Nightmare Castle (1966)

Simply A Masterpiece

Absolutely the worst movie.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Muriel (Steele) is all excited about her husband Steven leaving their creepy Scottish Mansion for business, because that means she can get busy with the gardener David! Sadly, Steven has watched a copy of previous Steele film The Ghost and knows that Steele + Lover + Greenhouse = Infidelity. So it's spousal revenge time! I'd say that chaining them up, torturing them, then removing their hearts might be just a tad too far to be honest, but that's what Steven does. His old woman sidekick Solange is also there to help out, as every murderous cuckold can't get all the heart removing done by himself.Some time later, Steven is now married to Jenny, Muriel's twin sister (Steele, only with blonde hair this time). Now Jenny seems to have spent some time in a mental institution and Steven's had to marry her because he needs get a hold of all her and Muriel's money. Solange (who is also Steven's lover, I should have said) is a bit concerned that the whole stealing money plan isn't moving forward so fast. Also, Solange looks at least twenty years younger in this scene. What have they done to Solange? Being mentally unstable and living in a giant creepy mansion, Jenny at once starts to see things, hear things, and act like her dead sister. So it's up to you - are Steven and Solange trying to drive her mad to have her committed and gain her fortune? Have Muriel and David returned from the dead to get revenge? Is the visiting doctor in league with Jenny for some reason. You'll have to watch to find out.But to be honest you'll be better watching the version that's twenty minutes shorter, because I don't think the 1h 44m version I watched really improves things somewhat. Compared to the other 600 or so Italian Gothic horror films I've watched recently, this one drags a bit, but then again the talents of Steele and Muller and the music of Morricone save this from being a total bore-fest. There are moments of suspense too, and please note I did try to watch this while trying to get two kids into bed and while my wife was watching TV too loud in the background.

Nightmare Castle (1965) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Dr. Arrowsmith (Paul Muller) leaves his home only to sneak back and see his wife Muriel (Barbara Steele) in the arms of another man. The doctor ties both of them up in the basement and tortures them for days before their death. Before the wife died she informed him that she left her estate to her half-sister Jenny (Steele) so the doctor marries her but it doesn't take long for the dead wife and her lover to return from the dead.NIGHTMARE CASTLE is yet another Italian horror film that Scream Queen Steele appeared it. This one here has one of the best reputations among Steele fans but I'm going to guess that this has more to do with the fact that she's really the star here whereas in some of the movies she was just a minor character. The fact that you get to have her in two different roles is nice but at the same time there are some major issues with this film, which keeps it from being a classic.The biggest problem here is that it clocks in at 104-minutes, which is probably twenty-minutes longer than it needed to run. I'm not against longer-than-normal horror movies but at the same time they have to have some sort of story to carry them and this film simply doesn't. The story is pretty basic and one that's not all that original. You know that the pair are eventually going to come back from the death to seek revenge yet after they originally die you have over eighty-minutes before this happens.Those eighty-minutes are full of dialogue scenes that add very little to the actual story and I'd say these scenes could have been cut out (which they were in the American version) without any damage. There are some stuff moments here including the performances with Steele once again turning in a nice performance. Muller is also quite good in his role and is Helga Line as his assistant. The film also benefits from some strong cinematography and a nice score by Ennio Morricone.NIGHTMARE CASTLE doesn't quite reach the level of some of Steele's other movies like CASTLE OF BLOOD and THE HORRIBLE DR. HITCHCOCK but at the same time it is an improvement on stuff like TERROR-CREATURES FROM THE GRAVE and THE LONG HAIR OF DEATH.

(Mild spoilers) In my frequent visits to the land of vintage cinema, I recently came across "Amanti d'oltretomba", an Italian film directed by Mario Caiano and starring Scream Queen Barbara Steele, whose face still has no rival, with its enigmatic expression between a grimace and a gentle smile. On the unfortunate side, the copy I saw is not the 104 version made by Caiano, but a version made in USA, cut to 79 minutes, dubbed in English, retitled "Nightmare Castle" and with Caiano camouflaged as "Allen Grunewald". But even in these conditions one can perceive the Italian know-how to make a low-budget, fast and effective filler chiller to go with the main movie in the old days of double features. Not infrequently these fillers became big hits and instead of filling they became the main dish in the double programs. Steele had made one of these mega hits in 1960 –Mario Bava's "La maschera del demonio"-, which made her a star, and when she made "Amanti…" she had already starred in films by Roger Corman (in "Pit and the Pendulum", from 1961) and Federico Fellini (1963's "8 ½"), and she had coming the filming of Volker Schlöndorff's "Young Törless" and Mario Monicelli's "L'armata Brancaleone" in 1966. "Amanti d'oltretomba" is below the A products in which she had appeared in her career, but it did not diminish her cult status, and contributed to her clout as horror star. It is a compact sadistic drama, in which, as in "La maschera del demonio", there are tortures and mutilations (done with 1960s discretion), transformations, nightmares, torments and ghosts, a witch with a lover-cum assistant, a bad scientist, a good and handsome doctor, and Barbara in two roles. First she is adulterous Muriel, whose cruel husband (Paul Muller), a baron and scientist who makes strange experiments, catches her having fun with their servant (Rik Battaglia) in the green house. The sardonic baron decides to kill them and finds out that Muriel has made a new testament, leaving all her possessions to her sister. Since Jenny, the heiress (Steele in a blonde wig), seems a bit disturbed, it would not take much to drive her completely crazy, so the baron could live happily ever after with his lover Solange (who must be 200 years old, but turns into beautiful Helga Liné with serums made with the lovers' blood by the baron) but there is interference from a good looking psychiatrist (Laurence Clift), who seems to fall for Jenny. Nothing new up to this point. But when Muriel's ghost finally makes her appearance, any alert viewer will recognize the resemblance to her in Sadako, the poor scientist's daughter from the Japanese trilogy, "Ringu". One often reads about the influence 1960's Italian horror films had on world cinema, but they rarely mention this little movie and its lineage every time Sadako comes out of the well of the TV set, showing one eye and her hair-do in reverse (or is it inverse?), as Steele in the final confrontation, in which she gives the privilege to see the hidden half of her face below her hair. As an additional detail, "Amanti d'oltretomba" was edited by a video company that seems the poor sister of a richer company that has enough funds to restore old films and make little documentaries about them. From their vaults though, I have been able to obtain interesting titles, not in the best conditions, but watchable enough, as E.A. Dupont's German film "Varieté" (1925), as well as "The Perils of Pauline" (1914), "The Italian", "Civilization" (1916) and other antiques turned into national film registry by the US Congress. The rich company –which sometimes selects their products according to a strange criterion-, restored a turkey called "Fiend Without a Face" (sold to a laughable price). It would have been better to invest the cash in restoring a more deserving film as "Amanti d'oltretomba". Beautiful music by Ennio Morricone.

"Nightmare Castle" (1965) is a mildly enjoyable horror film starring the ever-creepy Barbara Steele. Steele is murdered by her evil-scientist husband for her adulterous ways. He then uses her blood to rejuvenate his aged girlfriend. Then he marries Steele's blond sister (also played by Steele) and attempts to drive her insane so he can send her to a loony bin and spend her large inheritance. But Steele's ghost is trying to possess her sister for revenge. The evil husband sends for a psychiatrist--who just happens to be a good lookin' hunk o' man--and he begins to fall for blondie. He suspects foul play. (Does this seem at all convoluted?)