My take: This is a standard Italian gothic. Only see this one if you love others from this subgenre.

Rating: 2 out of 4 stars

In Baron Blood, Peter Kleist returns to his family’s ancestral castle. He has found a piece of parchment which claims to hold the key to awakening Peter’s ancestor, Baron Otto von Kleist. The Baron earned the nickname Baron Blood due to his sadistic, murderous ways in the 16th century.

So, Peter finds a cute girl (as always seems to happen in horror films) and they sneak into the castle to awaken Baron Blood.

Hubris. Pure hubris. And it goes about as well as you could expect.

The poster for Baron Blood is excellent. The movie is just okay.

This movie is a fairly standard Italian gothic tale, and it is a bit more predicable than others I have seen (such as Devil’s Nightmare). It has all of the tropes you expect in an Italian gothic horror (castle, hot chick, torture chamber, etc.), but none of the fun, unexpected elements.

As a result, I would only recommend this to serious fans of gothic horror films. Otherwise, I would recommend that you skip this one in favor of a Hammer film or a Barbara Steele picture.

I found the movie on Netflix’s instant watch. Here’s the trailer on YouTube:

My take: Was it a ghost? Was it madness? I’m still not sure, and I don’t think that is a good thing.

Rating: 1 out of 4 stars

This movie raised a lot of questions in my mind about the early 1970s:

• Were there a lot of hippies everywhere?
• Did people just roam around the country and do nothing?
• Why was the soundtrack so terrible? Did people listen to that crap?
• Why is the main character so mindlessly happy at the strangest moments?

The movie is about a couple and their friend. The female in the couple is Jessica (of the movie title), who just got out of a mental facility. Her and her beau are getting a fresh start in a country home.

Even the poster for Let’s Scare Jessica to Death is bad.

When the trio arrive at the house, they stumble upon a young female squatter. Oddly, they let the girl stay.

At the same time, Jessica starts hearing voices around the house and out in the lake. Voices pushing her to do things.

It’s a film that rides the line between insanity and the supernatural. Unfortunately, the characters are simply not believable or relatable enough to carry the plot.

As you can tell from my barrage of questions above, there were a lot of issues that went unanswered in the film. Perhaps it was a film made for the 70s that does not hold up to today’s standards of suspense and fear.

I would only recommend this movie to people who like supernatural films and also happen to like movies from the 1970s. That person is not me.

I got a copy of the movie from Netflix via disc. Here’s the trailer:

My take: This story was a bit too slow for my liking, but it was one of the more interesting Countess Bathory stories I have seen.

Rating: 2 out of 4 stars

Daughters of Darkness (not to be confused with Daughter of Darkness) is a slow-moving horror film from the 1970s with a distinctly European feeling to it. I get the impression while watching it that I am missing something or that I may have liked it better if I was living in Italy in 1971.

The movie follows two young newlyweds on their honeymoon. They stop at a coastal town , where they meet a strange older woman and her young female companion. This woman claims to be the descendant of the infamous Countess Bathory, who murdered hundreds of girls in Hungary from 1585-1610 (according to Wikipedia at least).

Countess Elizabeth Bathory in Daughters of Darkness. Lookin’ good after so many years.

Is she the descendant? Or is show the real deal? You will have to watch the movie to find out.

And I do recommend watching it, particularly if you find stories about Elizabeth Bathory interesting. I myself had a bit of an obsession with her story in high school. Hers was the first story I learned that seemed like a real-life basis for vampirism. She was also a famously sadistic serial killer. Little goth 16-year-old me found this fascinating.

I got a copy of the movie via Netflix disc. Here is the trailer on YouTube:

My take: If you like satanic cult movies, you might like this one from the period where those types of movies were at their height.

Rating: 2 out of 4 stars

In my last post on the Dunwich Horror, I commented on my old belief that all horror films from the 1970s were about satanic cults. Well, here’s another one that reinforces my old stereotype about horror from that era.

The Brotherhood of Satan is about a family who become stranded in a terrified town. People throughout the town have become victims of gruesome and inexplicable deaths. No one in town can determine the cause or the killer, and children keep disappearing from these scenes of violent death.

Those pesky satan worshippers are up to something.

As you can guess from the title of the movie and from the start of my review, there is a satanic cult behind these deaths. If satanic cults scare you, then you might enjoy this film. It’s got some gory death scenes, creepy children, and some decent suspense. However, I don’t find satanic cults to be particularly scary subjects for horror. As a result, I would only recommend this movie as a deep cut for fans of horror.

I rented the movie from Amazon. Here is the trailer on YouTube:

My take: This movie is only slightly entertaining if you like H.P. Lovecraft stories and the Evil Dead franchise. Even then, it is just too cheesy.

Rating: 1 out of 4 stars

When I was growing up, I avoided horror films from the 1970s as a general rule. I can even see myself, as I was back then: dressed in all black with dyed hair, black fingernails, and a perpetual sneer at all things popular. I distinctly recall saying, “All horror from the 70s is about satanic cults, and they are utterly boring.”

I was such a little snot. This movie reinforces that old belief of mine, however.

It’s about the last living member of an ancient cult, Wilber Whateley. He is determined to finish what his forefathers started by summoning an ancient race of beings from another dimension to take control of the world (and kill everyone).

Dean Stockwell plays Wilber Whateley in the Dunwich Horror.

Only H.P. Lovecraft could write a plot like this. And the film is chock full of classic Lovecraft. Unfortunately, it is also full of downright silly psychedelic dream sequences and extended shots of gyrating hips on alters.

My sixteen-year-old self was rolling her eyes throughout the film and demanding to know why we were wasting our time with such drivel. Even though I am well out of my angsty teenage years, I had a hard time disagreeing.

The only thing in this film that held my interest were the random overlapping phrases and words from the Evil Dead franchise. There’s a necronomicon from which you can summon the dead. At one point someone says something about an “army of darkness.” It makes me wonder how heavy an influence this film had on a young Sam Raimi or if he is simply a fan of Lovecraft.

It still wasn’t enough to overcome the inherent cheesy datedness of this film. As a result, I would say this is one you can skip. If you absolutely must watch it, it’s available on Netflix’s streaming service. Here’s the trailer: