An Englishman’s Guide to Italian Gothic

*Contains spoilers* “Of all the melancholy themes, the one universally recognised by mankind as the saddest of all is the most obvious one: Death. And that most melancholy theme becomes the most poetic of all, when coupled with the theme ...

With Mario Bava’s Black Sunday (1960) opening the bloody floodgates of Italian export horror, Bava’s friend and former mentor, Riccardo Freda, responded with a horrific hit of his own; The Horrible Dr Hichcock (1962). Itself one of the best films ...

By 1969, Bram Stoker’s most celebrated creation had appeared in countless films, some loosely based on the novel from whence he came, some so wildly divergent that they almost beggar belief. Billy the Kid vs. Dracula (1966) and Dracula vs. ...

“Our ancestors had imaginations that were positively – diabolic!”  The Punisher “That’s quite a poetic name to apply to what is after all a brutal instrument of torture,” comments a suspicious Rhineland doctor after being shown The Virgin of Nuremberg ...

“Come closer, please. I have something to tell you. Ladies and gentlemen, I am Boris Karloff. Allow me to introduce three brief tales of terror and the supernatural. I hope you didn’t come to the movies alone. As you will ...

I come from the past. I exist in the present and in the future. I am here to offer you a life of passion for centuries everlasting. A realm which is waiting for you. A beautiful world of strange colours ...

Although a great film, Riccardo Freda and Mario Bava’s attempt to reignite the horror genre in Italy, I vampiri (US: The Devil’s Commandment), failed miserably at the box office when released in 1957. By all accounts this was largely due ...

As the midnight chimes of Big Ben resound around Victorian London, a top-hatted figure steals into a fogbound graveyard and knocks out the gravedigger who is about his business there. His desperate grey-gloved hands prise open the casket’s lid to ...

“Cinema is the mightiest weapon” was the statement of intent behind Mussolini’s inauguration of the Cinecittà studio complex in 1937. And a mighty weapon it did indeed become for Italy, although thankfully not in the service of Il Duce’s fascistic ...