Baron Blood Details

One of the most richly visual and atmospheric works in the superlative chill catalogue of Mario Bava, the Italian horror genius. Joseph Cotton plays a dual role: the Austrian baron whose ancestral castle is being turned into a luxury hotel and his mouldy-faced monstrous reincarnation who wants to put his sixteenth-century torture chamber to good use again. Mini-skirted Elke Sommer screams a lot as she and her lover revive the warlock baron and wield a magic amulet causing his past victims to rise vengefully from the grave. Commendable for its taut chase scenes, grisly gore and eerie photography, Bava evokes a style and tone that was a deliberate throwback to his early sixties successes, Black Sabbath and Blood and Black Lace.

Dull, unimaginative and lurid horror, in which the director's penchant for pointless zooms detracts from his attempts at atmosphere; an occasional chase sequence reveals what might have been, if those involved had been more committed or if its stars had b