Well Deserved Praise

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

This film has some of the best Gothic imagery I've seen from a 1960s horror film. Very, very atmospheric with skeletons, a dark and scary forest, the 7 dark riders representing the 7 deadly sins, old castle, medieval torture devices, a dungeon, horse and carriage, spiders, scorpions, snakes, death lingering all around and more! The story is pretty good - Count Regula has killed 12 virgins and is put to death 35 years earlier, fast-forward in time to our story the Count has been resurrected and in need of his 13th virgin victim to complete his task of becoming immortal! I find liked the long (very long) carriage ride to the castle the best because that is where we get some of the greatest spookiest scenes. I also liked Anatol, the counts right-hand or helper, he's very eerie.Unfortunately, Christopher Lee might get 20 to 25 minutes of actual screen time... too bad but the story is meant to play out that way for his character.7.5/10

Deriving its inspiration very loosely from Poe (specifically his classic short story 'The Pit and the Pendulum'), "The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism" stars Christopher Lee as Count Regula, a sadistic nobleman who is drawn and quartered after killing twelve virgins in his quest for eternal life. Thirty-five years later, the count's servant brings him back from the grave so that he can avenge himself on the descendants (Lex Barker, Karin Dor) of those responsible for his execution. Lee is suitably ghoulish as the resurrected count, and the dank, gloomy torture chamber of the title--in which Barker's character faces death by pendulum--is truly impressive with its fresco of the right panel of Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights (which depicts Hell). It probably won't make anyone's list of top ten horror films, but "The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism" delivers the goods in terms of pure mood and atmosphere, if not subtlety. Six and a half stars.

"Die Schlangengrube und das Pendel" of 1967 aka. "Castle Of The Walking Dead" is a cheesy, but amusing little German Gothic Horror film. This was arguably made to cash in on the earlier success of Roger Corman's brilliant Poe-cycle (starring Vincent Price). And while the film is quite entertaining overall, this German Gothic attempt can in no way come anywhere near the brilliance Corman's films, or the many ingenious Italian Gothic masterpieces and British Hammer flicks that were made in the 60s. While this has a partly nice atmosphere, and, most memorably, the great Christopher Lee (who sadly has way too little screen time) as the villain, it is sadly less stylish, and incomparably tamer and more well-behaved than its Italian, British or American counterparts. While the film does occasionally build up a mood, it lacks aspects such the macabre touch of the Corman films or the nastiness of Italian Gothic gems. This is not to say, of course, that the film is a complete waste. On the contrary, it is pure camp fun which I highly recommend to any of my fellow Gothic Horror fanatics.The cruel count Regula (Christopher Lee) is drawn and quartered for tormenting twelve virgins to death at his castle. Thirty-five years later, Roger von Marienberg (Lex Barker) and Lilian Von Brabant (Karin Dor) are invited to the count's castle. The two are the spitting image of the judge who sentenced the count to death (Barker), and the count's only surviving victim (Dor)...The film is very loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Pit And The Pendulum". Roger Corman had made a film based on the story in 1961, namely the brilliant "The Pit And The Pendulum" starring Vincent Price (my favorite actor) and Barbara Steele (my favorite actress), which became one of the greatest Gothic masterpieces ever in cinema. "Die Schlangengrube und das Pendel" (which translates "The Snakepit And The Pendulum" - also the German title of Poe's short-story) is, of course, no masterpiece of the kind. Harald Reinl, who is mainly known for Edgar Wallace films, the naive German Karl May Westerns and his interpretation of the Nibelungs, was no Roger Corman. Lex Barker was certainly no Vincent Price, and while Karin Dor is certainly no Barbara Steele either, she is still beautiful enough to make this film worthwhile. The film's greatest quality is, of course, the great Christopher Lee (another favorite actor of mine), who plays the sardonic villain. Sadly, he has far too little screen time. The overacting Carl Lange also fits in his role of the evil count's sidekick. This one's negative aspects lie mainly in its (very German) harmlessness, and partly also in the censorship, which was stricter in Germany at the time (green blood? - you gotta be kidding me). Yet it is an amusing film which may be highly entertaining to some of my fellow Gothic Horror lovers. Just make sure to watch all the Gothic masterpieces from Mario Bava, Antonio Margheriti, Roger Corman, the Hammer Studios, etc. before giving this a try.

Does anybody remember that some of the best Wild West and Indians films were made in Germany in the 60s, inspired by novels of Karl May? The director of these series was Harald Reinl, and here we have a try of his in another genre, which was to become very popular and mainstream in the coming decades. Inspired by a story by Edgar Allan Poe, this film is visibly aged, with some very conventional dialogs and avoidance of any explicit violence on screen. Yet it succeeds to suggest much of the atmosphere that in later movies of the genre required a lot of ketchup by using a strong visual language and very elaborated and sometimes sophisticated settings. Watch the scenes in the castle of count Regula and remember that they were filmed more than ten years before H.R.Giger borrowed his talent for the start of the Alien series. See the exquisite use of light and colors in the scene where the coach approaches the castle and you get some of the best use of color processing in the pre-computerized film era. All these make the film interesting to watch despite of its aging and not so original story line.