Castle of Blood (1964)

Boring, long, and too preachy.

Best movie of this year hands down!

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Ever since I saw Black Sunday (great movie) I wanted to see more of Barbara Steele. Castle of Blood was another recommendation from a while ago. Finally I have watched it. If not for Barbara Steele don't think I would have lasted through this one. Sure atmospheric, black/white cinematography but I'm nor really sure what kind of point the writer wanted to make. The whole back story of how all the ghost came to an end it was your typical run of the mill story pretty rich lady has a secret lover so the two men kill each other. More interesting was the pretty Julia having a lesbian crush on Elisabeth, that must have been something back than. Elisabeth and Alan Foster in love while both hardly having much interaction seemed more like both were in desperate need of a good lay. Didn't convince me at all. Alan seeing images of the past was interesting but than him yelling at the doctor and he young couple to watch out, I was like idiot they can't hear you they are already dead. And than the ending I was like oh yes he made it through the gate and than the gate itself spiking his head I was like oh please that is quite a retarded way to die. And than his voice oh yes Elisabeth I stayed for you, yeah right are you trying to make me believe you spiked your head on purpose? As a romance it might work but as horror not really, the story and its ending I thought were extremely lame. 5/10 points for the splendid cinematography, the beautiful ladies and the daring lesbian angle.

One of the greatest examples of Italian Gothic, "Castle of Blood" has everything you could ask for in a genre film and more, employing the basic elements of classic Universal Horror films with the over sexuality of 60's cinema, therefore turning the otherwise routine story into something fresh and original. Though Antonio Marghereti has something of a mixed bag career, this is one of his best achievements, whose stylish directing creates some haunting set pieces and evocative, nightmarish atmosphere that has never been bettered. Riz Ortolani's score is as darkly erotic as it's unique approach at the Gothic Horror, blending perfectly with the latter. Just as the soundtrack, Barbara Steele is perfectly cast as our protagonist's 'love interest from beyond grave', and whose awkward sex appeal is extremely representative of the film's own macabre sensuality. It would be interesting to see this back-to-back with Mario Bava's "Black Sunday", which has a similar tone as well as having Steele in the lead role. Both films are also probably the best of the dying B&W Italian horror films, before it switched to hellishly colorful efforts, starting with Bava's equally mesmerizing "Black Sabbath" in 1963. Overall, 10/10

I have never seen a Barbara Steele movie that I haven't liked, and have always been a sucker for a good haunted-house story (especially for such wonderful pictures as "The Legend of Hell House" and the original versions of "The Haunting" and "House on Haunted Hill"), so I had a feeling that "Castle of Blood" would be right up my alley. And boy, was it ever! This French-Italian coproduction, while perhaps not the classic that Steele's first horror film, "Black Sunday," remains to this day, is nevertheless an extremely atmospheric, chilling entry in the spook genre. Filmed in black and white, it manages to convey a genuinely creepy miasma. The film concerns a journalist who bets one Lord Blackwood and an author named Edgar Allen Poe that he can spend the night in Blackwood's castle on the night of All Saints Day, when the spirits of those killed in the castle reenact their fate. The viewer gets to see these deaths, and they ARE pretty horrible, for the most part. The film does indeed send shivers up the viewer's spine, and in the uncut DVD that I just watched--thanks to the fine folks at Synapse--even features a surprising topless scene and some mild lesbianism! And Barbara is wonderful in this movie; her otherworldly beauty is put to good advantage playing a sympathetic spectre. Her mere presence turns a creepy ghost story into something truly memorable. Not for nothing has she been called "The Queen of Horror."

I saw this film when I was 10 or 11 years old, alone in my parent's basement on a Saturday night. It was being shown on "Chiller Theatre," a regular fright feature that I watched religiously as a young 'un. Now, I have seen many old horror films thanks to Chiller Theatre, but none ever stuck with me like "Danse Macabre," a.k.a. "Castle of Blood." I am 51 now, and only last year was I fortunate enough to locate a relatively recent, quality DVD edition of this wonderfully shudder-inducing supernatural classic, having thought I'd never manage to see it again. I have already watched it four more times, and cannot seem to get tired of it.They just don't make spook films like this one anymore. Haunted catacombs and mist-enshrouded graveyards just don't work as well in color as they did in black and white back in the day. Anyway, this one has Edgar Allen Poe and Barbara Steele, deliciously shadowy, cobweb-wrap'ed haunted castle sets, restless spirits re-enacting their deaths... and a wickedly ironic ending.IMO, this one's right up there with Robert Wise's "The Haunting," "The Innocents" (with Deborah Kerr), and the more recent "The Others."