Scary Movies: Blood Demon

As you can likely guess from the German title, this is (very loosely) based on the Edgar Allan Poe short story The Pit and the Pendulum, like the Roger Corman film of the same name that I’ve previously reviewed. The Poe short story is really too brief to provide all the plot needed for a feature-length film, but both movies preserve the key image of the story: a victim bound beneath a pendulum-like swinging axe that drops slowly but inexorably closer with each pass.

This film drops Poe’s setting of Inquisition-era Spain, however, in favor of medieval Germany, where in the opening scene, Count Regula has been sentenced to death for his murder of twelve women. The method of death is to be quartering: each of the count’s four limbs is tied to a horse, and when a whip cracks, the horses startle and pull the count until–

The scene shifts and we’re in the same town, thirty years later. Roger Mont Elise has just arrived with a letter instructing him to travel to Blood Castle in nearby Sander Valley. The letter promises Roger he will learn the truth about his origins, which is of keen interest to him, as he grew up an orphan, albeit one supported by a mysterious fortune. However, he finds the townspeople refuse to tell him where Castle Blood is, or even to acknowledge its existence. Finally, he meets a priest named Fabian who knows where it is and happens to be headed that direction.

At the same time Roger arrives in town, so too does the beautiful Baroness Lilian von Brabant (played by the stunning Karin Dor, who was a Bond girl in You Only Live Twice around the same time as this film) and her maidservant. The Baroness has also received a letter informing her she must travel to Blood Castle to learn critical information about her inheritance. Roger notices the lovely Baroness and learns she is headed to the same destination, so when her carriage leaves, he and Fabian follow in their own carriage right behind them.

Their journey through the forest to the castle is filled with peril. First, Lilian’s carriage is attacked by highwaymen who are frightened off only by the intervention of Roger, but not before Lilian’s carriage driver is killed. She and her maidservant join Roger and Fabian in their carriage. Roger’s driver doesn’t want to go any farther into the forest, believing it haunted and their trip cursed, but Roger and Fabian insist. While the four compare notes in the carriage, the carriage driver is frightened by trees with human limbs growing out of them and hanged bodies swinging from their branches. When the party stops and Roger and Fabian exit the carriage to examine the burned-out inn where they planned to stay the night, Lilian and her maidservant are captured and carried off into the trees.

When caught with a pistol, Fabian reveals that he is actually a robber, not a priest, but he is so spooked by the kidnapping of the women that he agrees to help Roger find them. They proceed to Blood Castle, where they fall through a trap door into an underground maze. Eventually they reach a chamber where they encounter Anatol, a servant of Count Regula, who reveals that he is planning to bring his master back to life that very evening. At that time, Count Regula will get his revenge, killing Roger, who is the son of the judge who sentenced Regula (and was subsequently murdered by Anatol).

Before Anatol can act, Fabian shoots Anatol with his pistol and Anatol bleeds green blood, only to quickly recover. It seems that he too was dead and has been reanimated. He cannot be hurt by normal means. Anatol overcomes the two men and imprisons them.

Roger manages to escape and searches for the women. Not surprisingly, Lilian and her maidservant are indeed being held at Castle Blood, and it turns out that Lilian is just the person Anatol needs to revive his master. Count Regula, who had killed twelve virgins, used their blood to create a potion that can bring the dead back to life. This is what resurrected Anatol. However, the Count lacked only the blood from a final, thirteenth, virginal victim that would not only revive him, but grant him immortality. Lilian is to be that victim. And how fitting, since she is the daughter of the woman who testified against him thirty years previously, leading to his death sentence.

In the final part of the movie, the four prisoners variously escape and are recaptured by Anatol, only to be subjected to various tortures–dangling over snake-filled pits, bound to slowly descending logs falling toward spikes, tied in chambers with pendulum-swinging axes, and so forth. The temporarily revived Count Regula (played by Christopher Lee) makes an appearance, given life for only a few hours by his incomplete formula unless he can get the blood of that thirteenth virgin and finish mixing his potion.

Will our heroes and heroines be able to stop him? Will they succumb to the various sadistic death traps to which they’re subjected? Will the Baroness’s ample bosom pop right of her tight bodice as she attempts to keep from falling into a pit filled with venomous snakes? Watch to find out the answers to these and other pressing questions.

Blood Demon / The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism / Die Schlangengrube and das Pendel (1967)
Story/Plot/Characters— The story is pretty basic, but the plot is coherent and the (translated via dubbing) dialogue isn’t bad. The characters aren’t real deep or anything, but they have believable motivations and the acting is decent. Maybe an extra half point for the frequently heaving bosom of the really quite hot Karin Dor. (2.5 points)
Special Effects— This was really low budget but it’s creative with what it has. As the characters wander around the allegedly extensive and maze-like underground lair of Count Regula you’ll notice they keep seeming to run up and down the same rocky corridor endless times. The limbs growing out the trees in the haunted forest are quite clearly mannikin arms and legs. And yet it’s all done so charmingly and energetically I found myself willing to suspend my disbelief. (1 point)
Scariness— While some of the implications are lurid, the actual execution is pretty tame. Quartering, virgin murders, torture devices, and so on are implied but never actually shown in action. (.5 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness— With the town scenes filmed on location in the authentic medieval city center of Rothenburg, Bavaria, and interiors in the lovingly-constructed, if limited in scope, sets in Regular’s castle, this film is dripping with Gothic atmosphere. The death traps and torture devices lend it a decent level of freakiness (1.5 points)
Total=5.5 points (Okay)

A 1960s West German horror film made with more enthusiasm than budget, resulting in an overall entertaining but not-too-memorable 90 minutes with far less shock, gore, or nudity than its overly-lurid English titles and movie posters promise.