brother's annual wager and is soon familiar with Foster. He thinks she's beautiful, she thinks he's nice (probably because he returns the piece of lace she left in the barn), and so she's deeply and eternally in love. The romance is opposed by another beautiful woman, Julia (Margarete Robsahm) whose portrait had shimmered so ominously.
Elisabeth is convinced that Foster will save her, stay with her forever, warm her, etc., but that conviction doesn't last long. After a quick and unseen consummation (during which Foster apparently didn't even remove his vest) Elisabeth has given up all hope of life with Foster. Talk about flunking the entrance exam.... As Elisabeth is revealing to Foster that she's actually dead and has been dead for ten years, the Gardener, played by a handsome man with no shirt, staggers in and stabs her. Foster slugs the Gardener and then gives chase with the world's smallest pistol, giving us a cinematic clue as to why Elisabeth cooled off to him so abruptly. He shoots the Gardener in the back, and the Gardener falls to the floor, then disappears into thin air.
Enter Doctor Carmus (Arturo Dominici), an apparently friendly resident of the Castle of Blood, who explains once again that the castle is haunted by spirits who, every year, re-enact the minutes of their lives just prior to their deaths. Foster is treated to a vision of the events that claimed the lives of Elisabeth's husband, the Gardener and Julia. The Gardener finds Elisabeth in bed with her husband, kills him, then for some Italian reason begins to strangle Elisabeth, the woman he loves. Julia kills the Gardener and then comes onto Elisabeth in a lesbian scene that was censored from the American release of Castle Of Blood. Nowadays, one sees steamier lesbian action on Buffy The Vampire Slayer, but this almost-kissing scene was too hot for the censors back in 1964. Anyway, Elisabeth stabs and kills Julia for being disgusting.
At this point, the filmmakers came to a startling realization: They had run out of plot! Used it up. Nothing left. But they still had half a film to shoot. There follows more atmospheric walking down of hallways and more deaths and some brief, gratuitous nudity and a series of events that never quite come together into a coherent whole. Foster stumbles slack-jawed through it all as if the whole thing hadn't been explained to him twice already. Eventually he decides to flee and everything turns kind of vampire-y and pretty soon he's dead. I'm going to give budding screenwriters a tip. In your horror story, start your victim list with strangers and spiral inwards to main characters whom we care about. This technique builds drama.
In other words, do entirely the opposite of Castle Of Blood, which kills off the main characters in short order, all but Foster whom we want to see killed for being so freaking dim, and then wanders far afield to find victims, such as a pair of newlyweds, to fill out the last third of the film. If the movie had been ten minutes longer, they'd have been killing the sound guy and the script girl. Poe and Blackwood arrive to pick up Foster and find him dead. Poe exclaims that, when he writes this story, no one will believe it. Of course, since he wasn't there he really has no choice but to make up a bunch of stuff, does he?
By the way, we never do find out how Elisabeth died. She was already dead when the Gardener stabbed her, and she was alive when Julia stabbed the Gardener, so...who killed Elisabeth originally? This is not the only "huh?" moment in the film. If atmosphere were food and "huh?" moments were wine...well, no need to belabor that analogy. In summary, I have to say that Castle Of Blood is a bloody mess. But an atmospheric one. And Barbara Steele is in it. So, there you have it.
The DVD from Synapse Films is composed from several different sources in at least two languages. The scenes censored from the American version are reinserted, but they are in French with English subtitles. You might expect this discontinuity to be jarring but it isn't, not in the least. In fact, the plot is such a jumble that anything short of projecting the picture upside down is likely to go unnoticed. It's a pretty decent print, probably the best available, with good mono sound. If you're into Italian Horror of the 1960s, Castle Of Blood is a must-have. If you're at the drive-in, it's a great flick to make out to. If you're looking for an excellent adaptation of a famous story by Edgar Allan Poe, move along, move along. (J. Knight is the author of Risen, coming from Pinnacle Books in January 2004. He maintains a Website you can visit by clicking here.) Thanks, J. Knight! While Castle Of Blood is no great step forward in the history of Italian horror cinema, and, indeed, may be kind of a step back, there are some compensations. The biggest, by far, is named Barbara Steele, although the sets and overall moody atmosphere also make the whole more palatable. For what is is, enjoy it. Article copyright © J. Knight |
