You can't go totally wrong with a movie featuring the mouth-wateringly luscious and genuinely talented 70's Italian cult actress Rosalba Neri (aka Sarah Bay), but this is not one of her better films.
It starts in modern times (as of 1972) with Neri's character "Helga" and two of her blonde, generously breasted, mini-skirt clad girlfriends coming to tour a castle that is supposedly owned by Satan himself. For reasons that eluded me, they all decide to spend the night there (apparently it doubles as a bed-and-breakfast?). That night "Helga" has a dream where she is transported back to the 16th century where she is a virginal bride about to be married. While she is trying on her wedding-night garments, she sees a man looking through her window. It is apparently an ill omen for another man to see these garments, so she tracks the man down--perhaps not a good idea since he is wearing a crimson robe and hood, and, of course, turns out to be the Devil. The Devil demands she kill her husband on their wedding night and then join him as his lover. Meanwhile a spurned female lover of her husband is plotting to kill her. There are several subplots involving other characters (I don't know about anyone else, but I'm usually in ALL the scenes in my dreams). Perhaps the best is where an old witch lures her big-breasted virginal friends (all the characters in the dream are the same characters as in the modern story a la "The Wizard of Oz")to a cave where they are assaulted by two randy highway-men in a kind of defloration/orgy.
In a way this is the opposite of the standard Italian Gothic horror film. Where your typical Italian Gothic has a dumb or nonsensical plot, but an effective atmosphere and visual style, this has a fairly decent plot, but it's very hamhandedly executed style-wise. Some of it was no doubt the print I saw, which messed up the day-for-night shooting so that all the scenes seemed to take place in broad daylight (even while some on-screen characters remark on how dark it is!). A lot of it though is the fault of director Lombardo, who maintains a positively glacial pace and seems to cut away to a boring subplot every time the main plot threatens to gather any momentum. After a (very long) hour you do get to see Neri's incredible nude body, but it was used to better effect in at least a dozen other Italian horror movies and giallo thrillers. Neri herself isn't bad, but she's just a lot better playing a wicked villainess than an innocent virgin (and she was also about thirty-five at the time). This is not a bad movie if you like Italian Gothic horror, but it is kind of a disappointing one.
