Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Robert Hardy | ... | Baron Friedrich Zorn | |
Shane Briant | ... | Emil Zorn | |
Gillian Hills | ... | Elizabeth Zorn | |
Yvonne Mitchell | ... | Aunt Hilda | |
![]() |
Paul Jones | ... | Carl Richter |
Patrick Magee | ... | Doctor Falkenberg | |
![]() |
Kenneth J. Warren | ... | Klaus |
Michael Hordern | ... | Priest | |
Robert Brown | ... | Fischinger | |
![]() |
Virginia Wetherell | ... | Inge |
![]() |
Deirdre Costello | ... | Magda |
Barry Stanton | ... | Ernst | |
![]() |
Sidonie Bond | ... | Zorn's Wife |
Thomas Heathcote | ... | Coachman | |
![]() |
John Atkinson | ... | 1st Villager |
Baron Zorn keeps his teenager children, Elizabeth and Emil locked up and drugged, fearing that his insane wife passed along a congenital curse to them before her own suicidal death. Elizabeth escapes for a brief tryst with a local before being recaptured and subjected to a bleeding process to "draw out the bad blood". Emil keeps trying to escape, but is thwarted time and again by his aunt, Hilda, who runs the house like a prison. One reason the siblings have to be kept apart is their incestuous attraction to each other. Local wenches are being murdered in the woods, and the superstitious peasants think demons are responsible. A wandering priest dedicates himself to root out the evil, but isn't taken seriously. Arriving at the castle are two more interested parties: Mountebank scientist huckster Falkenberg stands to make a small fortune if his strange apparatus can cure the children of their inherited evil. Carl simply wants to rescue Elizabeth. As more murders mount, Falkenberg ... Written by Leo
This film is a nasty satire of science and Religion. Peter Sykes undoes the Hammer Horror conventions in favor of a free-floating, experimetal narrative. Patrick Magee and Micheal Holdern both turn in brilliant performances. Patrick Magee as the inneffectual, sadistic psychiatrist who drives people mad to have better papers published and Micheal holdern as a wandering beggar dressed as a priest, blending fervor with madness. The entire free-floating poetic structure is ended with a brutal, grisly ending that helps this movie break from the silly hammer horror conventions most of the films suffer from. If Hammer had made more films like this they might still be relevant to modern horror.