One of the reasons I am a fan of Italian horror is for films like this; though this particular example is not one of the better ones. The film is directed by Antonio Boccaci and also doubles up as his only directing credit; which isn't really surprising as despite having a recipe for success to work with, he doesn't implement much style or suspense into the proceedings and the result is sadly underwhelming. It's also really slow, and the bulk of the film consists of not a lot of interesting things happening. Tomb of Torture takes place mostly in and around an old Gothic castle. The film gets off to a fairly good start as we get treated to a macabre sequence that sees two girls tortured to death. The plot then takes a familiar turn as we fast forward some years into the future, but the focus still remains on the eerie castle from the beginning. We find out that the Countess went missing years ago and the new female lead is a young girl who happens to look just like the missing countess and who goes to the castle on the advice of her doctor...
The black and white cinematography is undoubtedly one of the best things about this film and helps it immensely when it comes to the atmosphere. This bodes well with the eerie castle, as well as the shots of the torture; which is expected considering the title. However, these two elements actually don't mix as well as they should as the director doesn't direct with much verve and this isn't helped by the slow plotting. The main antagonist is a weird looking deformed hunchback who wanders around the castle grounds unseen. Like the main plot, this one is also derivative and it's also not made good use of as nothing really comes of it and the hunchback itself looks more silly than foreboding (looks kind of like the poor man's Wolf Man). The acting is passable but nothing to write home about with all the leads doing their job and not much more. It takes a long time (or at least it seems to) before the ending is finally upon us, and while it does offer up a suitable climax to the film; it doesn't really justify the eighty minutes that came before it. Overall, this is actually quite a boring movie and I certainly would not recommend anyone goes out of their way to see it.