morrison-dylan-fan Opening Eastwood's Barbara Steele double feature DVD expecting to just find the 2 films on the cover,I was surprised to find a bonus disc with 2 more titles! Having already seen the excellent The Ghost,I got set to close the coffin on my run of Steele viewings. View on the film:Made as a love letter to Italian Gothic Horror and the lead actress, co-writer/(with Fabio De Agostini) director Mario Caiano goes round an odd way in expressing it,as Caiano & cinematographer Enzo Barboni dashes of surrealist nightmares, yelping deaths and lovingly-held close-ups are wiped clean by the majority of the run-time taken up by a costume drama romance,which holds little atmosphere of fear or urgency,with Ennio Morricone's classy score trying to bring shivers to the oddly calm and casual mood of the movie. Going blonde for her dual role, (perhaps an in-joke to her role in Elvis's Flaming City?)Barbara Steele grabs the film with an excellent sensuality as Jenny and Muriel Arrowsmith,with Steele lighting the flames of unease between her and Helga Liné's Solange,along with keeping Muriel in a nightmare state in the nightmare castle.

Edgar Soberon Torchia (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.

oscar-35 *Spoiler/plot- 1965, The Faceless Monster, A mad scientist kills his wife and her lover, partly for revenge and partly for his experiments animating blood. A Gothic tale of murder and revenge from the grave.*Special Stars- Barbara Steel plays the wife.*Theme- Justice is for everyone.*Based on- 19th century ghost stories.*Trivia/location/goofs- Is online. Italian nobleman and his house.*Emotion- The horror aspects of this film are much better than the thin SF elements, with the haunting of the dead murdered lovers. This story 'feel' is very reminiscent of TV "Dark Shadows" or the E. A. Poe stories.

HumanoidOfFlesh Italian queen of Gothic horror Barbara Steele portrays the wife of a deranged scientist played by Paul Muller whose latest experiments involve electro-stimulation of human blood.When the mad doctor discovers that his wife is unfaithful,he tortures,disfigures and kills her alongside her gardener lover,then removes and preserves the hearts of the victims,using their blood to restore youth and beauty to his own lover Solange.When the madman discovers that his late wife left all her wealth to her mentally unstable sister he quickly sets about courting and marrying the poor girl,then proceeds to drive her completely mad in order to inherit her fortune."Nightmare Castle" is an essence of Italian Gothic horror.It takes place almost entirely in castle interiors,frequently in utter darkness.There are some scenes of depressing violence and the visuals are rich and beautiful.The hypnotic eyes of Barbara Steele are not easy to forget.9 out of 10.