Castle of Blood

In London a journalist meets Edgar Allan Poe. They make a wager: the journalist Alan Foster will spend a whole night in an abandoned castle. The prize is money. He goes, and the door is locked behind him. He is not alone inside. A woman appears; she is called Elisabeth and says she lives there. Then others come. Alan speaks with all of them and learns what happened in the castle in the past. What he works out is this: these people return on the same night each year and live it again. For that to continue they need something. Antonio Margheriti directs. Barbara Steele plays Elisabeth and Georges Rivière plays Alan. It is an Italian and French co-production. The film is attributed to Poe but the story is not his; Poe is set into the frame as a character. Barbara Steele was the central performer of Italian gothic horror in the sixties and this film is one of that period's examples. The black and white photography and the lighting of the castle are its strongest side. The tension comes not from violence but from waiting; most of the events gather in the last section. It was censored in some countries and shown at different lengths. The director remade the same story in colour years later. Its limit is budget; the effects are simple and some scenes slow. Who it is for: viewers who like Italian gothic horror and black and white atmosphere films. Who it is not for: it is slow, the plot thin, and the horror mild by present measure.