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For the wedding of his brother Christian (Tony Kendall) to Nevenka
(Daliah Lavi), Kurt (Christopher Lee) comes back to his family's castle,
but he gets a very cold reception since he, many years ago killed
Giorga's (Harriet White) daughter Tania.
But the wedding is not the only
reason for his return, since he wants to reclaim his rights of the firstborn
that were refused him after he killed Tania ... & then he also wants
to rekindle his own relationship to Nevenka, whom he had a sadomasochist
affair with. To that end, one day shortly after the wedding, he meets
her alone on the beach, & though she refuses him at first, he soon
gives her a fierce whipping that drives her to ecstasy and
unconsciousness.
When Kurt later returns to the castle, he finds
everybody in uproar over the disappearance of Nevenka ... who is later
found unconscious on the beach by the searchparty that included everyone
but Kurt & Kurt's bedridden father (Dean Ardow). When the group
returns, they find Kurt stabbed - with the same dagger he had once
stabbed Tania with. Soon after Kurt is buried in the family crypt, he
appears to Nevenka again, first only as a shape outside the window, but
soon he enters her room again repeatedly & whips her to ecstasy on
many an occasion. But is he imagination ? A ghost ? Or Kurt still alive,
having only faked his own death ? & if so, did he kill his own
father soon afterwards, who was stabbed by the same dagger ? To find
that out, Nevenka goes to the crypt to look into his tomb, only to find
it ... occupied (!). However, when the presence of Kurt becomes obvious
to other persons than Nevenka too in the form of footprints & the
like, Christian decides to take action. He, by now convinced Kurt is a
ghost, burns the corpse in the tomb - only to see a person (Kurt ?)
escape the crypt. When he finally catches up with that person, he
realizes it is not Kurt at all, but Nevenka, who, after killing Kurt,
became obsessed with him. When she sees Kurt's burning corpse though,
she kills herself in order to finally kill him ...
Moody Italian gothic, graced by stylish, colourful direction, as
should be expected from Mario Bava. However, in all this is not one of
his better movies since the screenplay is way too formulaic &
cliché-ridden, leaving little room for the director's personal marks.
That said though, within the genre it's not a bad movie at all, &
some of its sadomasochist undercurrents are quite intriguing.
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