#64. Castle of Blood (1964)

DVD Synopsis: When American author Edgar Allan Poe visits London, he is approached by British journalist Alan Foster, who becomes the target of a peculiar wager. Not believing Poe's assertion that all of his macabre stories have been based on actual experience, Foster accepts a bet from Poe and his friend Sir Thomas Blackwood that he cannot spend an entire night in the Blackwood's haunted castle. Once installed in the abandoned castle, Foster discovers that he is not alone, as he is approached by various beautiful women and handsome men, and a doctor of metaphysics -- who explains that they are all lost souls damned to replay the stories of their demises on the anniversary of their deaths!

Director Antonio Margheriti’s Castle of Blood is a movie ripe with ambiance, a horror film that deserves a place among the classics of the genre.

Shot entirely in black and white, Castle of Blood gives off a creepy vibe, one that kicks in the moment the main character arrives at the castle, lights a candle, and starts to look around. The darkness he encounters on this initial visit has an atmosphere all its own, one that immediately sets our skin to crawling, and even the various clichés he encounters along the way; the black cat, the foggy graveyard, the hanging portrait with deep, probing eyes, seem fresh in the confines of director Margheriti’s mysterious black and white world.