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 ...
Read More »An Englishman’s Guide to Italian Gothic: I vampiri (1957)
“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 ...
Read More »The Great Dragon Has Swallowed the Moon: Mario Bava’s Hercules in the Haunted World and the Gothic Peplum
The late ‘50s saw the first major boom of Italian genre cinema with the emergence of Italian Gothic horror — films about witches, vampires, and ghosts, set in cobweb-choked castles — but these titles by directors like Mario Bava, Riccardo ...
Read More »Nightmare Castle (US Blu-Ray Review)
The folks at Severin Films seem to be on a roll. A few months back, they released Jess Franco’s long-awaited Vampyros Lesbos and She Killed in Ecstasy, in mostly excellent HD restorations. Now, they turn to Nightmare Castle, one of Barbara ...
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