The Devil's Nightmare (1974)

A bus load of tourists spend the night at an impressive Gothic castle, the home to Baron von Rhoneberg who has a family curse due to an ancestor making a pact with the Devil centuries before. The Baron also dabbles in alchemy, which doesn't add much to the plot but is a good excuse to have a laboratory complete with human skeleton, etc. Not long in and two young sexy members of the group indulge in some lesbian love making. This isn't particularly graphic. This is by no means a classic of European Gothic horror but it's still an enjoyable watch. There's plenty of creepy atmosphere, some gory deaths and a few beautiful young women in the cast, including the stunning Erika Blanc. Daniel Emilfork gives a great performance as Satan in human form, very creepy.

I don't know why it is, but time after time I find that European horror films possess something that their American and British counterparts don't. This something is a certain artistic flair or style which make the films fun and interesting to watch, even when the genre is not at its best. I don't know if it's down to the directors, or cameramen, or what, but I do know that it makes these films some of my favourites.The setting for these films - most are from Italy or Spain - is invariably a decrepit castle or mansion, full of twisting, gloomy corridors and cobwebs, and with sinister servants lurking in the background with warnings of death. This film is no different, yet presents the action in a unique and fresh way. The plots may always be the same, but you know there are going to be little things that are new and different. These are the little touches which I love - in this film, the mark of Satan, which is found on people and on the floors of the guest rooms.The cast is full of clichéd and stereotyped characters who we all know and recognise only minutes after seeing them. There's the overweight man who always seems to be eating, the young attractive women, and the handsome, yet wooden, heroes. In this case the main hero is an up-and-coming vicar, and he couldn't be more stiff if he tried. Of course, the acting does seem stilted and amateurish, not helped by the fact that we never hear the actors or actresses say their own lines as they're dubbed. This is not important though. What is important is the way in which the film retains the viewer's interest.THE DEVIL'S NIGHTMARE takes a long time in introducing the various characters, and showing their personalities, before dispatching them in various assorted ways. It actually attempts a little atmosphere-building, too, something which I always welcome in a film. We get to know and understand the people before they die. Cynics would say that this slow build up is nothing but an excuse for some gratuitous nudity, and they wouldn't be wrong: one lesbian encounter lasts for almost ten minutes. The other exploitation standby, gore, is used surprisingly sparingly in this film, and all we are offered to is a shot of a bloody severed head, some blood running over floors, and a dead cat which has been unceremoniously impaled on some spikes.A lot of humour comes from watching the reactions of characters to various things, such as when they find the corpse of the cat and couldn't care less about what it's doing there! The deaths, when they do eventually come, are nothing spectacular, but at least they're all varied and therefore interesting. They're supposedly based on the seven deadly sins, but this basis is fairly loose. One woman is bitten by a snake, a man is decapitated by a guillotine, a woman steps into an iron maiden, another man falls from a high window and is impaled, a woman is suffocated in a pile of gold dust and a glutton chokes on a banquet. Erika Blanc, who plays the succubus in the film, is rather good, and undergoes a complete change in appearance after each death occurs. This is done by changing the colour of her lipstick, putting a bit of shadow around her eyes and with her pulling a distorted expression, these subtle differences make a very effective and disturbing-looking woman.The ending of the film is very strange. At first it appears to be a cop-out, one of those "it was all just a dream" type endings, but then there are a couple of new twists which I won't spoil, except to say they're unexpected. A weird gangly guy lurks around in a black suit and turns out to be the Devil, collecting the souls of people who have sinned, and using the succubus as his slave. This man's presence is atypical and gives the film an arty slant which adds interest. THE DEVIL'S NIGHTMARE may not be a particularly good film but it contains enough different ingredients to make it worthwhile for any fan.

During the last days of World War II a Nazi general by the name of "Baron von Rhoneberg" (Jean Servais) is awaiting the birth of his first child. Although his wife dies during labor the general is told that he has a healthy baby girl. He then proceeds to kill it due to a family curse which causes any daughter born into his family to become a succubus. A few years later a bus gets lost and because nightfall is approaching they decide to seek room and board at the castle of the baron. What none of the guests realize is that on this particular day of the year the succubus becomes active at the castle and that all of their lives hang in the balance. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say it shared many of the same qualities of various other Euro-horror films made during this time. The acting was adequate enough with a few attractive actresses like Shirley Corrigan (as the beautiful blonde named "Regine"), Erica Blanc (as "Lisa Mueller") and Ivana Novak ("Corinne") to spice things up. On the minus side the action was rather methodical and the film would have almost certainly benefited from a bit more suspense. Even so it wasn't a bad film by any means and I rate it as about average.

"La Plus Longue Nuit Du Diable" aka. "La Terrificante Notte Del Demonio" aka. "The Devil's Nightmare" of 1971 is an admittedly cheesy, but overall delicate piece of Eurohorror that no lover of Cult cinema should miss. Jean Brismées film has the overall reputation of being more or less a piece of crap, but while the plot is doubtlessly incoherent, the film profits from sinister characters, a macabre mood, a nice Gothic atmosphere, as well as some gore, sleaze and creepiness, and, last but not least the beautiful Erica Blanc in a genuinely demented role. The film starts out in the final days of Nazi Germany, when Baron Von Rhoneberg (Jean Servais) kills his newborn daughter after baptizing her - for unknown reasons. Two and a half decades later, a bus-load of tourists come to visit the Baron's castle. We learn that, 700 years before, an ancestor of the Baron's had made a pact with the devil, which resulted in every first-born Rhoneberg daughter becoming a Succubus, a female demon in service of the devil. And, apparently, the infanticide committed by the Baron years ago did not stop a devilish creature to come into existence... Erika Blanc is a stunning beauty, also in this film, but she looks creepy as hell as the Succubus. The most intense, creepiest moments in the film are those when she turns into the succubus, especially when she does so for the first time. I do not want to give too much away, but i can assure that these scenes alone make it worth watching the film. Blanc is best known to Horror fans for her roles in Mario Bava's 1966 masterpiece "Kill Baby... Kill!" (aka. "Operazione Paura") and Emilio Miraglia's Gothic Giallo "The Night Evelin Came Out Of The Grave" of 1971. This is another film a lover of European Horror/Exploitation cinema should not miss her in. Apart from Blanc, there are several other beautiful female cast members. Praise also goes to Daniel Emilfork - man, what a CREEPY-looking fellow! One would not want to run into this fellow by night, I can assure. "The Devil's Nightmare" is actually less sleazy than I expected it to be, with a rather small dose of occasional female nudity, sex and lesbianism. However, the film is as macabre as one could possibly hope, with loads of insanity, demented characters and a generous use of bizarre execution/murder devices. And, all the cheese aside, this also has quite a dose of creepiness All said, this is probably not the kind of film that will appeal to those who strictly fall for the "Citizen Kane" type of cinema, but all my fellow fans of demented Eurosmut should have a great time watching this. Highly recommended!