Bavaland - enjoy the visuals, forget the rest . .

The script here is like an episode of Scooby Doo featuring only the two least interesting members of the team, albeit with a significantly higher body count. It's so childishly awful that it's hard to understand how it was ever produced, and the acting is mostly pretty perfunctory. Elke Sommer, as Daphne to Antonio Cantafora's Fred, stands out here not just by being Elke Sommer, but also because she seems to be actually trying quite hard. Joseph Cotten is good, but only good enough to make you realise what Vincent Price could have done with his role.

BUT . . it's a Mario Bava movie, and as soon as you get into the shadows of the castle - seemingly a real location - you're lost in a dreamworld of bizarre perspective shots, hallucinatory color effects and overwhelming, murky atmosphere. Chases and shocks are also startlingly effective. Unfortunately, all that atmosphere is regularly dispersed by scenes of driveling exposition between orange people in turtlenecks amid ghastly 70's interiors.

In short, sub-Hammer gothic hi-jinks, certainly not vintage Bava, but of interest to confirmed fans - others start with 'Black Sunday' or 'The Whip and the Body'