Arrow's GOTHIC FANTASTICO Part 2: HORROR aka THE BLANCHEVILLE MONSTER (1963)

The second film collected by GOTHIC FANTASTICO  was (like LADY MORGAN'S VENGEANCE) denied a US theatrical release, albeit for different reasons. Alberto de Martino’s derivative but beautifully-made THE BLANCHEVILLE MONSTER (which was first given a modest UK theatrical release under its original title, HORROR) alleged that it had a narrative basis in the works of Edgar Allan Poe; this led American International Pictures—as they did with other Poe pictures made in other countries during this period—to acquire and then downplay (if not suppress) the title, either by shelving it or sending it directly to television, in order to preserve and protect Roger Corman’s and AIP’s reputations as the contemporary cine-stewards of Poe’s good name.

Newspaper records show that THE BLANCHEVILLE MONSTER (which includes elements from “The Premature Burial” and Poe’s hypnosis tract “A Tale of the Ragged Mountains”) made its first US TV appearance, courtesy of AIP-TV syndication, on Monday, October 26, 1964 in the New York-New Jersey region, at which time Corman had just completed THE TOMB OF LIGEIA and announced his intention to retire from the Poe series. This release marks the first time it has ever been accessible in the US from 35mm elements. On a visual level alone, it is a revelation with powerfully dimensional deep focus photography by Alejandro Ulloa (THE MONSTER OF THE OPERA, THE VIRGIN OF NUREMBERG, THE DIABOLICAL DR Z).

Something that distinguishes THE BLANCHEVILLE MONSTER from its companions in this set is that, despite sharing the same screenwriter as LADY MORGAN’S VENGEANCE (Giovanni Grimaldi, again writing as "Jean Grimaud" and aassisted by Bruno Corbucci as “Gordon Wilson, Jr.”), it was actually an early Spanish-Italian co-production. Though unmistakably an Italian Gothic, it leans heavily on its Spanish side due to its familiar Spanish locations (including the Monasterio de Santa Maria la Real de Valdeiglesias in Madrid, later featured in FRANKENSTEIN’S BLOODY TERROR, TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD, and THE LORELEY’S GRASP) and sets (I noticed a familiar staircase and room from THE AWFUL DR. ORLOF, 1961). It also features a predominantly Spanish cast: Gerard Tichy (a Spanish actor of German descent who was later featured in Bava’s Spanish thriller HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON), Leo Anchoriz, Paco Moran and, in her first of many memorable horror film appearances, the marvelously elegant and imperious Helga Liné. At the same time, some of its interiors appear to have been filmed in the same twin-staircased villa previously used as the setting for Bava’s THE WHIP AND THE BODY (La frusta e il corpo, 1963). 

The setting of the story differs, depending on whether you're watching the film in Italian or English; a Spanish option is not included. In Italian (HORROR), the story is set in England, 1884, according to the opening caption, and the family name is Blackford—“one of the oldest and noblest families in Scotland.” In English (THE BLANCHEVILLE MONSTER), the family name is de Blancheville and the villa and its grounds are somewhere in northern France, or Brittany. This is the only instance known to me when a name was altered in the English dubbing to make it sound less English. Curiously, in the titles of both versions, the Spanish actors are credited by their real names while the Italian artists languish under Anglo-Saxon aliases.

As the film opens, the blonde and vivacious Emelie (Ombretta Colli acting as “Joan Hills”), newly graduated from college, is traveling by coach in the company of two friends, the siblings Alice (Iran Eory, a Spanish and Iranian-born actress) and John Taylor (Vanni Materassi acting as “Richard Davis”), who have given up their plans to return to Dublin to accompany Emelie to her ancestral castle in Scotland. There, they are warmly greeted by Emelie’s older brother Rodéric (Tichy, who is given to ponderous solitary poundings of his harpsichord) whom she has not seen since childhood. Emelie will turn 21 in one week, thus inheriting the castle and its surrounding properties, which pretty much telegraphs any and all explanation needed of the unusual events attending her return. Home is not quite as Emelie remembers it; her father has died, the avuncular family butler she remembers has retired, and her beloved maid Dorothy has been gone to reside with relatives, and been replaced by the younger, colder, darkly beautiful Eleonore (Line). As if the new gangster-faced butler Alistair (Moran) wasn’t enough, a mysterious Dr. Atwell (Anchoriz, a Spanish Vincent Price if you will, paying nominal homage to actor Lionel Atwill) puts in a first-night appearance and engages Miss Eleonore in hushed conversations they don’t wish anyone, including Rodéric, to overhear. 

For Emelie and John, the next days lend themselves to courtship. Meanwhile, dark and stormy nights, corridor creepings à la candelabra, clocks tolling the midnight hour (twice!), and unexplained cries ensue as Alice, in a billowing see-through nightie, somewhat eclipsing Emelie as our most essential heroine, seeks her brother’s room in the depths and heights of the castle - where the breaths of the actors is frequently visible. She accidentally stumbles upon the shocking sight of Eleonora administering a sedative to a horribly disfigured monster. Fainting into Rodéric’s arms, Alice is later persuaded that she saw no such thing, though the lord of the manor soon makes the admission that his and Emelie’s (supposedly dead) father still lives, maddened and burnt beyond recognition from a house fire, and has now escaped somewhere into the woods enveloping the castle. Emelie determines to find him, to bring him home, till Rodéric breaks the news that she is the one he most wants to kill. Evidently, it’s an old Blackford legend that the family is foretold it will perish in its tenth generation when the last female descendant turns 21. The only way to perpetuate the family bloodline is to do away with the only Blackford capable of giving birth—how’s that for a Catch-22?

In a magnificent sequence, truly the atmospheric and poetic equal of anything in Bava’s BLACK SUNDAY (La maschera del demonio, 1960), Emelie is awakened by her monstrous father and led to the family’s astounding crypt (the previously noted Monasterio, nicely anticipating the abbey ruins of Corman's THE TOMB OF LIGEIA, 1965) where she's told to entomb herself for the good of the family. She reads the legend carved into the crypt wall and faints, whereupon she’s found by Dr. Atwell and Alistair, who carry her back to the castle. When John and Alice later discover Emelie walking in her sleep toward the crypt and snap her out of it, John begins to suspect Dr. Atwell of controlling the lady of the house through Mesmer's newfound practice of hypnosis, despite his being in the clear when attempts on Emelie’s life are made. This causes a rift between John and his sister, who has begun to feel romantically inclined toward the doctor. Emelie’s troubles culminate in her being discovered dead, to all appearances, despite her inner voice beseeching the guests at her funeral to realize that she’s still alive. The film's climactic sequence recalls Dreyer’s VAMPYR by way of Corman’s THE HOUSE OF USHER and PREMATURE BURIAL but it has its own sense of melodramatic grandeur, paid off with a special demise for its unmasked villain.

While HORROR/THE BLANCHEVILLE MONSTER can’t be called one of the best Italian Gothics, it’s directed, played, and also edited with appreciable style and sensitivity, and will be filed away by many as a special comfort food. In the world of Italian Gothic, presence is often equal—if not more important—to performance. Though this film is very well cast and acted with sincerity, even with some delicacy (particularly in the Italian version), Helga Liné dominates this one in a way she would few other films. She’s mostly familiar to fantastic cinema buffs for her work with Paul Naschy and Amando de Ossorio in the 1970s, but she's almost a different actress when filmed in black-and-white—a purer, higher creature of cinema. The Italian version works better than the English one with more clearly crafted dialogue that dissolves all the little confusions which sometimes arise when meaning is less important than matching lip movements. The score by Carlo Franci (Freda’s THE WITCH’S CURSE, HERCULES AGAINST THE MOON MEN), reportedly augmented with cues by Giuseppe Piccillo) is notably lacking in the usual obsessive melodic motifs found in such films, but it does its job in its own low-profile way. 

HORROR was produced by Italo Zingarelli, one of Mario Bava’s oldest friends in the film business and one of the very few who attended his very private funeral. While the film’s special effects are credited to Emilio Ruiz del Ruiz, Bava was rumored to have been responsible for the film’s miniature and matte effects of Castle Blackford, filmed in post-production back in Rome. The daylight long shot of the carriage rolling onto the grounds of the castle early in the film, reprised as the coach leaves at the end, is a beautifully rendered matte shot lent additional verisimilitude by a foregrounded veil of tangled birch wood. Other trick shots based nearer the castle are well designed and sold with a careful alignment of visual elements, though their bonding with double exposures of simulated rainfall falls short of being convincing in the same ways as similar shots in Bava’s DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE GIRL BOMBS (I due mafiosi dell’ FBI, 1966).

The extras are led by a relaxed and sometimes humorous audio commentary by Australian filmmaker (producer, director, editor, cinematographer) Paul Anthony Nelson, who establishes a comfortable familiarity with Italian Gothic, its many classics and practitioners. His talk offers welcome career details about the various principals (a few of whom passed away at fairly young ages) and likens the film not only to Corman’s Poe pictures but also earlier works by Bava and Freda, and to JANE EYRE and some novels of Jane Austen. There’s also a 20m visual essay on the film by pop culture historian Keith Allison, well-scripted and spoken, that explores the feature’s relationship to Corman’s reinvigorated approach to Poe and explores how other films in the early 1960s fostered more psychological, even experimental approaches to macabre storytelling. Author and filmmaker Antonio Tentori holds court with a nearly 14m discussion of Alberto de Martino’s work, HORROR in particular, and additionally perceives a strong connection to the work of Riccardo Freda. Also included are an eyesore representation of the film’s AIP-TV US credits, only moderately changed from the original, as well as an Italian trailer and an image gallery consisting of only two poster images.

NEXT UP: THE THIRD EYE!

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