CASTLE OF BLOOD (1964)
Starring Barbara Steele and Arturo Domici
A fucking great black-and-white horror film from the early 1960s, "Castle of Blood" was elevated to R-rated status when it was released on DVD in 2002 in a thoroughly uncensored version that features what has to be one of the earliest nude scenes ever to show up in a horror film. Aside from that titillating anecdote, the film happens to be an excellent ghost story, later remade by the same director as "Web of the Spider."
Supposedly based on an Edgar Allen Poe story, the film features Poe as a character. A friend of the great writer is challenged to spend a night in a haunted house on the "Night of the Dead" (November 2) for cash. Of course, the writer takes up the wager and arrives in the house to discover a beautiful woman (Steele) hanging out there.
Naturally, the two fall in love. When they're hanging out in Steele's bed together, a strange muscle-bound and shirtless man shows up, stabs Steele to death and runs off. Our hero rushes downstairs and meets a famous doctor, who explains to him that the girl was dead all along. He then begins to recount stories from the house - stories which are displayed visually in front of them. Steele, it turns out, was really murdered many years earlier. Other killings happened in the house too. Our protagonist isn't sure if what he's seeing isn't just elaborate theater to get him out of the house, or whether it's real. He does know one thing: He's thoroughly in love with Steele. The movie has one of the best ghost story endings you're likely to ever see -- and that they couldn't get away with today.
Calling "Castle of Blood" a masterpiece would be an overstatement, but the film certainly is a classic and is definitely more intriguing now that it's been released in its uncensored form for the first time in the United States. Steele is as strange and beautiful as ever, and the story is dreamlike and surreal enough to rank this as one of the finest fear films to come out of Italy in the 1960s. It certainly ranks up there with the best of Mario Bava, who was originally asked to direct but had to decline due to other commitments.
The film is also better than its remake which, although made by the same director, somehow doesn't capture the same atmosphere. "Web of the Spider" was shot in color, however, and for a time was the easiest of the two versions to find. It's now a certified rarity.