Enjoyable Italian chiller takes place near the end of the 15th century and opens with the burning of a wrongly accused woman for witchcraft and the death of Count Humboldt’s brother, Franz. Before the flames engulf her she swears that the count and his son will die before the next century hits and the feudal village shall know the horrors of the plague. The woman’s eldest daughter Helen (Barbara Steele) comes to Count Humboldt claiming to have evidence of her mother’s innocence but it does little good as the count molests her while her mother burns. She threatens to tell of his adultery and ends up thrown to her death in a nearby waterfall. The youngest daughter, Lisabeth, is raised within the grounds of the castle and when she comes of age she gains the unwanted attentions of the Count’s vile son Kurt. Not only is he a piece of shit who uses his powers to get what he wants, he is also responsible for the murder of Franz and therefore the execution of the innocent woman. As the surrounding village succumbs to the horrors of the plague, a grave containing the ashes of Lisabeth’s mother is struck by lightning and a skeletal corpse regains flesh and movement. Soon after, the mysterious Mary (Barbara Steele again) arrives at the Humboldt home and the royal family is royally fucked. Cobweb-strewn crypts, plenty of skeletons, secret passages and candle-lit wanderings are the name of the game as vengeance is mete out in a needlessly complicated fashion. There is a slight drag but it all ends ever so deliciously with that scumbag Kurt burnt alive in a giant effigy of death.
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