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Keep up with Bright Lights between issues by visiting our companion blog, Bright Lights After Dark home current issue archives ... links This middle-range Bava looks
better than ever on DVD BY GARY MORRIS Baron Blood (original title Orrori del castello di Norimberga, Gli Black Sunday or Planet of the Vampires and the mindlessness of Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs or Beyond the Door II Douglas Sirk The plot, typical of this always narrative-challenged director, is just an excuse for a series of gorgeously fetishized set-pieces. It seems that Peter Kleist (Antonio Cantafora), the young descendant of Baron Otto von Kleist (a Vlad the Impaler style madman from 300 years ago), has finished his M.A. and come to Austria to look into his heritage. There he meets architecture student Eva Arnold (Elke Sommer), and the two of them decide to conjure up his ancestor. Happily, Peter brings along an ancient scroll telling him exactly how to resurrect this monster. Unhappily, the Baron indeed returns, wreaking havoc on the locals and trying to murder Peter and Eva, who unwittingly hold the secret to sending him back into the dustbin of history. Blood and Black Lace .) Of course, he looks especially good next to "Alfred Becker" (Joseph Cotten), a mysterious cripple who’s in fact — in a point the film telegraphs instantly — the Baron. Cotten’s presence adds marquee value, in spite of a pretty dreadful, disengaged performance. Sommer, with her vinyl micro-minis and Carnaby Street hats, is one of the least convincing architecture students in cinema history; she spends most of the film running and screaming, which she admittedly does well. The other actors are mostly disposable and forgettable. | |
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