Borrowing the title of Louis Feuillade's silent serial of the WW1 years, Riccardo Freda thoroughly renews the genre , at a time when special effects ,gore and monsters were not de rigueur and did not spoil the stories ;locating the action in Paris , particularly around the ile de la cité, where even Notre Dame seems threatening, and hiring an earnest French actor Antoine Balpêtré as the mad scientist , the director makes a more recent flick such as" werewolf in Paris" pale into insignificance .
The settings of Beni Montresor are stunning : the old castle which seems to have always been here from yore to eternity , the baroque room where the prey is captured , an inventive use of the depth of field ; Freda works with his camera the way a painter does with shadow and light ,with astounding results : the surgeon and his assistants , seen as shadowgraph in the operating room ; the funeral; the unfortunate victim , lost in a some kind of hell .
A strong influence on Georges Franju's "les yeux sans visage" (eyes without a face)(1960),perhaps the best French horror movie of all time.
Don't miss Freda's classics such as " la sette spade del vendicator" and " l'orribile segreto del dottor Hitchcock" (both from 1962)
Freda's wife, the Italian Ava Gardner ,Gianna Maria Canale , has a relative small screen time (considering she is at the top of the bill) ,but her maleficent beauty shines all through the movie , displaying the scent of a poisoned flower.
The settings of Beni Montresor are stunning : the old castle which seems to have always been here from yore to eternity , the baroque room where the prey is captured , an inventive use of the depth of field ; Freda works with his camera the way a painter does with shadow and light ,with astounding results : the surgeon and his assistants , seen as shadowgraph in the operating room ; the funeral; the unfortunate victim , lost in a some kind of hell .
A strong influence on Georges Franju's "les yeux sans visage" (eyes without a face)(1960),perhaps the best French horror movie of all time.
Don't miss Freda's classics such as " la sette spade del vendicator" and " l'orribile segreto del dottor Hitchcock" (both from 1962)
Freda's wife, the Italian Ava Gardner ,Gianna Maria Canale , has a relative small screen time (considering she is at the top of the bill) ,but her maleficent beauty shines all through the movie , displaying the scent of a poisoned flower.