Il castello dei morti vivi

The idea of CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD is pretty exciting--a crazy Count has created a process to instantly embalm any living creature and is always on the lookout to increase his sick menagerie. When a traveling performing troop is invited to this bizarre castle, you know that he's up to no good and their lives are in danger.

Unfortunately, while the idea is rather original and cool, this Italian production bears the marks of a very, very low-budget production. While Christopher Lee is just fine in the lead, most of the rest of the cast appear to be amateurs and their limp performances betray this. Of all the cast, the weirdest decision was having a young Donald Sutherland (in his first major film role) play two major parts--poorly (he also plays a 3rd role--standing in the audience at the beginning of the film). I really think that they had him play the sergeant and old lady simply to save money--because I can't think of why they'd do this otherwise. If you like hammy first performances, then you might like watching Sutherland--particularly as he plays the crazy old lady with the same gusto as you'd expect in a high school production.

Oddly, the print quality of this film when it was shown on Turner Classic Movies was very poor--it was very, very dark and the print wasn't very crisp. Yet, at the beginning of the film, it indicated it had just been restored. I sure would hate to see what it looked like BEFORE the restoration.

So overall, it's a diverting film with a nice story idea that just doesn't hold up due to the lousy budget. Lousy acting, lousy camera work and a very poor sound track--this one is for fans of horror and that's really all.