Baron Blood

Peter goes to Austria to relax after getting his MA and to..."find his roots." He stays with an uncle who shows him the castle that belonged to his dead ancestor (aka Baron Blood), who was notorious for his torture chamber. He meets an architecture student named Eva and they find out the Baron was cursed under a witch's spell. So they decide to invoke the Baron's spirit. Why? Because Peter can't pass the chance to get to know one of his ancestors. Really. This is the worst Bava movie I've seen so far. Not to say it was bad. Baron Blood is very stylish and entertaining, gruesome, suspenseful, and the sets are great. The main problem is that the plot is absurd and the characters and their apparent motivations are extremely stupid. The horrid 70s song that opens and closes the movie should have never been recorded. My Rating: 5.5/10

Compared to Mario Bava's previous horror work, which, if not perfect, had at least some atmosphere and style, "Baron Blood" is painfully slow and boring movie with characters who act like characters in a children story (at one point they tell police while being dead serious that 300 years old baron has returned) and are not a least bit interesting. I usually try to watch movies in one piece, yet I constantly had to pause this one because I was so bored. Horror elements are sparse, baron is just a guy in black clothes with disfigured face and there is just one creepy scene where he is chasing our heroine through the streets (by the way, if you don't like short haired and slim women, you will be disappointed). The rest of the movie is boring and I fail to see what other reviewers seen as good here. For me, this is miles away from horror cinema of old to which it's supposedly trying to pay tribute to. 5/10! I recommend it only to the most hardcore Mario Bava fans!

After the completion of his master's degree, Peter Kleist (Antonio Cantafora) travels to Austria to spend a leisure period doing nothing. He is welcomed in the airport by his uncle Dr. Karl Hummel (Massimo Girotti) and he asks if he could visit the castle of his ancestor, the evil Baron Otto von Kleist a.k.a. Baron Blood. In the Sixteenth Century, the sadistic baron was cursed by a witch Elisabeth Holle that he had burned at the stake and then he was killed by the locals in his Castle of Death. Peter meets the gorgeous Eva Arnold (Elke Sommer) that works restoring the castle and invites her to go with him to the castle after dinner to read an incantation written in an ancient parchment that would evoke the family course and bring the Baron back to life. After reading the magic words, the wind blows the parchment to the fireplace and it burns. When villagers mysterious disappear and Eva is chased by a weird man, they realize that they have released the Baron and they do not have the parchment anymore to call the incantation off. Their hope is that the clairvoyant and medium Christina Hoffmann (Rada Rassimov), who is a descendant of Elisabeth, might help them.

"Baron Blood" is another eerie and spooky movie by Mario Bava. The uncanny story of curse, witchcraft and resurrection is very well supported by the predictable screenplay that works well, but the stylish cinematography, the lighting and shadows and the camera work with unusual angle are impressive and give a creepy and nightmarish atmosphere to the feature. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Os Horrores do Castelo de Nuremberg" ("The Horrors of the Nuremberg Castle")

Mario Bava is one of the greats of horror cinema, but I wouldn't judge his importance by 'Baron Blood'. It isn't close to his best work. While stylishly directed (to be expected being Bava) and with plenty of atmosphere, it is low on both suspense and gore, and sets up a potentially dynamite premise (the resurrection of an evil Vlad The Impaler-like maniac hell bent on revenge), then goes nowhere much with it. One or two sequences are outstanding, but overall it's a major disappointment, and the usually excellent Joseph Cotton (who did some strong genre work in movies like 'The Abominable Dr Phibes' and 'Soylent Green') is a bit of a let down in the title role. Even so, no Mario Bava movie can be dismissed entirely, and for all its flaws it's still worth watching more than almost all of Hollywood's recent puerile and uninspired horror output.

Imagine you knew the incantation that would bring Dracula back to life. Sure, he had a habit of murdering people from time to time, but wouldn't it be really amazing to see him in the flesh? This is essentially the premise of 'Baron Blood', although the dreaded Otto Von Kleist of the tale is far more Vlad than Dracula - a man who would happily spend the afternoon strapping someone to a rack and cutting their fingers off as we would spend it renting a DVD. Flash forward to the 20th century, where his great great great etc grandson Peter, who decides to pay a visit to his homeland of Austria during a gap year to get in touch with his roots, stumbles across just such an incantation. The chance to meet his infamous ancestor: who could resist?

Director Mario Bava shows what competent continental rivals to Hammer studios could do with the same formula. Classic horror aficionados will find much to compare, with the same ancient evils resurrected plot wise, the same helpless busty heroines, and the same near blackness films of the 70s often had, forcing the viewer to reach for the brightness control. There is even the obligatory witch to pull the story several notches away from horror in the direction of the occult, evoking "Cry Of The Banshee" to name one British contemporary. Yet despite being typical of the genre, 'Baron Blood' stands out in a few areas. Bava takes us to a real Austrian castle, the magnificent Berg Kreuzenstein, which oozes character all its own. It's also set in then-present day Austria. Hammer would often take us back a century for the action, although to be fair, this was already the era of Dr Phibes, which showed a monster in the 20th Century would probably scare the viewer more. Then, if you've got the US version, there's Les Baxter's soundtrack, which strongly suggests he didn't know it was a horror film. Why, was Stelvio Cipriani's original score deemed to scary for Americans, i.e - doing what it was supposed to do?

On the acting side of things, the cast do a fair job. Nothing award-winning, but they have just enough conviction to make you believe them. Rising above this however is the exceptional Joseph Cotton, as the mysterious Alfred Becker, a millionaire who suddenly appears out of the ether to buy the baron's castle. Given that the script is not one to hide its twists very well, Cotton is a welcome compensation. You can't help but look at him whenever he appears, wondering what he'll do next.

Overall, 'Baron Blood' breaks no new ground, but gives the genre fan most of the things they would expect, with some excellent location work and a memorable villain into the bargain. English-language viewers may scratch their heads at the mystifying score, but don't let it put you off - this is just the ticket for late-evening viewing.