I have the Aikman Archives 2003 DVD release which has a quoted running time of 81 minutes, but I do not know if it is uncut. It says that it is digitally remastered... but that is a pretense only. The opening scenes have some severe film scratches on it, and minor scratching is visible in many later scenes, although the color is not too bad.
The charm of this film is obviously the sets and general creepiness. Story wise, it is typical of the "Revenge" and "Curse" plot lines in horror movies, but adds a few twists to make it a little more bizarre. It's mostly a vehicle for the well-realized castle and torture chambers. Huge Hieronymus Bosch paintings dominate the walls while trained vultures greedily peck at bloody leftovers. Corpses hang along dimly viewed roadside trees; and with every move a spiked portcullis or oaken door closes behind the protagonists sealing their passage. With a more coherent plot and more subtle and cohesive dialog and editing this would have been more than a "B" movie. To me, it lacks some measure of suspense, although the torture chamber sequences aren't too bad. Christopher Lee needed more screen time and better lines, and Lex Barker could have been replaced with Ron Ely or Gordon Scott (my favorite Tarzans).
The charm of this film is obviously the sets and general creepiness. Story wise, it is typical of the "Revenge" and "Curse" plot lines in horror movies, but adds a few twists to make it a little more bizarre. It's mostly a vehicle for the well-realized castle and torture chambers. Huge Hieronymus Bosch paintings dominate the walls while trained vultures greedily peck at bloody leftovers. Corpses hang along dimly viewed roadside trees; and with every move a spiked portcullis or oaken door closes behind the protagonists sealing their passage. With a more coherent plot and more subtle and cohesive dialog and editing this would have been more than a "B" movie. To me, it lacks some measure of suspense, although the torture chamber sequences aren't too bad. Christopher Lee needed more screen time and better lines, and Lex Barker could have been replaced with Ron Ely or Gordon Scott (my favorite Tarzans).