"I lunghi capelli della morte" by Antonio Margheriti is a classic b/w Gothic movie. Take a flickering candle, go down into the crypt, past the spider webs - and you wouldn't be surprised if Bela Lugosi was lurking in the shadow. Actually it's Barbara Steele which you can't complain about, either. Giorgio Ardisson plays Kurt, the son of a Count, who commits a murder, blames it on a witch, the witch is burnt and leaves a terrible curse behind - maybe the story is not something new, but it matters most in this movie to show how a man is slowly trapped in a revenge plan - so slowly that for most of the running time, he doesn't even realize the torment already began. That not much is happening, as sometimes reviewers do say, is done on purpose: Kurt would like to move, but he is becoming aware more and more of his helplessness, his inability to hide. "I lunghi capelli della morte" is a movie with intensity, atmosphere and beauty in its black and white imagery, and while I just wanted to check out the first chapter for the disc quality when the DVD arrived in the mail, I ended up watching it till the end - it was mesmerizing and really that good. Fans of the genre, don't miss it!

The 15th century. A woman who's been falsely accused of being a witch gets burned at the stake. Her daughter Helen Karnstein (a fine performance by ravishing brunette scream queen cult favorite Barbara Steele) vows revenge, but is shoved off a cliff to her death by the wicked, yet weak Count Humboldt (a solid turn by Guiliano Raffaelli). Several years later Helen comes back from the dead as alluring lookalike Mary in order to bring both Count Humboldt and his even worse, more evil and corrupt son Kurt (a deliciously villainous and revolting portrayal by George Ardisson) to justice. Director Antonio Marghereti, who also co-wrote the compelling script with Bruno Valeri, does an expert job of creating and sustaining a potently brooding gloom-doom midnight-in-the-graveyard sepulchral atmosphere; the extremely strong and unsettling sense of bleak nightmarish dread really gets under the viewer's skin and culminates in an exciting confrontation between Helen and Kurt with an ultimate chilling resolution which neatly prefigures "The Wicker Man." Moreover, Margheriti stages Helen's resurrection from her grave by a bolt of lightning with real bravura aplomb and makes excellent use of the gorgeous rural sylvan countryside. Steele excels in her dual role; she receives fine support from the lovely Halina Zalewski as her faithful sister Elizabeth, Umberto Raho as honest priest Von Klage, and Laura Nucci as loyal housekeeper Grumaldi. Riccardo Pallottini's crisp black and white cinematography boasts several nifty prowling camera pans. Carlo Rustichell's supremely spooky'n'shuddery score likewise hits the shivery spot. Well worth seeing for both Barbara Steele fans and Italian Gothic horror buffs alike.

I've just recently discovered the Italian horror film. This one is pretty decent. I could have been much improved with a little effort at editing. Everything is set up nicely for revenge. You have the evil of witch burning as an innocent victim is set afire. She curses the people who put her there and we all know she'll be back. Nasty stuff begins to happen in the dukedom as the plague begins to decimate the population. The bad guys prosper pretty well, isolated from the rest of the rabble, but then a young woman (Barbaba Steele) returns. To keep her quiet, the patriarch of the castle pushed her off a cliff. She comes back to help her sister who has been forced into an ugly marriage with the young master. There are a series of efforts to kill this woman and things come to a satisfactory ending for the audience. The problem is the pacing. It drags on and on. There are these meandering trips through the castle, seemingly going nowhere. The whole effort to cover up a murder seems so convoluted. Let's just say there are simpler ways to go about these things, especially when you wield a lot of power. Still, I mostly liked it. Visually it is interesting and the acting is quite good.