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Greetings, and welcome to VIEWING THE CLASSICS. Here you'll find capsule reviews of vintage movies from the early days of cinema through the 1970s, with a special emphasis on sci-fi, horror, and mystery movies. Be sure to check out the Pages links, where you can find a Film Index of all my reviews, links to the reviews organized by cast members, directors, and other contributors, and links to my reviews of the films of talented young director Joshua Kennedy.

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Thursday, November 21, 2013

The Castle Of The Living Dead (1964)

Starring Christopher Lee, Gaia Germani, Philippe Leroy, Mirko Valentin, Donald Sutherland
Directed by Warren Kiefer
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

A traveling troupe of entertainers perform at the castle of a count engaged in embalming experiments, and discover too late he intends to use them as his latest subjects.

Although I felt the photography didn't take good advantage of the film's settings, wasting some impressive scenery, the actors more than entertained in this film, which features another villainous performance from horror veteran Lee, and an early appearance in Sutherland's career.  According to IMDB, Sutherland plays three different roles, including a grotesque witch who figures prominently in the story, but I never would have guessed it was him under the makeup.  Although a good music score by Angelo Lavagnino helps, there's just not enough atmosphere to make this an effective chiller, but it's still worthwhile viewing.

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