Baron Blood

Nothing against Joseph Cotten, but I can't help but wonder how much more aware horror fans would be of Mario Bava's Baron Blood (1972) had Vincent Price been able to fulfill the role of the titular villain. Bava and Price on the cover of the movie poster sure is quite a seller. I guess the film might be considered too old fashioned for the 70s and Bava's output suffered as attentions in Italy seemed to turn towards gialli which were modern day focused, with special attention devoted to urban/suburban elite classes and the fashion industry (a genre Bava helped to give birth to). Still as latter day Bava, the film does infuse the "modern opposite historical" clashing as the Baron, resurrected by a specific parchment containing a witch's incantation cursing him to revival brought to his old castle (about to be turned into a tourist attraction/bed'n'breakfast) by an ancestor, Peter (Antonio Cantafora). The past and present converge and the Baron still has that itch to cause human suffering and punishment, and those (including Peter, seen above) in his way would be of significant interest in his use of the ole torture devices still existing in his castle.

Probably my personal favorite scene has a victim of the Baron's (Italian horror mainstay Luciano Pigozzi), named Fritz, rising from a spiked casket (similar to an Iron Maiden) after a certain medallion is dropped by accident from the hands of constantly-frightened Elke Sommer onto his dead body. There's an immediate reaction of pain to Cotten's Baron once this happens, and his victims (walking zombies) return from the dead (mindless and following the witch's curse that his victims would be his destroyer) emerge to torture and vanquish him. It does get rather silly, I have to admit, but I loved the way Bava stages Pigozzi's uprising. I was not a fan of Sommer's hysterics. I think Sommer is a very nice looking woman, but I wasn't a fan of her acting. She just transforms into a rattled bag of nerves barely able to walk, while Cantafora's Peter Kleist, suffering worse punishment than her, seems capable of carrying her out of the castle.