User reviews

One of the reasons I am a fan of Italian horror is for films like this; though this particular example is not one of the better ones. The film is directed by Antonio Boccaci and also doubles up as his only directing credit; which isn't really surprising as despite having a recipe for success to work with, he doesn't implement much style or suspense into the proceedings and the result is sadly underwhelming. It's also really slow, and the bulk of the film consists of not a lot of interesting things happening. Tomb of Torture takes place mostly in and around an old Gothic castle. The film gets off to a fairly good start as we get treated to a macabre sequence that sees two girls tortured to death. The plot then takes a familiar turn as we fast forward some years into the future, but the focus still remains on the eerie castle from the beginning. We find out that the Countess went missing years ago and the new female lead is a young girl who happens to look just like the missing countess and who goes to the castle on the advice of her doctor...

The black and white cinematography is undoubtedly one of the best things about this film and helps it immensely when it comes to the atmosphere. This bodes well with the eerie castle, as well as the shots of the torture; which is expected considering the title. However, these two elements actually don't mix as well as they should as the director doesn't direct with much verve and this isn't helped by the slow plotting. The main antagonist is a weird looking deformed hunchback who wanders around the castle grounds unseen. Like the main plot, this one is also derivative and it's also not made good use of as nothing really comes of it and the hunchback itself looks more silly than foreboding (looks kind of like the poor man's Wolf Man). The acting is passable but nothing to write home about with all the leads doing their job and not much more. It takes a long time (or at least it seems to) before the ending is finally upon us, and while it does offer up a suitable climax to the film; it doesn't really justify the eighty minutes that came before it. Overall, this is actually quite a boring movie and I certainly would not recommend anyone goes out of their way to see it.

This is a one hundred percent cheese fest that's delivered straight to your eyeballs by a guy on a moped.

It all begins when two women think they can just stroll into their local castle just because the front gate is opened and then somehow act surprised when a crazy guy with a really wonky looking face captures and kills both of them.

For some reason the local policeman thinks they died of exposure when their bodies are found dumped later, but a Doctor who has just returned to town with his daughter thinks differently, as does a guy who seems to have spent the last twenty years looking for his missing girlfriend.

His missing girlfriend looks exactly like the doctor's daughter, who of course has been dreaming that she is the missing countess. Her dad brought her back to the town and the castle to rid her of the dreams somehow for reasons I couldn't quite figure out. And obviously someone is out to kill her.

That's enough plot! The first twenty minutes or so of this one are rather good (including the trippy credits), but then you have a bit of a slog through the comedic romance bits between the daughter and some reporter guy, although things pick up again when old wonky face gets involved.

No creepy housekeeper in this one though, although it does throw all sorts of 'haunted house' shenanigans at you which is always most welcome, for me anyway. It's not hard to guess what's going on though! There's a person that keeps turning up dressed as a knight, and they don't even bother disguising their voice.

It starts out with two females that waltzes right into an old castle, gets frighten by a woman there, caught by a madman in a weird mask and then killed.

Another woman starts having dreams of being the Countess that used to run the castle, her father is worried about her naturally. A reporter shows up to find out more about the two dead women and ends up falling in love with the woman having dreams.

Raman is a weird guy that lurks around outside - the only one that might know what is really going on! I guess he's a swami of sorts - he shows up from time to time in the film. OH we even get a knight clubbing the butler! It's just a weird film that starts out promising then falls downhill.

The atmosphere is great - I love it. The story, the plot - lacking - completely lacking. Tries to throw in comedy with cutesy music after trying to build up a scary story at the start. -- Reporter and his car is a good example.

3/10

Complaining that an Italian genre film doesn't have much of a plot is kind of like complaining that an opera doesn't have a lot of subtle, naturalistic acting or that a hardcore porn movie doesn't have great dialogue--that's just not the point. Still even by Italian standards the plot of this movie is pretty lame. The best part is the opening scene where two of the oldest-looking schoolgirls in film history are exploring a mysterious old castle (for reasons that completely eluded me). They are warned away by the old crone maid who still runs the place, but they don't heed her warning and end up captured, tied-up, and tortured to death in the basement by a sadistic monstrous hunch-back! Although the torture takes place mostly offscreen, it is nevertheless surprisingly graphic for the time.

As the girls' bodies are being carried away a scientist shows up who is planning to stay at the castle. He is surprisingly blase about the double torture-murders even though he is accompanied by his young adult daughter who is about the same age as the two victims. He remains unperturbed even after the old maid tells them that the daughter is the spitting image of the former lady of the castle who mysterious disappeared years earlier. There is then a dumb subplot where the daughter falls in love with a local reporter, who kind of looks like a middle-aged version of "Tin Tin". It's not long though before this damsel-in-distress waiting-to-happen becomes a bonafide damsel in distress with her father and "Tin Tin" rushing to her rescue.

It's not to hard to figure out who the villains are--one we've already seen at the beginning and the other is his only plausible accomplice. The climax is hardly very surprising therefore, or very climactic. And that's the real problem here. This has a good opening scene, but the rest of the movie goes strictly downhill from there.

Oh boy … I'm usually a big sucker for Gothic horror fables, especially the Italian-produced ones, but this "Tomb of Torture" is a painful misfire in nearly every department (except for the delicious title, of course). It already begins sort of negatively, with very hectic and seemingly appealing opening sequences in which nothing really happens. Ominous sounds, spontaneously opening & squeaky doors and ghastly background laughter may be very effective routine horror ingredients to use in a Gothic screenplay, but can you at least try to weave them into a storyline? What follows next is a completely incoherent, unsurprising, exploitative, clumsy, illogical and prosaic story about a cursed château with a supposedly terrifying but in reality ludicrous looking monstrosity hiding in the torture dungeon. "Tomb of Torture" contains every dreadful cliché of every Gothic horror movie ever made previously, but totally lacks the uncanny and foreboding atmosphere of sub genre highlights such as, say, "Black Sunday", "The Pit and the Pendulum", "The Virgin of Nuremberg" or "Castle of Blood". The worst aspect of them all, however, is that director Antonio Boccaci seemingly cannot decide in which time period his movie is set and/or clearly can't deal with jumping back and forth in eras. Two beautiful young girls, local residents of a small countryside village, are found barbarically murdered in a meadow. By whom isn't exactly a secret, as we witnessed how an inhospitable old witch chased them down to the castle's cellar where a heavily malformed geek subsequently tortured them to death. The castle belonged to a beautiful countess who mysteriously vanished several years ago, but some guy with a towel wrapped around his head still searches for her. He's supposed to be an intelligent character and I guess that's thanks to his towel. The town's elderly doctor then returns with his yummy daughter and she happens to be the reincarnation of the missing countess. Go figure, the countess' death hasn't even been confirmed and yet she already reincarnated! Anyway, the girl – Anna – has recurring nightmares about the castle's dark secrets, so her daddy actually thinks the best solution is to confront the petrified girl with the monsters of her dreams. And you call yourself a doctor? Or a father?!? Luckily the poor girl needn't worry, as she meets a silly reporter and the very next day they already talk about marriage and true love. "Tomb of Torture" is a redundant and senseless movie that often gets unintentionally hilarious due to its ridicule plot and grotesque make-up effects. The script is full of holes and raises far more questions than it could ever answer. The beast in the cellar is a look-alike of the Elephant Man and I totally don't understand why he stupidly giggles all the time (especially not after the flashback explaining what happened to him). To finish with at least some positive notes, I gladly admit that the black & white cinematography looks nice and the castle itself is a marvelous piece of horror architecture.

It seems that I spoke too soon earlier this week when I singled out KATARSIS (1963) as the nadir of the Italian Gothic Horror cycle! To my mind, this one was an even lesser achievement (with totally unfamiliar credits, though it was picked up for U.S. distribution by no less a genre authority than Richard Gordon) – despite having even better possibilities, given the disparate elements that come into play throughout. In fact, the film resembles more the anything-goes attitude redolent of the Mexi-Horror style (think THE BRAINIAC [1962]) – but Italian experiments in this vein, such as SHE (1982) and the notoriously troubled SINBAD OF THE SEVEN SEAS (1989), have always tended towards the worst aspects of Camp. One other case which I may soon be catching is CROSS OF THE SEVEN JEWELS (1987).

Anyway, here we have a horribly (and inexplicably) disfigured and hirsute man with a penchant for torture devices (whose exposure, complete with maniacal laugh, is over-extended), a woman who is a dead-ringer for her mysteriously vanished ancestor (no great beauty, one wonders what all the fuss is about), the current female owner who is clearly unhinged (since she first appears silhouetted in a darkened room and is always clad in black) and even an Oriental Yoghi (though he never accomplishes much). Also on hand are the usual suspects – dumb cop (not helped by being named Dobson!), stern doctor (father of the heroine) and intrepid reporter (who stumbles on the leading lady while skinny-dipping and automatically becomes engaged to her!).

Though lasting for no more than what is considered standard duration for this type of film (87 minutes), the lethargic pace and singular lack of imagination on display results in deadly dullness virtually all the way through! The only two sequences to hold the attention somewhat are the vaguely surreal reconstruction of the dungeon murder (with the woman menaced by a figure in a skeleton outfit, a knight's armor 'come to life' and a monster that resides in a tomb!) and the finale, which sees the faceless sadist (whom the crazed owner, forever in search of the family jewels, disparagingly calls "brainless idiot"!) tripping and hang himself in a welter of chains attached to the ceiling, while the ageing woman herself shares the exact same fate as her victim (an arrow through the heart!).

Whatever else is true of this movie, it becomes apparent rather quickly that best storytelling judiciousness was not on the agenda of screenwriters Anthony Kristye and Giovanni Simonelli or director Antonio Boccacci. One is reminded of the storytelling sensibilities (and eventually genre sensibilities) of 30s cinema as story beats, plot development, and characters are thrown at us in effectively the first third that can only be described as Just So. We're treated to these elements, then wait for the narrative to catch up and provide explanation. I suppose there's nothing inherently wrong with this - it's not like 'Tomb of torture' is the only picture to have ever taken such an approach - but it seems especially noteworthy here. Despite such unclear directness, I'll say this much - there's a sufficient air of curiosity about the strange goings-on (or is that peculiarity?) to initially get one's attention. The question is, does it ever improve and become earnestly worthwhile on its own merits?

This distinctly feels like the type of 60s horror flick that would be relegated to late night screenings at arthouse cinemas by Deep Dive genre enthusiasts, or public domain DVD packages cobbling together one to three additional titles of like obscurity. Brusque and forthright even as it builds a mystery and shows flashes of violence, 'Tomb of torture' also carries a tone that is sometimes bizarrely playful, and always too uneven and light to foster any meaningful tension, suspense, or thrills. I'm not sure it knew what it wanted to be. There's a lot going on here, and it's not that the feature lacks all entertainment value - but perhaps it's not the type of entertainment that the feature was intended to boast.

I think this is reasonably well made in terms of the work put into it from behind the scenes: production design, art direction, costume design, hair and makeup. The filming location is swell. But how important are such matters, truly - not least if a movie struggles to stand on its own feet in more substantial ways? The imbalanced and inconsistent tone continues to stand out as a glaring issue, and to a lesser extent so does the blunt forthrightness of the proceedings. Both as written and as directed, there are odd and irregular seeming shifts in characterizations, dialogue, and scene writing; from one moment to the next we don't know what the overall vibe is going to be, but nor do we know how a character is going to act, or what disposition they'll express in dialogue. 'Tomb of torture' is kind of all over the place in these regards, while also not making much significant movement in the narrative itself.

The result is a viewing experience that's generally dull, bordering on aggravating. Particularly as the movie flails about, there's never anything interesting enough to truly keep one actively engaged; it turns out our attention can wander or split without missing much of anything. It doesn't specifically improve, it's not terribly worthwhile on its own merits - and obscure a title as it is, I rather think it deserves to remain so. This may not be wholly, absolutely rotten, but that's not saying much as there's so little fun to be had here that the quantity is nearer "0" than "1." There is, after all, a complete story told in 'Tomb of torture' (I think?), and the climax is somewhat well done. Yet for as poorly as the former is rendered, and for as late in the runtime as we're treated to the latter, it's hard to care. Watch it if you want, I guess; I just don't see any reason why anyone should. Whatever. What's next on the list?

At the start of this otherwise dreary Italian gothic, two teenagers sneak into a familial castle and encounter its owner, the "nasty old witch" Countess Elizabeth. The Countess' moronic servant Hugo captures the girls, tortures, and kills them.

This impressively strong opening is tacked onto a seemingly unrelated, absurd and slow-moving story about an heiress who visits the castle and is haunted by a ghost. Her entourage -- including a comic-relief doctor, an Indian, and a bumbling journalist -- talk a lot about who-killed-who and a treasure buried on the estate.

I wanted to see more scenes of Hugo, the token thing-in-the-cellar who has one eyeball down around his cheekbone, drools, and cackles a lot. The mad Countess dresses up in knight's armor and orders Hugo around, cracking a whip. There's also a laughing skeleton and a bizarre enema joke.

In U. S. theaters, this movie occupied the lower half of a double bill with the campy German-made vampire flick, CAVE OF THE LIVING DEAD. TOMB OF TORTURE was Boccacci's only film.

Her physician father's (Adriano Micantoni) efforts to aid his increasingly distressed daughter Anna (Annie Alberti), tormented by recurring nightmares over the death of the beautiful, yet ill-fated countess Irene who she eerily resembles, prove disastrous. The only feature made by former pulp novelist Boccacci remains a feverishly enigmatic cauldron of pulpy Italianate Gothic schlock, oft prone to hysteria-laden theatrics, Tomb of Torture is certainly not without minor interest to vintage Grisly Gothic addicts. Palpably weird, oblique, injudiciously sluggish, Metempsycho is demonstratively not on par with the finest macabre works of Margheriti, Franco, Freda or Bava, yet the innate strangeness residing herein proved bizarrely fascinating to me! Many will find this eccentric high Gothic oddity a torturous experience in mediocrity, yet I found the foreboding atmosphere, oneiric qualities, dingy dungeon dynamics, and the cob-webby creature feature theatrics frequently compelling! A clear highlight is the lurid climax, and master composer Armando Sciascia's quality, atmospherically strident spazzy jazzy score!

Arriving at a remote castle, a man attempting to treat his daughter's strange dreams looks to use the area to do so, and while she deals with the revelation of being an identical figure to a woman who used to live there also finds herself and the others there to help her targeted by a monstrous figure inside.

For the most part, this was an enjoyable enough Gothic Horror outing. Among the positives here is the somewhat formulaic if still highly enjoyable setup that provides wholly likeable work in this style. The arrival at the castle and discovering the way the locals treat the area where the incidents are written off gives this a nice countering point for the doctor and his daughter arriving there to help with her nightmares but finding the family curse and legacy holding out over this one. The concurrent discovery of the figures there trying to recover treasure inside and tormenting anyone who steps there is a perfect accompanying subplot for this to play out. As well, there's a lot of fun to be had once it moves past this into the action features here. A strong opening with the creature in the castle appearing to torture and kill the trespassing women is a great way to go about this highlighting the danger of the castle and what's in store as her dream of being chased through the crumbling catacombs or hallucinations of the previous owner that help to play into the storyline that slowly develops. This builds incredibly well with the finale where the exploits in the castle tombs that play up the atmosphere of the location and the reveals about the figures haunting the castle are all quite fun for a lot to like here. There are some drawbacks that bring this down. One of the big detrimental factors is a mid-section far more devoted to playing up the romance angle than doing anything related to how the storyline is supposed to play out. Starting with the meet-cute at the lake and progressing on through the conversations they have about her problems and the trouble within the castle, this all comes about incredibly slowly without much in the way of action or genre material as hardly any of this is interesting. It makes this section of the running time come about quite underwhelming as there's not much on display here to get this section of the film going. The other detriment to the film is the somewhat unnecessary confusion that arises when trying to figure out what's going on within the film. The whole purpose of the trip to the castle to cure her of this condition is completely glossed over and makes no sense, especially once the doppelganger issue comes about that further muddies everything. That also extends to the issue of the treasure hunters looking throughout the castle for the hidden money which has very little spelled out as to what their goal is so it all makes for a rather confusing time trying to make sense of it all. Combined with the low-budget effects work, these are what hold this one back overall.

Today's Rating/PG-13: Violence.

TOMB OF TORTURE opens with a wordless tour through a creepy castle. Then, we see a skull with an eyeball in one socket.

Great stuff!

The rest involves two young women being tortured to death by a disfigured madman; a woman named Anna (Annie Alberti) who dreams about the torture chamber; and a reporter who investigates the deaths.

TOMB is a macabre, somewhat silly film loaded with lugubrious atmosphere and gothic sets. It's biggest problem is that it has several spots that just drag on.

BEST SCENE: The nightmare sequence, which includes a murderous figure in full plate armor and a giant crossbow!...