Really Surprised!

People are voting emotionally.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Christopher Lee is given top billing here. He's in the movie for maybe 3 minutes total and does nothing. His voice is dubbed, and he just looks stupid. I am beginning to hat this mans acting and choice of jobs. I recently watched all the Lee Dracula movies and his best attributes are his costume and stance, his British accent as Dracula is ridiculous and his dialogue is trash. Hammer was good for a couple of things, sets/color/lighting and music. Go watch some of the trash Lee appeared in the 70s. Real garbage. Very sad.Now to this movie. What we have here is a wife of a castle/museum owner wandering around. It started out mysterious and intriguing. Then nothing much happens. The husband is away most of the time. And Lee is there to show off his stupid scar. The story is somehow about a Nazi conspirator to kill Hitler who is deformed and now he's on a rampage to torture women, just as the new wife movies in. How convenient! I guess producers needed stores and they picked this one.The music is completely inappropriate. We have some kind of Bebop jazz number in a castle horror film, probably to invoke some kind of romance between the new wife and husband. Then there's the ridiculous horror tones when the wife is running around outside. The death scenes are nonsense. The makeup is trash. Lee was garbage. There's a real funny section when he climbs the side of the house, then rolls off and falls to the ground. I was hoping he was dead. But then, get this, and FBI agent, helps him and since they can't get in the house, they drive away to get help. Well, if you have a car, and you just tried to get in the castle by breaking down the door with your shoulder, maybe you can try crashing through the door with the car, rather than driving away for help. Maybe the cops can bring a battering ram, or have extra keys to the castle. Real stupidity in this film. There's a scene where the husband is trapped in a dungeon filling with water. This goes on for ½ hour. Finally, he miraculously breaks out and then saves his wife. And then we get the happy ending. Lee dies in a fire with the Nazi punisher. This is one stupid crappy movie. If you're a fan of Lee, DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE. If you're a fan of horror movies, or movies in general, or art, or life or anything, do not see this movie. The film makers had a budget. Sets, a freaking castle, some decent actors that were given crap dialogue, and this is what we get.The only reason to see this movie is to study it, then read the reviews of people who like/loved it, and then write a psychological paper on the human mind. Current IMDb rating is a joke at 5.9. This is a 1 star, nothing to see here. Garbage story/dialogue/dubbing/acting/scenes/music/sound effects/editing/just plain stupid movie. I will recommend another movie instead: Bloody Pit Of Horror. This is not a great film, but it is fun.

Mary moves from America to Germany to live in a castle with her husband Max, but on her first night there discovers her husband gone and in the medieval museum that occupies the first floor she discovers an Iron Lady containing a chick with her eyeballs poked out. Thus begins another mystery film set in a Gothic location.Mary's all suspicious about her husband, and the museum attendant, played by a battle scarred Christopher Lee, and also the housekeeper. In fact Mary doesn't trust anyone at all, which is just as well as things get rather strange rather quickly in this house. Luckily this is the kind of house that benefits from meddling as there are about a million secret rooms and catacombs to be explored.You see there's an exhibit about the Punisher, some relative of Max that used to torture and kill women for some reason. Is this guy back, as some characters seem to think? Or is Mary just being a muppet and imagining it all? You'll have to watch the film to see.Full of many twists and a bit of gore (including a girl who's had her nose chewed off by a rat!) this is a really fast moving film that might be short on plot but isn't short on style, gore, or how tall Christopher Lee was in real life. I never guessed the culprit at all so credit to the film for that, and the crazy make up effects.

"Horror Castle" is a spectacularly done Italian Gothic horror entry.**SPOILERS**Living in a giant castle, Mary Hunter, (Rossana Podesta) is warned by her husband Max, (George Riviere) about the castle's past, which was home to a ruthless, bloodthirsty warlord. Trying to overcome the fear, especially after an encounter with a strange man she can't identify, she begins to suspect that the servant Erich, (Christopher Lee) is the cause, despite assurances he's safe. As he tends to business nearby, she is soon enthralled with the legend of the castle's past owner, and decides to investigate the story. Shortly thereafter, she begins to see a strange figure running around the castle's grounds, but can't seem to figure out their purpose or who it is. Using her own suspicions as well as whatever evidence she can muster from the investigations, she eventually discovers the truth about the figure and tries to stop it.The Good News: This here is one of the best examples of the genre. One of the main things this gets right is the incredible suspense and on display. The opening is a fantastic example, with the flowing gown-clad woman following the agonized cries of a woman coming from somewhere within the castle leads her to discovers blood flowing into the collection bowl beneath the Virgin of Nuremberg, a fabled iron maiden torture chamber that is now a museum. Opening the spiked door, Mary is horrified to see the body of a freshly dead woman inside, the corpse's eyes have been gouged out, leaving ragged, bloody sockets. It's a fantastic scene, with the endless wandering through an enormous house during a raging thunderstorm, using only a candle for light until they stumble upon a rather shocking and horrific scene. This is really eerie, from the glimpses shown strewn around the house of various torture devices, some with the skeleton remains of victims still there all the way to the creepy and intense reaction to the eyeless corpse hidden in the statue. That goes hand-in-hand with the great sets in here, as every corner and crevice is filled with inky black shadows, pierced only by the glow of a flickering torch or flash of lightning. Thus the look of the film never approaches the surreal, instead remaining much more grounded in realism. This one handily avoids the pitfalls of others out there in the genre and makes marvelous use of the huge, sprawling castle set. Even the outside scenes have a nice feeling to them, as the spaciousness of the castle grounds mix well with the giant castle looming in the background. The later scenes in the crypt look cool, and a very tense stalking scene in the darkness is masterfully played out. The film also has a couple of really great shock gore scenes that are a lot more graphic than most others of the time. These are the discovery of a victim, her head covered with a cage inhabited by a very hungry rat which has gnawed away at her face, the initial discovery of the first victim and finally the killer himself unmasked, his face nothing more than a skull covered with the faintest suggestion of skin. These images are really quite out there for the time and make for some great moments. The sequences at the end with the torturer are just as good, being a little creepy with some graphic brutality stakes placed into the film to give it a little extra punch to what's going on. These here are what really make the film enjoyable.The Bad News: There isn't a whole lot here that doesn't work. The fact that this one doesn't exactly have the best paced story is something to get over, as there's a couple of instances where the film doesn't really do much but consist of endless wandering around the castle grounds, and at times that's a little too much to take. It does have a creepy feel, but then there's points where it doesn't do anything other than to wish for a faster moving pace. There's also the needless insertion of a couple scenes where two doctors are apparently talking about what's going on, but their inclusion nor the object of their discussion is never given. At times, it feels like it's there to simply speed up the run-time, and otherwise have no need to do it. These here provide the film's only real flaws.The Final Verdict: A fantastic Italian Gothic entry that has a lot going for it, this one is a really watchable film that will have a good feel to it. Highly recommended to Italian Gothic horror or 60s horror in general, while the not-so fans won't really get into this one.Today's Rating-PG-13: Violence

Did this film ever suck!! It was a blind purchase & one I regret getting. The title of the film is based on an iron maiden type torture device which gouges out the eyes of it's victims via two large spike at eye level. However, the device isn't really used but only once through out the entire film for a grand total of one gruesome death (almosts don't count here). Virgin of Nuremberg is boring, has silly dialog, laughable musical score & a razor thin "plot" that made little to no sense. And all this "atmosphere" previous reviewers are raving about is over-hyped. Believe me there are literally dozens of good horror films with better "atmospheres". And to add insult to injury, the great Christopher Lee was under used. Only one gruesome death & a few non-eventful ones. I was expecting a almost sleazy, torture-filled, damn near exploitation horror flick. Instead I get something so bland horror wise, it could almost be shown to a group of elementary school children (probably put them to sleep). TVON was like a heavily watered down version of Mario Bava's much superior film, "Baron Blood." What a turkey! I sure hope Christopher Lee's "Whip & The Body" is better (it has to be).