Horror Classic 4 of 50: NIGHTMARE CASTLE

-
Today's movie is Nightmare Castle, which IMDb tells me is also known as Night of the Doomed, Lovers from Beyond the Tomb, The Faceless Monster, and Gli Amanti d'oletretomba. Which title is your favorite?

This is another Italian film, but this one is marginally better than Atom Age Vampire. Maybe. This is also Movie #2 of Side B of Disc 1, which means I'm finished with the first disc of the 12-disc set! Wooo!

Synopsis
Stephen Arrowsmith (cool name!) is a mad scientist who lives in a big, spooky castle (Is there any other kind?) with his hot wife Muriel. She's having an affair with their beefy gardener David, and when Stephen catches them he chains them up and tortures them... whipping, cutting, dripping of acid on the face, that kind of thing. Through all this, Muriel spews venom at him: Boy, do I hate you, she says. You're really a big fat jerk. Go ahead and kill me, jerk... You think you'll get my inheritance? Well, you're wrong, Mr. Jerkface, because I rewrote my will to leave everything to my dopey stepsister Jenny! Whaddya think of that? Stephen has a pretty snappy comeback: He kills Muriel and David, cuts their hearts out and burns their bodies. He's assisted in this endeavor by Solange, his elderly servant.

When we cut to some months later, a few things have changed. For one, Solange is now a spry young thing, thanks to Stephen's mad mojo and Muriel's youthful blood. Stephen, meanwhile, has remarried, and his new bride is... Muriel's dopey stepsister Jenny! Who looks exactly like her! Except with blonde hair. Jenny is also meek and paranoid, and before long she's having terrifying nightmares, hearing Muriel's voice, and having visions ins which she actually seems to be Muriel.

Now, Stephen wants his new wife to go insane so he can get the inheritance, but only as a result of his own machinations. So he brings in a doctor who doesn't mind making a house call to a haunted castle, Dr. Dereck Jacobs. But uh-oh, Dereck and Jenny start falling for each other, and Dereck begins to suspect that there's something fishy going on in the Arrowsmith household. Meanwhile, Solange is freaking out because she wants Jenny's young blood and she wants it NOW. Stephen resolves to take desperate measures to keep the whole situation under his control... but Muriel is exerting increasing influence on Jenny in her bid to achieve revenge from beyond the grave.

Is It Scary?
Yeah, somewhat. Muriel's a pretty hardcore dead chick, and her methods of haunting pack a punch, though they're undermined by the accompanying wicked cackling, of which there is too much. Hey, Muriel, what's so danged funny?

Lessons I Learned
  • When making out with your gardener, make sure your husband is not watching, and consider using a location less visible than a greenhouse, which consists of many, many windows.
  • There is such a thing as identical stepsisters.
  • Don't marry your identical stepsister's evil mad scientist widower.
  • Eletrocution by bathtub is a horrible way to die.
Comments
The problem with this movie is that there's not really a protagonist, or even a likable character. Stephen and Solange are wicked and selfish, Muriel is shrill, Jenny is dumb. I guess Dereck is a good guy, but he doesn't show up until halfway through the film, and he doesn't really do much.

Barbara Steele's dual performance as Muriel and Jenny is quite good, for this kind of movie. Muriel is defiant and Jenny is pitiful, and they really seem like two completely different people.

There are some interesting parallels here with Atom Age Vampire, the other Italian movie in this 50-movie DVD set. Both include women who regain their beauty by leeching the life from other women. Both feature mad scientists who are insanely jealous and possessive of the objects of their affection. Both feature greenhouses, too. They're practically the same movie!

There's a lot of kissing. Stephen and Muriel, David and Muriel, Stephen and Solange, Stephen and Jenny, Jenny and Dereck. I hope none of these characters has cooties, because that stuff spreads like crazy.

I didn't particularly enjoy the Stephen-chains-up-his-wife-and-her-lover scene. Depictions of torture and people yelling about how much they despise each other aren't that entertaining to me. It's just a thing I have.

Letter grade for Nightmare Castle: C+

Next film in the DVD set: Black Dragons

Comments

Snipes said…
Nice blog you have here. I picked up this 50 movie set a few years ago and only watched the first two, but just recently started getting back into it, and I'm really am enjoying them to the point I'm planning on picking up the 250 Horror set. Anyways Nightmare Castle is by far my favorite of the first four so far, probably aptly due to Helga Line's performance (Solange). But it's interesting that not many people seem to mention her in their reviews of the film, it's always Barbara Steele, who frankly I wasn't too impressed with. I thought Line stole the film with her sheer presence alone! I look forward to reading what you think of the other films as I progress through them as well, and feel free to stop by my blog!
November 8, 2008 at 2:46 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

50 Horror Classics: The Wrap-up

-
Image
I did it! I watched 50 old public domain movies slapped together by a cheap home video label under the claim that all of them are "horror classics." So... now what? I'll get to that later, but first, how about a breakdown of all 50 horror classics by letter grade? Before you read on, try guessing which letter grade I gave out most frequently! A: 2 Night of the Living Dead, Metropolis B+: 3 The Little Shop of Horrors, The Phantom of the Opera, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde B: 9 House on Haunted Hill, The Bat, Monster from a Prehistoric Planet, Nosferatu, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Corpse Vanishes, Invisible Ghost, Creature From the Haunted Sea, Carnival of Souls B-: 9 The Amazing Mr. X, Bloodlust!, The Gorilla, Doomed to Die, The Killer Shrews, The Fatal Hour, The Giant Gila Monster, One Body Too Many, The Last Man on Earth C+: 5 A Shriek in the Night, Tormented, Bluebeard, The Vampire Bat, Nightmare Castle C: 8 Last Woman on Earth, Swamp Women, Indestructible Man, King of
Read more

BONUS: Puss in Boots (1988) starring Christopher Walken

-
Image
Wow, it's been a long time since I watched a movie from my Drive-In Classics DVD set. I blame the rise of streaming video. With every movie ever made available at the click of a button, it's harder to find the motivation to watch Zombie Picnic or whatever when I know I could be watching a true classic. But here's something I watched recently, on DVD even. It's an obscure, low-budget movie. And it was part of a three-movie DVD I bought for about $2 at 7-11. So it's certainly in the spirit of this blog. The something in question is Puss in Boots , a 1988 film starring Christopher Walken as the titular talking cat. Yes, it's an actor playing a cat, but it's not animated, and in fact, there are almost no special effects at all. Puss starts out as a real cat, and then sometimes the camera cuts away or does a choppy editing trick, and then instead of the cat it's Mr. Walken. So he's really more of a Puss Who Looks a Lot Like a Man in Boots. For yea
Read more

Horror Classic 27 of 50: BLUEBEARD

-
Image
So, you know how I'm watching 50 old horror movies for this blog? And you know how sometimes it's been very, very difficult to find the willpower to carry on? Well, the other day I was in the Virgin Megastore, and what do you think I saw? I'll tell you what I saw. This: TWO HUNDRED FIFTY MOVIES ! And it's by the same video label as my 50-movie pack. My first thought is, where did they find 200 more crazy old horror movies? My second thought, of course, is, I sure am glad this isn't the DVD set I got for Christmas. I'd go completely bonkers before I finished watching 250 of these things. Speaking of things, (Is that a great transition or what?) this week I watched Bluebeard , a 1944 film which is not, as I expected, an adaptation of the old story of the ugly, many-wived Bluebeard . Nor does it have anything to do with Kurt Vonnegut's novel Bluebeard , other than the fact that both of them include a few allusions to the original story. Synopsis The pl
Read more