Nightmare Castle

Nightmare Castle

When you come across the 1965  horror flick, Nightmare Castle (Amanti d'oltretomba), your initial thought might go along the lines of "Oh, that's interesting".  Well, after an hour's worth of piano music and damsel in distress screams, you are bound to think otherwise. The movie was not all that bad; it should simply be reserved for that one rainy day when you are home with measles and Ice Road Truckers is no longer available on the History channel.  

The main story appears to be borrowed from other-evil-scientist-in-castle stories. To be fair, maybe it just seems that way since there is an entire sub-section of horror movies dedicated to the evil genius performing weird experiments and so it gets to that point where everything sounds like everything else. What about the story, then? Nasty doctor, Dr. Stephen Arrowsmith, discovers his wife hooking up with the gardener boy in the greenhouse and so he smashes their heads in. And then goes on to perform these absurd electrocution/acid splash torture sequences on them. At this point you have to wonder what he was building. And who was going to patent it. They are fried and all oozy but why waste all that good blood and organs, right? So he drags them off to his little laboratory and does a bit of slice and dicing. 

If you thought that was the end of it, wait a bit, he has a diabolical plan. His wife, Muriel, had left all her possessions, including the castle containing his lab, to her sister, Jenny. Should someone expect an eviction notice soon? To be honest, he would have been aptly punished and kicked out if Muriel hadn't decided to blab it all out. So the good doctor goes off, marries the sister and decides to bring her back to the castle. Apparently the woman has jittery nerves and he decided to drive her over the edge. Now throw in Jenny's psychiatric friend and the utterly useless lab assistant and everything starts to get interesting. Or so you hope. Did I mention that Muriel and her garden boy are doing a half-hearted attempt to haunt the castle?  

Like I said before, the story itself is not bad. It moves at a comfortable pace and I was mildly curious to see how Muriel's ghost would come flapping back in that horrendous nightgown and seek revenge. There were a number of creepy scenes as well. One minute you are cringing at that annoying piano music and laughing at the confused garden boy and the next minute there is a faceless man bludgeoning Jenny in a nightmare. Certainly didn't see that coming. The excision scenes were surprisingly disturbing as well. Somehow the implication of gore was more effective if blood looks like billowing clouds of black ink in a water, particularly if this tank is this close to the camera.

And so, here comes the "what did you learn from this movie" bit. Firstly, if the piano music bothers you within the first 15 minutes of the movie, perhaps you should stop watching before that annoying tune gets stuck in your head. I suppose I should be glad Muriel was not very fond of trumpets. Secondly, there's that tip about well paid servants. Lesson here is, if your hired staff is well-paid (or just really slow on the uptake), chances are they won't warn any of your guests about the following things: a) the mysterious and really loud death of former owner; b) that questionable laboratory in the vault; and c) the weird holes the good doctor drills into the wall all over the house for his electrocution experiments.

Thirdly, do check the sibling closeness meter before leaving all your worldly goods to them. Just in case they are the type to marry the brother-in-law (eww!) right after you kicked the bucket suddenly, it might be handy to have a "only if she never marries him" clause in that will. Finally, if Dr Arrowsmith's choices are anything to go by, some scientists need serious help hiring good folks for the lab work. Thing is, if this guy was really going to hire his girlfriend to help putter around the lab over someone useful and efficient like an Igor, he might as well as picked a less high-maintenance one. You know, someone who doesn't turn into a wrinkly old hag every other month.