The last 15 minutes make it worth watching; for Lewton completists more than anyone
I just saw this over the Halloween holiday on TMC...interesting find, but not great. As there are already 35 comments for this movie, I'll also direct anyone reading this to find Telegonus' review, as I think his concise summation really best captured the strengths and weaknesses of the film, but will give my two cents as well:I thought it was an interesting premise, with a novel location--can't think of too many other films set during the Balkan War of 1912--complex dynamics between the characters, and a well-executed change-of-pace role for Karloff. It was kind of a cross between Poe's "Usher" and the movie "The She-Wolf of London"; but overall it was too talky, which diluted some of the suspense.
The best bits that help earn this movie a place in the horror category, are when a catatonic woman awakens to find herself sealed up in a makeshift coffin left in a cave: you just see the outside of it, and hear her terrified screams and frantic clawing; the film returns to this shot more than once over the following days before a bit of lucky moisture warps the wood and allows her to escape, homicidally insane. And the other scene really worth mentioning is in the last ten minutes, when the heroine, a beautiful Greek serving girl, suspected of being a vampire, and threatened with destruction by Karloff--how's that for a switch?--who's also going batty, wanders out into the woods to investigate some weird calls and sounds. She eventually makes her way to the cave, and calls out for the formerly entombed woman: it's really just a moment, and it's dimly shot--there's just a suggestion of movement and a faint blur of white, but it really is the money shot of the movie, quite spooky and startling. I'm sure it must have had even more of an impact on the moviegoers of 1945. It's the kind of quick scene which makes me wish I had been recording it so I could watch that part again and really dissect it.
score /10
bribabylk 2 November 2007
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1756942/35445
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