The Blancheville Monster (1963) Horror Mystery

The Blancheville Monster (1963) - This is a tale of a family in transition with a curse that will soon come to pass. Emily (Ombretta Colli) almost twenty one is returning home from college to her castle in Brittany (Northern France). It is 1884 and she comes home after her father has past away. She is sad that she did not get to see him being away when he died. Emily is out of sorts as it seems all the servant she grew up with have all been replaced. Her brother Rodrigue De Blancheville, (Gerard Tichy) is the count of the castle now is hospitable when she arrives with her two college friend. The sister and brother the Taylors,  Alice (Iran Eory) and John (Vanni Materassi) are along to make little couple packets where John shows interested in Emily and Alice shows interest in Rodrigue. Add into this Dr. Lerouge (Leo Anchoriz) showing interest in Alice while a the same time having stealthy cryptic conversations with the housekeeper Miss Eleonore (Helga Line) and you have quite the mixture.
  After the introduction of the players we have some mystery building, the howl of a beast in the night. Too human for the explanation Rodrigue gives of a dog on a stormy night. Still explained away until it is heard again in the night by Alice. There is a really nice tension building scene where she Alice wanders in the night, in her shear bedclothes she walks with a candelabrum, a door slams, music builds, a clock tolls, she follows a noise to a room with the door ajar then the shadow coming closer and she faints. It is a well done scene.
  The mystery for her deepen when she wakes in her bed, everything in the room is where it should be and she has to wonder if it was all a dream. Of course the others talk to her and Rodrigue plays it off as her imagination. Even going up to the tower she sees that everything appears empty and unused. It is a very effective way to pull the audience into the mystery of the place. Rodrigue seems at this point to be the bad guy but you have to wonder about Miss Eleonore and Dr. Lerouge also. Could they all be in league together? What are they plotting?
  We don't have to wait long for answers when Rodrigue spills that their father never died but instead was horrible burned and is mad! He has escaped and wants Emily dead because of a prophesy written in the old family tomb. It says that the family Blancheville will end if the daughter of this generation reaches the age 21. Oh no! poor Emily is only five days away. Now that the basic plot is out in the open there is a lot of distracting the audience with hypnotism and red herring characters. They are very conscious to make sure one character above all others seems like the culprit.
  In the end though it is not too hard to figure out the real villain. Emily is not killed although I don't think I am spoiling anything there. There is some death and some nervous times for Emily and her folk but in the end the demise of the killer is unspectacular. This ends up being a middle of the road horror / mystery that does not hold its own.
Rating (4.4) 5.0 and up are recommended, some more recommended than others.

Castle of Blood (1964) - Horror Ghost

Castle of Blood (1964) - Danza Macabra is the Italian name for this very enjoyable ghost story. It is a simple enough story but well executed even though the version I have is a bit of a mess technically. It goes from dubbed to French, go figure?, with English subtitles and dubbing throughout. Some of the early scenes look like a poor quality print was used and the sound is only okay. Still it is very viewable and worth the time.
The basic story is of a reporter, Alan Foster (Georges Riviere) who meets Edgar Allen Poe (Silvano Tranquilli) and his friend Lord Thomas Blackwood (Umberto Raho) in a London pub for an interview. In the conversation Poe expresses his belief in the supernatural, an idea the reporter does not agree with. He takes a bet to stay that very night Nov. 1-2, the Day of the dead in the haunted castle of Lord Blackwood. If he makes it until morning in the castle then he wins. If tragedy strikes him in the night as it has others who have taken this bet in the past then the Lord wins.
So we see the reporter head into the castle on his own, a bit jumpy but showing courage as he creeps through the dark corridors. This is classic horror with strange portraits and a clock that rings but appears to be broken on closer examination. Lit only by a candelabra Foster explores some of the house before being startled by Lord Blackwood's sister Elisabeth (Barbara Steele). They make a quick acquaintance and very soon are a bit taken with each other. They are interrupted by Julia (Margarete Robsahm) and some words pass between she and Elisabeth. Elisabeth is already very possessive of the reporter and tries to warn Julia away while Julia hints at a inevitable unknown (to the audience) fate for him.
When an event happens to confirm to Foster that all the interactions he has had are with ghosts. He is then visited by Dr. Carmus (Arturo Dominici), the ghost of victims past, who explains that on this night he will see the last five minutes of each of the lives of the ghosts. A good part of the movie is then seeing them as they die. No details on this because renting or buying this film is recommended. Let me say though I was surprised a couple times, once with the quite serious lesbian love undertone (overtone) in a 1964 film this was very surprising. Then again with the brief nudity by the incredibly sexy Sylvia Sorrente was not expected.
When the different victim scenes have concluded Foster learns that in order to return the following year the ghost need his blood! So the climax is Foster's fight to get out of the house before the ghosts kill him. The ending is great and is one of the earliest of this type I have seen in my vast horror watching.
This is a very good film, well acted and stylish. The sets have a great sense of depth that is often lacking in horror movies kudos to Cinematographer Riccardo Pallottini. The music is wonderfully done by Riz Ortolani that is clear but not too over the top settling a dramatic scene all by itself. The script is tight and well formed by Sergio Corbucci and Giovanni Grimaldi. I do really recommend this for all lover of horror but particularly for those who have not explored classic foreign horror This is a very fine example of classic horror storytelling executed well

Rating (7.5) 5.0 and up are recommended.