Mill of the Stone Women (1960)

Good concept, poorly executed.

best movie i've ever seen.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Predictable but highly watchable tale of a mad sculptor who is trying to keep his daughter from dying from a horrible disease by giving her a blood transfusion. Donors are in short supply, so the guy has to 'volunteer' women to give their blood, turning the exsanguinated bodies into bizarre wax figures for display to the general public - in a windmill.This weird set up barely functions as it is, what with the sculptor's doctor buddy totally in love with the daughter, and the daughter totally in love with the new guy hired to work in the library. He's in love with a childhood friend, although he does realise this after bedding the crazy guy's daughter, and he declares his love for her right in front of the sick girl. Pretty tactless. His mate, by the way, is concerned that his model friend has mysteriously disappeared - guess where she's currently tied up?Things get slightly less predictable when the hero Hans does a really bad job of giving sick girl the brush off and she seemingly dies, but when he goes to confess to her dad the doctor gives him LSD! He spends a good portion of the film tripping out his head and seemingly talking to people who aren't there. After that, things get back into the 'rescue the girl from the mad doctor plot' but filmed very well, especially the shots of the melting wax 'models' at the end.Was Mario Bava involved? Who knows.

Another classic Italian Gothic which has an unusual and effective setting (an old windmill) to distinguish it from all the others of the period. MILL OF THE STONE WOMEN is a slow-burning but often effective creep-fest which makes fine use of the almost expressionistic sets of the interior of the windmill, filled with odd angles and bits of female dummies and skulls littered all over, making for a highly distinctive visual look. Filmed in Holland, the brief shots of the flat countryside which surrounds the windmill help to give it an authentic look and a chilly atmosphere, and Ferroni makes excellent use of colour to create a morbidly-beautiful looking movie. On top of this, a fine and creepy score just adds to the tension.The plot itself, when it comes down to it, is nothing particularly new. The idea of a doctor forced to kill young women to sustain the life of his ill daughter was very popular in the period this was made, and variations on the theme can be seen in many other horror films like Freda's THE VAMPIRES, ATOM AGE VAMPIRE, THE AWFUL DR. ORLOFF, and even the French classic EYES WITHOUT A FACE. Mixed in with this plot (which incidentally only comes to the fore in the final third of the movie, the beginning is just atmosphere-building and mysteries with no real answers) are some genuinely macabre HOUSE OF WAX-style shenanigans, involving the bodies of the dead being turned to stone and displayed on the carousel, the creaky contraption which is the film's focus point and a highly effective image of horror.Cast-wise, the film benefits from the presence of the creepy actor Robert Boehme as the professor. Boehme puts in a restrained and ultimately sympathetic performance here but he's still pretty chilling. Also effective is the German Wolfgang Priess (he of the '60s Mabuse films) as a sinister doctor living in the windmill; he doesn't have much to do until the end, in which his part in the horror and his explanations for his actions finally come out, but his role helps bolster the movie and he has some interesting exchanges with Boehme (usually the roles of the two men are combined into one in these sort of films). The actresses don't really have much to work with, especially Dany Carrel whose sole presence is to provide a female victim for the finale, and Scilla Gabel's role as the diseased daughter is seriously underdeveloped. Ultimately the film's biggest failing in the cast is Pierre Brice's turn as the hero, Hans von Arnam; Brice is wooden and uninteresting and seemingly unable to carry a lead by himself.MILL OF THE STONE WOMEN really does pick up for the predictably fiery conclusion, which has some great action, but director Giorgio Ferroni really needs to learn a thing or two about pacing as the first hour of this film is a long haul and lacking in incident. Compare this to a similarly-themed film like Freda's THE TERRIBLE SECRET OF DR. HICHCOCK, which expertly racks up the tension and suspense for the first hour, and its clear that MILL OF THE STONE WOMEN needs more of that suspense and build-up. The atmosphere is perfect, yes, but something is missing. Don't get me wrong, however; this is still a perfectly watchable (if only a little flawed) Gothic horror film with spot-on visuals and sets, and worth tracking down for fans of horror from the period.

Young artist Hans von Arnim (an excellent and engagingly earnest performance by Pierre Brice) goes to a small town in Holland to do a study of a famous local landmark mill that contains stone statues of famous female criminals and murderesses. Hans discovers that reclusive sculptor Professor Gregorious Wahl (superbly played by Herbert A.E. Bohme) and his evil assistant Dr. Loren Bohlem (a spot-on sinister portrayal by Wolfgang Preiss) are conducting nefarious experiments on beautiful young women.Director Giorgio Ferroni relates the absorbing story at a hypnotically deliberate pace, does an expert job of crafting and sustaining a potently brooding gloom-doom Gothic atmosphere, offers a flavorsome evocation of the 19th century village setting, and pulls out the rousing and marvelously macabre stops for the exciting fiery climax. Moreover, the filmmakers warrant extra praise for depicting Wahl as a fairly pitiable and ultimately tragic individual instead of making him some one-dimensional baddie: One might not agree with what Wahl is doing, but one still understands why he's committing these wicked acts and hence feels more than a little sorry for the guy. The captivating presences of several fetching femmes certainly doesn't hurt matters in the least: Stunning brunette Scilla Gabel as the fragile and sheltered Elfie, lovely Dany Carrel as the sweet Lisolette Kornheim, and ravishing redhead Liana Orfei as ill-fated model Annelore. Gorgeously shot in glorious Technicolor by Pier Ludovico Pavoni, further graced by a shivery score by Carlo Innocenzi, it's recommended viewing for fans of moody fright fare.

Not original or entertaining in the least. From the very first minutes it's clear that you get another version of any Wax Museum films which have been pouring out of different film studios since the early 20s: beautiful girls are boiled in wax and displayed as models in a horror section of a museum (in this case a mill-museum). The action takes place sometime around the last turn of the century. The mill looks nice, otherwise there aren't so much interesting locations - nor interesting (or beautiful) actors to that matter. It just drags along, and once you've figured the plot out, you also know, that it ends with an inescapable fire, that destroys the mill and lets the good young couple escape in the nick of time. It's really much more interesting now that I tell it, than it is on the screen. Somehow, in spite of an occasional Hammeresque look, this film doesn't sparkle in the least. If you're interested in the subject, there are much, much better films, most of them containing the word "Wax" in the title.