Genre hopping Italian director Mario Caiano, busy with low-ball Sword & Sandal epics and early Spaghetti Westerns in his first films, branched out to Gothic Horror on this sub-Edgar Allan Poe creep-out, more Hammer Films than Roger Corman/AIP adaptation or proto-Italian giallo. But even more, yet another variation of GASLIGHT. The classic stage melodrama where a fortune hunting husband (here - also a mad scientist) tries to break down his fragile bride in an attempt to steal her fortune while taking advantage of her all too willing personal maid before a heroic outsider comes to her rescue. (In George Cukor’s 1944 classic, it's Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, debuting Angela Lansbury, and Joseph Cotten.*) Nothing like that cast here, but Barbara Steele does get to split the deluded Bergman role in half as sisters, one sacrificed in a hellish prologue, the other led to believe she’s taken on the other’s personality. Monstrous supernatural things added on to bring back the dead in gruesome body horror appearances that don’t really add much. Still, quite watchable, with Ennio Morricone’s organ-heavy score and amusingly baroque interior decoration. Check out the ‘hugging’ restraining chair. If only Caiano (here listed as Alan Grunewald) knew how to alter pace & rhythm, the film is one long dirge when it might have worked in a manner to give Mario Bava or Dario Argento competition.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: The Stateside release clipped about 15 minutes off the running time. A full cut in English dub titled NIGHT OF THE DOOMED runs 104".
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *As mentioned, sans body horror, GASLIGHT. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2010/05/gaslight-1944.html
No comments:
Post a Comment