Scary Movies: Nightmare Castle

This is an Italian movie from 1965, directed by Mario Caiano as his tribute to gothic horror. It stars English horror queen Barbara Steele in a dual role, which is great, as she is by far the best thing in this movie. It’s a movie I’ve long been interested in seeing, though it ended up proving to be a disappointment. But let’s find out what the movie is about before we get into that.

Stephen Arrowsmith is a scientist who lives in a large manor house owned by his wife, Muriel (the first of Barbara Steele’s roles). Muriel is a beautiful and alluring woman, but when she begs Stephen to spend the night with her, he refuses as he is working on an important experiment in advance of a scientific conference. The next day, he leaves for the conference, and as soon as he’s gone, Muriel falls into the arms of David, the manor’s gardener. This doesn’t seem to be the first time they’ve gotten together after she’s been rejected by Stephen.

Too bad for them, as Stephen’s trip was merely a ruse. He returns to find them engaged in lovemaking in the greenhouse. He attacks David with a fireplace poker and knocks them both out. When they awaken, they are chained up in a dank basement room with Stephen holding a whip and crowing about how he’s going to torture them to death slowly. Hoping to keep herself and David alive, Muriel reveals to Stephen that he can’t kill her, for her will does not leave the estate to him, but to her stepsister Jenny, who is in an insane asylum. This news doesn’t seem to bother Stephen, who tortures and electrocutes the two of them.

Using Muriel’s blood to mix up some sort of youth potion (apparently his scientific experiment was real, even if he didn’t actually present the results at the conference), he gives it to the aged housekeeper, Solange, who revealed the affair to him. Solange becomes young and beautiful and they form a strategy to take over the estate from Muriel’s stepsister, after which they will split the proceeds.

A few days (weeks?) later, Stephen returns to the estate with Jenny, who is beautiful, gentle, and naive (Barbara Steele’s second role). He has married her and rescued her from the asylum, where she was on the verge of being cured thanks to the good work of a Dr. Derek Joyce. Dr. Joyce believes a marriage to a caring husband and moving to a new location will be perfect for the final stage of her rehabilitation.

Of course, the reality proves quite different. With Solange’s assistance, Stephen plans to drive Jenny back into madness so he can have her re-committed and take her property. On the first night, Solange slips some sort of drug into Jenny’s drink to disorient her.

Jenny immediately starts having terrible nightmares, though Stephen discovers the next morning that Solange put the wrong pill in Jenny’s drink and nothing should have happened at all. What’s more, details of the nightmares are very much like the romance between Muriel and David, followed by the horrible torture and murders that took place in the house recently. How could Jenny know about those things?

Dr. Joyce arrives to see if his treatment and her marriage have fully cured Jenny, only to find her almost as mentally unstable as when he started treating her. He is also clearly in love with her. After spending a couple days in the house, Dr. Joyce comes to believe that Jenny is telling the truth and is not crazy, and that supernatural forces are at work in the house. He also begins to suspect that Stephen and Solange are not entirely the helpful, friendly husband and servant they present themselves as, and may have had something to do with the strange events that seem to haunt the house.

Dr. Joyce investigates the house and its grounds, trying to find clues to what really took place. It may even be that he receives aid from two ghosts who want the truth to be discovered…or is he going crazy himself?

Nightmare Castle (1965)
Story/Plot/Characters— Barbara Steele’s acting is superb and easily the best thing here, although the other actors aren’t too terrible. The dialogue isn’t bad, and there are some interesting, even shocking scenes. But the whole plot doesn’t work, somehow. It’s not slow-paced, exactly, but something about the pacing is off, and there’s not anything in the plot we haven’t seen before. There’s more melodrama than horror. I kept finding myself drifting off, only to be suddenly interested by a shocking scene, then losing interest again when we got into some boring detail about the doctor or Stephen’s plot. (2 points)
Special Effects— Not really a special effects movie, although Muriel’s and David’s ghosts are nicely done. I think one problem is that there is a lot of implied torture but all we ever see are wires or whips, and nothing is ever brought home. I don’t mean the movie has to show it (I’m not a big fan of torture in horror movies anyway), but there has to be some kind of follow-up showing the effects. It’s all just hinting, with no pay off. (1 point)
Scariness— Not especially scary. As I said above, more melodrama than horror. (.5 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness— Some nice atmosphere, shot on location at an Italian villa. Some freakiness with the scantily clad lovers threatened with whips and electrocution and so forth, but it all feels so tame. (1 points)
Total=4.5 points (Okay)

Some semi-shocking scenes but the movie focuses on the melodramatic elements of its plot rather than the horror elements, squandering an amazing dual performance by Barbara Steele. Thanks to her, it’s not a total waste of time but overall comes in on the boring side, and nothing you haven’t seen before. Said to be Caiano’s tribute to English gothic horror, but maybe that’s the problem. I wonder if it might have been better if he’d treated the whole thing with less adulation and more fun.