Beautiful Italian gothic film for a Black and White which seems stuck in the 1950s, despite being from 1966 which is several years behind Mario Bava's wild atmospheric color extravaganza Blood and Black Lace. In my opinion it also lacks the raw power of another Italian B/W horror classic Il Demonio.
Barbara Steele, no favorite of mine, plays a countess ostensibly SOMETIMES possessed by the evil spirit of woman trapped in a statue from the 1700s. Sometimes Babs is the demure and sane Harriet, but like a werewolf she turns into a narcissistic sociopath at midnight and spends her early mornings casually destroying people's lives with flirtatious and manipulative behavior and lies. Pretty convincing as a female embodiment of Satan due to her beauty and sly, calculating path of destruction that doesn't immediately implicate her as the source of the chaos.
However, her switch in personality made little sense to me and I really craved more back story about the statue. Feels dated in a dull way to me but is pretty strong in terms of setting and complexity of story telling.
Barbara Steele, no favorite of mine, plays a countess ostensibly SOMETIMES possessed by the evil spirit of woman trapped in a statue from the 1700s. Sometimes Babs is the demure and sane Harriet, but like a werewolf she turns into a narcissistic sociopath at midnight and spends her early mornings casually destroying people's lives with flirtatious and manipulative behavior and lies. Pretty convincing as a female embodiment of Satan due to her beauty and sly, calculating path of destruction that doesn't immediately implicate her as the source of the chaos.
However, her switch in personality made little sense to me and I really craved more back story about the statue. Feels dated in a dull way to me but is pretty strong in terms of setting and complexity of story telling.