A few days before her 21st birthday, Emily de Blancheville (Ombretta Colli) returns to the castle of her family. Her college friend Alice Taylor (Iran Eory) and Alice's brother John (Vanni Materassi), who is in love with Emily accompany her. Shortly after they have arrived at the castle, the strangest things begin to happen. Elephant noises turn out to be the product of Father de Blancheville, thought dead by Emily.
In truth, her brother Rodrigue (Gerard Tichy) lied about their father's dead to spare Emily the shock of learning that her dear father wasn't only terribly disfigured in a fire, but also lost his mind and now dreams of killing his daughter right before her birthday to lift a not really specified "family curse".
Of course the mad old man escapes and starts to threaten more than just his daughter's life. Or is it possible that the shifty acting Dr. Lerouge (Leo Anchoriz), who seems to share secrets with the new housekeeper (Helga Line) is the one who uses remote hypnotic powers to lure the young woman into danger?
If a cliché exists in Gothic Horror movies, you will find it here. It feels as if the Corbucci brothers who wrote the script had used a checklist and wouldn't stop until they could squeeze every single Gothic element known to science into their script.
It's a tactic that doesn't usually help to create masterworks, and of course The Blancheville Monster is none either. What it is, is a living lexicon of its genre full of melodrama and slightly over the top acting, but also some fine mood pieces by director Alberto De Martino.
De Martino was no Mario Bava, not even an Antonio Margheriti, still he was able to somehow keep the disparate mixture of fainting spells, "are you sure it wasn't a dream"s, hypnosis, premature burials, disfigured madmen, evil plots, absurdly sinister looks, puzzling non-logic and American accents for people who are supposed to be quite posh, from completely falling apart.
This does not lead to the kind of movie I would recommend to people who don't have a certain affinity for Gothics, but people who do should have at least a little fun.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment