Haunted by a terrible tragedy, a young man brought back to his family's old home by his wife and friends finds his long-held belief in a legacy of family-led mental disorders has come to bear when they succumb to strange happenings and must try to keep him sane in order to leave.
This was quite the troubled if enjoyable Giallo effort. What really tends to hold this one down is the fact that a vast majority of the film is based around the idea of his past coming back to haunt him without anything actually happening. It plays like a stodgy Gothic chamber-drama more than an actual horrific effort, filled with long- winded scenes of him monologuing about the past and his fears of its recurrence in his personality followed by their increasingly incessant pleas for him to regain his sanity, leaving this one incredibly dry and long-winded for much of it's running time. Even being distracted by the elaborate Gothic setting or the inviting mystery at hand doesn't really offer up much as it becomes quite obvious early on that little is actually happening with such long stretches of time between action, and the repetition of these events merely reinforces this since that's what happens for a large part of the film. Due to the lack of more traditional Giallo-based elements, that really leaves this one with the seriousness of its set-up to sustain any attention in the first half and that causes this to feel way too drawn-out for way too long throughout this section of the film. Once it becomes more involved with the idea that the father has returned and it starts in on some rather more lively antics there's some likable work at play here as the preponderance of Gothic architecture and settings makes for a suitably chilling scenario to base the kind of psychological torment-style plot that this one hinges on as it does follow the kind of stylistic plot- points needed for that kind of payoff to occur. The walk-throughs of the castle-grounds thinking back on the events he experienced as a child that plays over the whole affair, the sight of the figure off in the distance of the castle grounds who disappears before they can offer any kind of identification of the figure leaving behind only the footprints on the carpet and the later discovery of the dead body in their midst play off quite effectively here. The film really hits its stride, though, in the final half-hour which is where it really starts to get interesting with the revelation of who's behind the whole affair and their intentions which sets up some rather fun action in the house as everyone tends to reveal their true intentions all leading up to the great shock at the finale that makes for a rather nice ending. Still, the overall blandness on display does hurt this one considerably.
Today's Rating/PG: Mild Violence.
