Shipwrecked on an island, Aaron Fallon (Russ Harvey) and the captain of the doomed vessel (Lee Morgan) find themselves at the mercy of the sadistic Count Lorente de Sade (William McNulty), who believes the men to be pirates.
The cast might be lacking in talent and the budget clearly very low, but there's no shortage of Gothic atmosphere in '60s horror The Dungeon of Harrow. From its opening scenes of the storm-lashed ship crashing onto rocks, to the utterly downbeat finalé, this film leaves no tombstone unturned in its quest for ghoulish spectacle.
De Sade's castle is all shadowy corridors and cobweb strewn chambers, lit by flickering torchlight. The kooky staff include beautiful but cold Cassandra, obedient white-haired slave Mantis, and sexy mute servant girl Anne. The gloomy island is fog-bound and booby-trapped. Best of all is the dungeon stocked with torture devices, wherein lurks the Countess, who, driven mad by leprosy, wears a bridal gown believing that every day is her wedding day.
All of this might prove a little too slow and clichéd for many, but I found it all rather entertaining in its excess (especially the stilted, verbose, prolix, periphrastic, circumlocutory dialogue). Two scenes in particular stand out as ghoulish highlights: De Sade's insanity manifesting itself as a man who conjures up giant rubber bats and spiders (hilarious to behold), and the Countess's creepy emergence from her room, a moment of genuine horror handled with surprising skill by director Pat Boyette.