Movie Review: Nightmare Castle (1965) directed by Mario Caiano (original title “Amanti d’Oltretomba”)
Jenny Arrowsmith (nee Hampton) (Barbara Steele) has always had fragile mental health, and has spent much of her life at the “clinic” of Dr. Dereck Joyce (Marino Mase). Recently, Dr. Stephen Arrowsmith (Paul Muller) arrived to inform her of the death of his first wife, Jenny’s sister Muriel (also Barbara Steele) due to natural causes. Much to Jenny’s surprise, Muriel has named her the heir to Hampton Castle and the family wealth. (She’d always assumed Muriel hated her given that the woman never visited or wrote.) A rather sheltered young woman, Jenny quickly falls in love with Dr. Arrowsmith when he shows romantic interest and they are swiftly married. Soon, she arrives at the castle as its new mistress, and is greeted by the coldly beautiful Solange (Helga Line), who is old-fashioned and has the mannerisms of a woman twice her age.
What Jenny does not know is that Muriel did not die of natural causes. Dr. Arrowsmith murdered his wife and her lover David (Rik Battaglia) when he caught them together. This was more of an excuse than a cause–Stephen had already planned to dispose of his wife to get control of her money for his experiments in immortality. (He’s already managed to use his young wife’s blood to rejuvenate his mistress Solange.) He found out too late that Muriel had changed her will to make Jenny the heir, and is improvising a backup plan.
That plan involves gaslighting Jenny into a full mental breakdown, but to the doctor and Solange’s surprise, it looks like that won’t be necessary since the first night in the castle she’s having screaming nightmares and apparent hallucinations as well as missing time. Arrowsmith sends for Dr. Joyce to “help” but actually plans to get Dr. Joyce to sign off on returning Jenny to an asylum so that he can use the castle and money freely. Dr. Joyce is a bit more sweet on his patient than is strictly professional, and begins to smell a rat. Maybe what Jenny’s experiencing isn’t madness at all!
This Italian production was designed as a low-budget star vehicle for Ms. Steele, who was a hot genre film actress at the time. The double role allows her the chance to show off both her “innocent” and “wicked” acting styles. Muriel is the more interesting role, but Jenny has considerably more screen time.
The cut I watched had some sloppy editing, especially at the beginning. I suspect some cuts may have been made for the censors due to violence. The lighting is often murky, even in daylight scenes. This is also not one of Ennio Morricone’s better scores.
There’s some nice makeup effects and you can detect hints of Poe in the writing.
Content note: torture, dubious treatment of mental illness.
An okay horror film, but you might want to see Black Sunday instead if you are just here for Barbara Steele.
