Ah, another Italian Gothic horror film starring the unearthly beautiful Barbara Steele! They always receive my full attention & appreciation! Apparently, this is some kind of sequel/spin-off to "The Horrible Dr. Hitchcock" that got released one year before and also starred stunning Barbara. The good news is that you absolutely don't require seeing that one in order to follow this story. Both movies simply revolve on the same pivot character, namely the uncanny Dr. Hitchcock, played in this movie by Elio Jotta. He's rich and arrogant, but bound to a wheelchair and forced to take a lot of medication to keep his bizarre disease under control. His much younger wife Margaret and her lover, Dr. Livingstone, plan to kill him quicker so that they can carelessly search the mansion for hidden fortunes. Shortly after the funeral, however, the greedy young couple becomes plagued by all kind of mysterious occurrences! It's Goth-horror, so you pretty much know what to expect. Wheelchairs falling down a flight of stairs, music boxes that start to play unsettling tunes all by themselves, strange noises coming from the family vault, etc
It looks like Dr. Hitchcock, or at least his vengeful spirit, has returned from the grave to prevent his unfaithful wife from inheriting his money. Ricardo Freda ("The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire") maintains a tense and ominous atmosphere throughout the entire film and the decors are effectively sinister. Particularly the tomb underneath the large mansion is quite an eerie place! The story's climax, albeit a bit implausible, is great horror material and will be appreciated by Italian horror fanatics, I'm sure. Barbara Steele's beauty and charisma simply can't be described and I'd recommend this movie, as well as everything else she ever starred in, if it were only to stare at her face for 95 minutes.
