Oh boy
I'm usually a big sucker for Gothic horror fables, especially the Italian-produced ones, but this "Tomb of Torture" is a painful misfire in nearly every department (except for the delicious title, of course). It already begins sort of negatively, with very hectic and seemingly appealing opening sequences in which nothing really happens. Ominous sounds, spontaneously opening & squeaky doors and ghastly background laughter may be very effective routine horror ingredients to use in a Gothic screenplay, but can you at least try to weave them into a storyline? What follows next is a completely incoherent, unsurprising, exploitative, clumsy, illogical and prosaic story about a cursed château with a supposedly terrifying but in reality ludicrous looking monstrosity hiding in the torture dungeon. "Tomb of Torture" contains every dreadful cliché of every Gothic horror movie ever made previously, but totally lacks the uncanny and foreboding atmosphere of sub genre highlights such as, say, "Black Sunday", "The Pit and the Pendulum", "The Virgin of Nuremberg" or "Castle of Blood". The worst aspect of them all, however, is that director Antonio Boccaci seemingly cannot decide in which time period his movie is set and/or clearly can't deal with jumping back and forth in eras. Two beautiful young girls, local residents of a small countryside village, are found barbarically murdered in a meadow. By whom isn't exactly a secret, as we witnessed how an inhospitable old witch chased them down to the castle's cellar where a heavily malformed geek subsequently tortured them to death. The castle belonged to a beautiful countess who mysteriously vanished several years ago, but some guy with a towel wrapped around his head still searches for her. He's supposed to be an intelligent character and I guess that's thanks to his towel. The town's elderly doctor then returns with his yummy daughter and she happens to be the reincarnation of the missing countess. Go figure, the countess' death hasn't even been confirmed and yet she already reincarnated! Anyway, the girl – Anna – has recurring nightmares about the castle's dark secrets, so her daddy actually thinks the best solution is to confront the petrified girl with the monsters of her dreams. And you call yourself a doctor? Or a father?!? Luckily the poor girl needn't worry, as she meets a silly reporter and the very next day they already talk about marriage and true love. "Tomb of Torture" is a redundant and senseless movie that often gets unintentionally hilarious due to its ridicule plot and grotesque make-up effects. The script is full of holes and raises far more questions than it could ever answer. The beast in the cellar is a look-alike of the Elephant Man and I totally don't understand why he stupidly giggles all the time (especially not after the flashback explaining what happened to him). To finish with at least some positive notes, I gladly admit that the black & white cinematography looks nice and the castle itself is a marvelous piece of horror architecture.
