This terrifying film with plenty of vampires , weird deeds and murders is formed by three stories proceeded in some memorably horrific set-pieces : 1) ¨The telephone¨ by author Snyder : A prostitute (Michele Mercier) terrorized in her flat by phone calls from a broken-out inmate (Milo Quesada) receives visit her lover (Lidia Alfonsi). 2) ¨The Wurdalak¨ by Aleksey Tolstoi : In a night of nightmare during the early 1800s , a Russian noble (Mark Damon, usual in Spaghetti Western) and a family (exceptional Boris Karloff, a gorgeous Susy Andersen, and Massimo Roghi) stumble vampires who must kill those love and go after their descendants ; the undead vampires of hell terrorize the house in a orgy of stark horror. 3) ¨The drop of water¨ by Chekhov : In the early 1900s , a nurse (Jacqueline Pierreux, mother of actor Jean Pierre Leaud, 400 blows) steals a ring from a medium dead and she seeks avenge , then a ghastly specter arises , exacting cruel revenge for past robbery.
Bava's second great hit (the first was Black Sunday or Mask of the demon) surprisingly realized with startling visual content and well scripted by Marcello Fondato and Albert Bevilacqua . This omnibus terror is plenty of thrills and chills in glimmer color and in lurid paste with sensational results . This genuinely creepy tale is photographed by Ubaldo Terzano and Bava himself with magentas , shades of ochre , translucently pale turquoises and deep orange-red reflecting paleness on the victims . Eerie and suspenseful musical score by Roberto Nicolisi , though in American version was composed by Lex Baxter , Corman's usual. The motion picture was stylishly and strikingly shot by Bava , filmed in parallel orbit to those Roger Corman ( Edgar Allan Poe cycle) and produced by American International (James H. Nicholson , Samuel Z. Arkoff) . Bava along with Riccardo Freda are fundamental kings of Italian horror , in fact collaborated deeply among them , as Bava terminated two films of Freda, ¨Il Vampiri¨ and ¨Caltiki¨ and they created the Giallo sub-genre. Rating : Good , acceptable atmospheric direction from genre master MarioBava , this is one more compelling horror ventures in which his camera stalks in sinister style throughout a tale with extraordinary visual skills . A must see for terror buffs.
