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Moldavia, the Dark Ages: Witch Asa (Barbara Steele) & her lover Javutich
(Arturo Dominici) are branded with the sign of Satan, masks with spikes on the
inside to destroy their features are forced upon them & their lifeless
bodies are buried. 200 years later: 2 doctors, Andrej (John Richardson) &
his mentor Kruvajan (Andrea Checchi) are passing through the very forest Asa
& Javutich were buried in, stumble over her crypt, &, with the typical
mix of curiosity, ignorance & neglect, they open her coffin, remove her
mask & somehow, some of Kruvajan's blood gets onto her face ... of course,
that soon gives her the power to revive Javutich, who soon goes after local
nobleman Vajda (Ivo Garrani), a descendant of the man who killed them 200 years
ago, but has to refrain from killing him only because that man has taken the
precautions of wearing a cruzifix. But Javutich & Asa have other plans
& soon bring Kruvajan, who has since taken up residence in the nearby
village with Andrej, under their spell, & he finishes what Javutich has
begun. The next day, Andrej, looking for his mentor at castle Vajda, learns
what his mentor is supposed to have tone from Vajda's son Constantine (Enrico
Olivieri) & daughter Katja, a splitting image of Asa (& thus also
played by Barbara Steele). & while he, together with Constantine & the
local priest (Antonio Pierfederici) still tries to figure out what on earth is
happening here - & how to fight it -, Javutich & Katja already plan to
bring Katja under their spell, to suck out her youth & make Asa young again
... In the end, when Andrejh dashes in, the rejuvenation process seems almost
complete, & Andrej prepares to murder Katja - whom he thinks to be asa -
when he notices a cruzifix around her neck ... which she could never wear was
she a witch ... In the end, an angry mob of villagers burn Asa &
Javutich, & with Asa being destroyed, life (& youth) returns to Katja
...
Despite a rather muddled screenplay, this is horror-filmmaking
at its finest: A creepy atmosphere of unease effortlessly carries the story
from beginning to end, helped by an ingenious use of the film's cheap &
limited sets, & of course the eeriness of the onscreen-goings-on are
perfectly mirrored uint he otherworldly beauty of Barbara Steele. By the way
the directorial debut of cinematographer Mario Bava (even though he seems to be
rumored to have co-directed every other Italian film since roughly 1950 -
usually with little proof). & even if he did make quite a few escellent
movies (most notably Terrore nel
Spazio/Planet of the
Vampires) - and quite a few bad ones -, he (arguably) never against
reached the heights of this one.
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