Director: Antonio Margheriti
Year: 1964
Country: Italy
Alternate Titles: I lunghi capelli della morte
Genre: Witchcraft
Plot:
After being put to death, a witch's daughter grows up in the care of those who executed her mother and finds herself forced to marry into the family, but when a stranger arrives at their castle home they soon find that the mother's dying curse might come true and race to keep it from happening.
Review:
This was a spectacular Italian Gothic horror effort. Among its best features is the standout opening that sets everything in motion as a true force in the scene. With the hysteria around the event and her quest to get the truth revealed at all costs, this already starts at a frantic rate even before the de-riguer burning and curse being enacted. This sequence really sells the film alone by offering a truly fascinating sequence where the victim is placed inside a wooden enclosure which is then lit up, the ever-growing flaws chasing them around until the final conflagration is featured.
From there, this generates even more Gothic-flavored fun with the daughter growing up to resemble her mother which is where this really gets going. Making her aware of the true nature of her lineage and the secrets she holds within her, the resulting struggle for power in the kingdom between the king and his son using her as a spawn simply to appease the so-called curse enacted on the village works nicely. The progressiveness of this featuring all the sexual politics including her blatantly refusing him for her own inner strength makes this quite intriguing overall.
When this, in turn, leads to the curse coming to life and affecting the village, the film becomes an out-and-out masterpiece detailing these efforts. As the resurrection scene in the cemetery takes place alongside the church ceremony during the driving rain, this signals the start of the fun as the newcomer begins intervening in the castle's orders. With the affair in the open but happening in conjunction with the poisonings to change up the power dynamic, this offers a series of fun scenes featuring them working in the crypts together or moving along secret passageways in full-on genre traditions and expectations.
This all leads to the outright amazing finale that brings the Gothic leanings full-bore into the psychological mind-games as the final point of the revenge. Featuring the games they employ to drive him mad to the point of failing to recognize what's going on, the chases around the catacombs finally reveal the eerie truth and set the stage for a marvelous and outright chilling conclusion which is the perfect capper to this one. About the only issue is a confusing nature featuring the removal of a body into the crypts below only to bring it back later on for no reason, but that's all it has wrong with it.
Overview: *****/5
A standout and outright superb Gothic horror entry, there's nearly nothing wrong with this one as there's only one slightly, niggling issue which doesn't even detract much. This is near-essential viewing for Gothic horror or just plain old-school genre fans as well as any Eurohorror fanatic or an appreciator of the creative crew, while only those who don't like this style won't enjoy this one.
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