Popular reviews

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  Review by 1313: Tony the Terror ★★★

  Daily Horror Scavenger Hunt - July 2018

  5. A film based on a book

  A hooded figure in an old castle is torturing women in various ways, including a rat trap to the face kinda deal that results in a woman getting her nose half chewed off so this was sure something!

  Very atmospheric with a great lead in Rossana Podesta and a winning hammy performance from Christopher Lee. This is also surprisingly gory for a film made in 1963. I usually think that dubbing adds to the charm of Italian horror movies, but this dub was so horrible it actually annoyed me so I guess minus half a star for that.

  Bananameter: 🍌 christopher lee running through a fire and trying to protect his face makes it look like he’s voguing 🍌

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  Review by Ethan Lyon ★★★½ 2

  4th Antonio Margheriti (after The Long Hair of Death, Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye)

  Just because October is done, that doesn't mean that I won't finish my Second Hoopings list.

  This a film that arguably exists in the shared universe with Valkyrie; a Claus Philipp Maria Justinian Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg Cinematic Universe, if you will, though most of the film is concerned with the usual machinations of "is she seeing it or is she mad?" I do so love in the Gothic, even if ultimately it's a rather pedestrian progression. The colour is as gorgeous as ever, even in the faded print I saw, with the red of The Punisher's costume being a special highlight. Lee made this,…

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  Review by RanchoTuVu ★★★½

  The urge to see another moody gothic Italian horror film from the early 60s can be pretty intense. This almost satisfies it. Set in a medieval German castle, the wife of its owner discovers a torture chamber with an iron maiden that has a little cup at the bottom to collect blood that drips from inside. The old methods of torture are the best according to the Punisher, a deformed killer who wears a black hood to cover his face. The story kind of ties him to the aftermath of the horrors of the Nazis and sets it in a gothic horror film. Nice color photography captures the rich dark textures of the upholstery and Rossana Podesta's flowing white night gown.

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  Review by Demdike ★★★★ 2

  When a husband leaves his beautiful bride alone in his ancestral Gothic castle, a gruesome murder occurs in the old abandoned torture chamber in the depths of the castle. As Mary searches for answers in the castles many rooms she is shocked to discover the possibility of a hideous phantom killer known as "the Punisher" who stalks the castle corridors looking for victims to feed his rusty spiked iron maiden and other cruel forms of torture.

  Although Christopher Lee is top billed on the film, he really has little more than a large cameo role as the film centres around Rossana Podesta and her character of Mary Hunter. Her role is central to the film being so enjoyable as for…

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  Review by Marna Larsen ★★★½

  60's horror project #65: I feel like I should warn certain people that there is a rat cage torture scene in this? But sorta not? Because she gets saved by the lovely Rossana Podesta who is wearing the best nightgown ever? And the other lady is like, 'oh my face how can I live?' But there was just some blood around her nose so I don't think anything was bitten off or missing or anything. This is a surprisingly tense mystery set in I guess a torture museum? (Oh, okay. A castle that INCLUDES a torture museum.) The virgin of nuremberg is apparently another name for an iron maiden*. Probably most of you people out there knew that already but…

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  Review by Robert Berlin ★★

  Horror Hunt #32 (February 2021)
  17. Castle setting
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  This exceeded my non-existent expectations. I mean sure, a lot of the runtime consists of people walking through a castle and doing a terrible job with finding the exit. And Christopher Lee is absolutely wasted on his boring role here. But on the other hand that castle looks really good. And there's a crimson red executioner who does some slasher-esque chase and murder while also going on eccentric rants about torture devices. Oh, and there's a few great scenes where torture devices are being used on people. A bit boring, but I've seen so much worse.

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  Review by Pips ★★

  Hooptober 9.0: 3/34

  I like spooky castles and Christopher Lee, but this was a real snoozer, and it had such an out of place score. The villain is kinda interesting though.

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  Review by Scrambled Face ★★★

  This lesser-known gothic chiller from Antonio Margheriti starts out fairly average. A nightgown-clad American woman (Rossana Podestà) roams the halls of an old German castle before stumbling upon a room full of old torture devices, then faints upon seeing a dead woman inside the titular contraption, better known as the iron maiden. Her new husband (Castle of Blood star Georges Rivière) is descended from a line that also bred the infamous lunatic "The Punisher" (not that one), who ran around in a hooded costume torturing women he considered of loose morals to death. The family castle naturally houses a museum of this creep's favorite tools, curated and caretaken by a scarfaced Christopher Lee. Hubby tells his bride she imagined the…

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  Review by Laurie ★★★½ 5

  Newly married Mary Hunter (Rossana Podestà) arrives at her husband Max's (Georges Rivière) Gothic family castle and immediately begins to see a sinister garbed figure prowling the dusty halls. It doesn't help that Max keeps a dungeon full of functioning torture equipment (including the titular 'Virgin of Nuremberg') and there are myriad tales of a long dead torturing ancestor of Max's. The castle is also attended to by scarred, brutish family friend Erich (Christopher Lee).
  Antonio Margheriti's Gothic shocker achieves a particularly nightmarish ambience by confining the viewer as well as Podestà's eternally night gowned bride within the Gothic castle for pretty much the entirety of the film. There are a couple of brief jaunts outside, but for the most…

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  Review by Roxxi ✞ ★★★½

  I specifically wanted to watch a 60s gothic horror where women walk around in dark castles with a candle lighting the way as their long nightgowns flow behind them dramatically while something terrible is lurking around the corner, and that's exactly what I got!

  It was an extra special treat to see Riz Ortolani did the score as well! He's one of my fave film composers (you may know him from Cannibal Holocaust!)

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  Review by Filipe Furtado ★★★½

  European criminal history going up in flames. Standard fare Italian horror gothic elevated because Margheritti is a master of using darkness for generating troubling oprressive images. One of Christopher Lee better 60s parts as well.

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  Review by Jon Hillman ★★★

  It's always neat seeing big stars (Christopher Lee, in this case) show up in these little Italian oddities.