Review: Castle of Blood

Georges Riviere plays a journalist conversing with two other gentlemen, including the macabre author Edgar Allen Poe. After hearing one of Poe’s supposedly true tales, the doubting Thomas writer is dared to spend a night at Blackwood castle. At first, all seems well. Riviere even meets a girl (Barbara Steele). However, Steele is no ordinary woman. So it begins...

 

AKA “Danza Macabra”, among other alternate titles in alternate cuts, some with and some without mild Sapphic content. Initially begun by Sergio Corbucci (a veteran of spaghetti westerns like “Django” and “The Great Silence”), after one week the reins to this 1964 Italian gothic chiller were handed over to Antonio Margheriti (“Take a Hard Ride” with Jim Brown, Fred Williamson, and Lee Van Cleef, as well as “The Last Hunter” and “The Virgin of Nuremberg”). The results aren’t exactly Mario Bava quality, but after a far too slow start, this one ends up being quite a good gothic ghost story (if a bit more vampire than ghost, really).

 

Scripted by Giovanni Grimaldi (writer-director of “Don Chisciotte and Sancio Panza”) and Corbucci, the first 15 minutes is filled with a little too much static talk for my liking for something that is also rather short. Perhaps the film could’ve stood to have run a bit longer and with more depth. Or more to the point, get rid of the introductory stuff and get straight to the plot at hand. It’s not terribly necessary and just pads running time that could’ve been spent on something else. However, it’s really nicely shot in B&W by Riccardo Pallottini (“Take a Hard Ride”, “The Last Hunter”, the cult classic “Blindman”), and is full of lovely foggy atmosphere for the exterior shots. For what it is, those elements are probably a bit more important anyway. At one point there was so much creepy atmosphere being built up that I did indeed get a bit of a chill. I know it’s a cheap effect, but one bit involving a slightly animated rotten corpse is creepy as hell. Sound and silence are also excellently employed at various points. I’m not sure how closely it really resembles to any of Edgar Allen Poe’s work, but it certainly convinced me that it was based on something Poe could’ve written, and that was enough for me. In fact, the presence of a character meant to be Mr. Poe himself was probably a little bit overkill for me if anything, and not just because he’s part of the introductory scenes. The always beguiling Barbara Steele is excellent and by far the best actor of the bunch here. Norwegian actress Margarete Robsahm apparently had a tough time getting roles after her Sapphic-tinged role and brief nudity here, which is a shame because she’s quite good and the controversy was stupid.

 

Slightly static at the outset with too much talk, this one really comes into its own after a while. Spooky, good-looking Italian gothic horror stuff. Exploitation veteran Antonio Margheriti may not be Mario Bava but I must admit he does a damn fine job of it nonetheless.

 

Rating: B-

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