Acensbart
Excellent but underrated film
Konterr
Brilliant and touching
Invaderbank
The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.
Bezenby
A bunch of Italian actors head off to a creepy looking castle and are picked off one by one by a masked killer. This is no giallo, however! Everyone knows who doing the killing - he's that big muscly bastard in the red cap and mask screaming about how he's the Crimson Executioner and he's going to kill everyone! It ups the camp factor greatly that the victims are made up off supermodel looking for a castle like location to take horror themed pictures, which leads to much groovy sixties montages. It also ups the camp factor that the guy in charge of the castle is a nutcase who thinks that he's returned from the grave to torture people to death in his dungeon. His ex-girlfriend is amongst the visiting models - that's what drives him insane. Either that or someone breaking the seal on the original Crimson killer guy's Iron Maiden...it's a bit confusing. And yes, someone gets stuffed into that Iron Maiden.I suppose it shouldn't be much of a surprise how violent this film is considering that Massimo Puppillo also made Terror Creatures From the Grave, but what threw me here was how violent this film actually was! People are graphically tortured SAW style, by having molten lead poured on them, frozen water dripped onto their backs, burned alive, and one is almost rescued by one of our heroes before receiving a metal hook under her jawline! Another guy has an arrow shot through his neck, two girls are strapped to a machine where a blade cuts them across the chest...all this set to a groovy sixties bongo/ride cymbal soundtrack and the campest killer ever.Also of note is that set design kind of only allows the colour red to stand out amongst the scenery. This is worth noting so you can bring this up when you have your 'Italian sixties movies' coffee mornings in order to raise funds to send little Jimmy to the Profondo Rosso shop in Rome before the Crimson Executioner comes to get him! I almost forgot to mention the ultra-elaborate 'Spider Web/Crossbow' torture device that appears early in the film. Surely that would have taken more effort than it's worth to set up?
dougdoepke
After this pile of dreck, I took a shower. I guess an orgy of sadism like this has its fans. Not me. I do like a good horror movie, but this has none of those artful qualities. Instead it's an endless round of pain, screams, blood, fights and torture, mainly torture. Oh sure, there's the expected skin show, but given the context, it's about as sexy as a kick in the groin. I guess by filming in Italy, the producers could get more bang for their ten bucks, while the castle and surrounding landscape do produce scenic grabbers. But the glowing Technicolor is better suited to cartoons, while the expressionless dubbing is about as good as mine. Meanwhile, muscleman Hargitay does little more than take off his shirt and roll in a vat of glistening oil. All in all, I guess you could say I didn't like the movie, and would only recommend it to folks who like politicians' speeches. Meanwhile, I think I'll catch another round of the great I Walked With A Zombie.
knightox
The very idea of finding a deserted castle in the middle of no where was funny enough for starters. Then everything they(the camera crew and models) found was intact, barely covered with dust and well lighted? You can't even find a ghost town that well preserved in the American West. And then the Hugh Hefner wannbe boss wanted the models to continue camera shooting after the first mysterious death, accidental or not? Uh-oh Scooby! And things just get better and cheesier from here! I felt this movie was much more comedy than actual horror. The Italian director's sense of campy humor of the 1960's was quite evident. I kept waiting for Adam West and Burt Ward to jump out and save the day. However, I guess it couldn't have been titled "Bloody Pit of Horror" could it? It's a whole lot of fun to watch but know the special effects aren't there. There's more on the original Star Trek series. The blood might as well have been shaken ketchup and the fight scenes aren't quite the skill level of the WWE but hey, it was made back in '65! I just wish I could have heard the classic "Batman" television series music along with "BIFF!","POW!","ZAM!" and seen the caped crusaders at the film's finish. It would have made a great surprise ending IMO!?! Oh well, one can only dream. Oh yes, I loved the reoccurring line "My perfect body!". HA! Good stuff.
samhill5215
Surely nobody goes into this laughable cheese-fest expecting to see a quality horror film. Even by Italian standards - Bava and Argento excepted - this is utter nonsense. The horror part is well, what horror part? The plot is utterly predictable, no surprises there. The dialog is just as predictable. As for the scenery we are treated to some spectacular vistas (they caught my wife's fancy long enough to pause in passing and in her determination to avoid taking part in my passion for horrible films) and the castle where the action takes place is really cool! So what else is there to recommend this? It's all about perfect bodies, a good number of them, enough to keep members of both sexes entertained. Mickey Hargitay who plays our villain has, as he so proudly informs the audience often enough, THE perfect body. He puts the rest of us puny males to shame with the utter certainty that no matter how hard we try we'll never reach that level of physical beauty. On the other side of the gender barrier the women are equally gorgeous. They are all curvaceous, luscious, mouth-watering eye candy to awaken the man-beast in every male out there. Bear in mind there is no real nudity. The closest we get to risqué scenes is just the hint of the top part of nipples. Otherwise it's all designed to tantalize the male spectator with the prospect of revealing the hidden parts without doing so. How delicious! Well, perhaps not for recently pubescent and inexperienced teens. For them it might be too frustrating.One final point. The hero is the exact opposite of our gorgeous villain. A Joe Pesci look-alike, he's not exactly my idea of a hero and he in fact gets beat up pretty regularly until he finally prevails with strategic karate chops. Makes you wonder why he doesn't use them before he gets punched out within an inch of his life, but I digress. The heroine is clearly above his league in the looks department but also not as sexy or exotic as any one of the other four women. So I'm not sure but maybe the producers were trying to insert a moral about looks and death but who knows? Any way you look at it this movie will keep you chuckling and salivating neither of which is a bad thing.
