Review of Mill of the Stone Women

This is clearly a movie of emulation, the producer or director were excited by what Hammer, Coreman and Bava were up to right about 1958-1960, and threw their hat into the ring. As a result, most of the auteur elements are imitative, but very good imitations! Two fabulous tableaux, both in a hallucination sequence, Elfi, the sick daughter, rising from her deathbed, and later her hands extended out of a heavy curtain. Otherwise, 50s horror was studio-stylish , with storybook quality production design, and plots well-constructed and quickly dispatched: this one holds up to the standard. As to the theme: An older artist living in a mill with a wax museum-like carousel in it outside of a Dutch town tends to his very ill daughter in a very creative way (not unlike in Barbara Steele's Nightmare Castle). Mad scientists are great, but, for me, mad artists are even better. Stories where the veneer of art is torn off by the psychosis of the artist represent true horror: they throw us back upon very primitive fears of representation. In one scene cut from the print (see the French clip in the extras), a young lady mentions that as a child she thought merry go round figures had real dwarfs inside. Later, she screams and faints when the sculptural figures of the artist's great-grandfather's carousel, featuring Joan of Arc etc, go too Gothic. The dread that there is something more going on in the artist's life than art fuels a terrific story too. In exploring this territory, the movie joins Mystery of the Wax Museum and House of Wax, though the fiery finale of burning statues, a direct homage to House of Wax, is actually a bit chillier. By the way, Elfi is played by Scilla Gabel, with a 41' bust, and Dany Carrell's nipple slip during her transfusion crisis was said by the production notes to launch the "sex horror film" genre. It's a surprise, especially since no one in the story says a word about it (while House of Wax had to laugh off embarrassment at its unseen nudity).