Severin has released Mario Caiano's Nightmare Castle (Amanti d'Oltretomba), the 1965 Italian gothic horror shocker starring the incomparable Barbara Steele. Touted as being remastered in HD from the original negative, this supposedly uncut version runs 104 minutes, for all of you out there that have one of the numerous public domain copies of this film floating around (sporting equally numerous alternate titles). A really strange mixture of high-voltage (for 1965) sadism and violence, with low doses of sex and gothic romance, Nightmare Castle is admittedly a pastiche of gothic and horror stereotypes, but it looks beautiful in this new transfer, and if watched at the right time of night, in a receptive mood, it plays very well indeed.

Lady Muriel Arrowsmith (Barbara Steele) eagerly awaits the departure of her husband, scientist and full-time vivisectionist Dr. Stephen Arrowsmith (Paul Muller), who will be attending the Edinburgh Conference. Lady Muriel, smiling once she realizes her husband has departed her lavish residence, Hampton Castle, dresses down into a skimpy nightgown and awaits her lover: stable hand David (Rik Battaglia). Making like Lady Chatterley, Muriel and David don't realize that Stephen has doubled-back to the castle, signaled by elderly servant Solange (Helga Line), who tips off the doctor to his wife's infidelity. Savagely beating David with a poker, Stephen chains up Muriel and her lover down in the family crypt, and tortures them, before he orchestrates their very perverse demise. Cutting out their hearts, the doctor joins the organs and preserves them, using the solution they're stored in to rejuvenate Solange as part of the bargain of getting rid of Muriel. You see, Dr. Arrowsmith wants his revenge for Muriel's adultery, but he wants her money and her castle first. There's only one small problem: Muriel, before her death, tells Stephen that she has changed her will. He won't be getting anything. Instead, she's left the entire estate to Jenny (Steele, in a double role), her mentally troubled sister. Stephen immediately hatches a plan: he'll marry Jenny and "gaslight" her with hallucinogenics, institutionalize her, and become her legal guardian...of all that dough. But Stephen doesn't count on the power of those still-beating hearts.

SPOILERS ALERT!

Even though director Mario Caiano helpfully lists some of the gothic and horror literary works that influenced Nightmare Castle in the featurette included on this disc, it's not difficult to spot the obvious references to Frankenstein, Lady Chatterley's Lover, The Tell-Tale Heart, and even a little bit of The Turn of the Screw, among others. Assembling elements from these works, as well as references to other Barbara Steele Italian horror pictures from that time, Nightmare Castle couldn't be called distinctive on the basis of its familiar script, although some of the lines, at least via the dubbing, are grossly amusing (Stephen, warning Muriel what is in store for her, states, "But death, my dear, must only come after I've torn from your bodies all the suffering and pain a human being can stand. And you don't know yet how long it takes to die...from pain."). However, it is notable for its head-on torture scenes, its dream-like middle section concerning Stephen's battle with Jenny's sanity, its high-key black-and-white cinematography, and of course, Ennio Morricone's first (according to the DVD box) horror score.

Anyone looking for the intensity of say, Steele's earlier Black Sunday, or even more unlikely, the force of the later sexually violent, gory Italian giallos, may well find Nightmare Castle's deliberate, dream-like pacing a bit slow-going. On the other hand, those viewers more accustomed to Corman's Poe adaptations from around the same time period might see in Nightmare Castle a similarly structured aesthetic, with plenty of visual equivalents to the AIP gothic offerings, but with a decidedly more ramped-up violence factor. In other words: tame by later giallo standards, but considerably more sadistic than Corman's Poes. Certainly the opening section of Nightmare Castle starts things off in a twisted manner not normally seen on American screens in 1965. After Muriel makes it clear that she actually has sex with her husband, still a remarkably off-limits topic in mainstream films from that period (Muriel breathes, "I'd like to spend the night with you," before a passionate kiss with Stephen), she begins to bed David, first in her room and then in the greenhouse (she bites his arm in an erotic fog). Unbeknownst to them, Stephen watches, and savagely splits open David's face with a poker, before we jump cut to Muriel and her lover being viciously whipped by her husband down in the family crypt: as he places a hot poker on David's chest, the camera comes in close and lingers as his shirt catches on fire. Later, he perversely wants to show David what it feels like to watch another man make love to his woman, so he ties him up in front of their bed, where, off camera, he begins to rape Muriel so David can see, driving David almost mad. Finally, in a demented act designed to kill them both, he first drips acid on Muriel (we get to see her writhing body smoke), before pushing David onto Muriel in a grotesque parody of the sex act, only to throw the electric switch connected to a metal tether around David's ankle, electrifying both of them. Oh, and then he cuts out their hearts, puts them in glass tank, burns their bodies, and packs the ashes in a flower pot. Obviously, Nightmare Castle wasn't going to wind up on the bottom bill of Doris Day's and Rock Hudson's Send Me No Flowers - nor Corman's The Tomb of Ligeia, for that matter.

This strong start to the film, though, precedes a very long center section where Stephen and Solange (is she his lover? The film doesn't make it clear) try to drive newly-arrived Jenny insane, and here, we have many scenes that seem repetitive, echoing standard gothic visual motifs like characters walking down darkened hallways with candles, or somnambulant dreamers lapsing into horrific nightmares. None of this part of the film is particularly inspired, although it's well done, with director Caiano's and cinematographer Enzo Barboni's camera gliding through the fantastic real-life villa used as Hampton Castle, the high-key black-and-white lighting creating some nice chiaroscuro effects on that infinitely interesting, angular, architectural marvel that is Barbara Steele's face. In the featurette included on this disc, Caiano said he chose Steele precisely because of her face (which is translated, rather unkindly in the subtitles of the doc, as "creepy") and her "scary, hallucinatory expression." Regardless of the ultimate merits of Nightmare Castle, it does succeed just on a curiosity level whenever the hypnotic Steele is on camera. At this point in time, I would imagine the main pull for Nightmare Castle would be this extended appearance of the horror icon (I know she hates that term) in a dual role (she's in almost every scene), right before her horror career arced. So from that standpoint alone, Nightmare Castle's center section works for fans of the actress because we just get drink her in as Morricone's haunting romantic theme (which sounds somewhat like Cooper and Tucker's Sweet Genevieve) swirls around the darkened sets (this constant refrain of a memory song seems very similar to the use of the music box piece in the later U.S. soap, Dark Shadows - an interesting possible connection when you consider Steele's later affiliation with Dan Curtis).

The last act of Nightmare Castle gets a little plotty as Dr. Dereck Joyce (Lawrence Clift, who in profile, looks remarkably like a young Oliver Reed) battles Stephen over Jenny, before the film slips into full Grand Guignol mode as the spirits of Muriel and David come back to kill all those at Hampton Castle. Still, the finale delivers the horror goods (the low-slung dolly shot on the advancing Muriel, with Steele's mask-like face half-covered by her hair, is a memorable horror image), winding up this gothic horror pastiche in a most satisfying manner.

The DVDs:

The Video:
I don't know what the other numerous public domain copies of Nightmare Castle look like, but Severin's anamorphically enhanced, 1.66:1 transfer is quite good. The print used here (supposedly struck from the original negative) does display some instances of damage, such as splices and even frame repair, a few isolated times. Overall, though, the image is quite silky and creamy, with its blacks absolute and its image sharp. I did notice some jiggering from time to time (and some moiré effects on Dereck's striped jacket), which may also be a result of a possible PAL conversion issue (the disc includes a U.K. trailer, so perhaps the master transfer was a PAL conversion?). But overall, it's a solid representation, and I would imagine, a big improvement over other public domain copies.

The Audio:
The split mono audio track is appropriately leveled, so all the screams come back at you fat and center. There are no subtitles or close-captions, however.

The Extras:
Two big bonuses put this Nightmare Castle disc firmly in the plus column. First, a new interview with director Mario Caiano is included, where he discusses the production of the film (he's soft-spoken and gives quite a bit of info on the making of the film). It runs 14:06. Next, we have a new interview with Barbara Steele, where she discusses her overall career (with just a few references to Nightmare Castle). It's a pretty thorough recap of a memorable oeuvre, and Steele is as quirkily engaging as ever. It runs a healthy 29:33. The U.S. and U.K. theatrical trailers are also included here.

Final Thoughts:
Pastiche, yes, but damned good pastiche. Nightmare Castle may borrow elements wholesale from better novels and films, but it still delivers the gothic horror goods, with Barbara Steele always endlessly interesting (even if she's just prowling around darkened black-and-white sets), and director Mario Caiano alternating from full-blown sadistic horror scenes, to languid, dreamy, sullen nightmares. And this disc version by Severin delivers a very good transfer, with some tasty extras. I highly recommend the newly restored, uncut Nightmare Castle.