Mill of the Stone Women

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brad p @Bradster69 02/21/2023 Italy's First Color Horror Film See more 09/16/2021 Director Giorgio Ferroni's career ended when he went deaf in 1972. Before that, he worked in many of the genres of the Italian exploitation film world, from peplum like Hercules vs. Moloch to westerns like Fort Yuma Gold and Eurospy like Secret Agent Super Dragon. His last major directing efforts would be The Night of the Devils, which is an adaption of Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy's The Family of the Vourdalak (which also inspired Viy and Black Sabbath) and a 1975 comedy Who Breaks…Pays. The first Italian film shot in color, this movie takes us to an island in Holland that houses a sculpture of several women created by art professor and sculptor Professor Gregorious Wahl. Hans van Arnhim has traveled here to learn what the statues mean, but he's also found love in the form of Wahl's sickly daughter Elfie. Now go with me on the plot. It turns out that the sculptor has hired a doctor to keep his daughter alive. Together, they run a secret lab where Elfie receives blood-transfusions from kidnapped female victims who posthumously become part of the stone art of the professor. So — House of Wax + Eyes Without a Face = Mill of the Stone Women. Still, 60's Eurohorror is, as they say, where it's at. There's so much to love in this movie and I love the doomed heroine and the just as damned hero who cannot help but to remain in love with her. This also has the interesting formula of gothic horror + science fiction + the magic of Technicolor. See more 12/17/2017 One thing this film has going for it is an extremely creepy mise-en-scene-it's set primarily in a windmill in Holland where a famous professor has set up a macabre museum featuring a carousel of wax figures (depicting women who died gruesomely throughout history; e.g., Joan of Arc, Anne Boleyn). When a student comes to stay to help the professor document his work, he discovers the professor's ill daughter who seems to be locked away hidden from everyone else. After an illicit tryst, the student spurns the daughter in favour of another girl but soon finds the daughter dead and the guilt overwhelms him. Then things become more confusing - the daughter is suddenly back alive and we learn that her father and a deregistered doctor are using blood transfusions to bring her back to life (time and again). Echoing "Eyes Without A Face" (also 1960, but a better film), young women are kidnapped to donate their blood (and lives) and, yes, they end up in the museum. Perhaps it was the dubbing (a mainstay of Italian films), the wooden acting, or the dream-like quality of the plot and images, but I kept nodding off. A step removed from the production values of Hammer Horror but with a different kind of weirdness that feels more decadent and depraved. See more 09/28/2014 Atmospheric French-Italian horror/thriller combining classic elements, such as a mad professor, his beautiful daughter, a lonely windmill, and a creepy semi-automated display of wax figures. See more 07/30/2012 Hauntingly Beautiful Gothic piece--ReWaximator!! See more 04/02/2011 So, Italians and French got together to try making a Hammer Horror film, and the result is pretty bland. In spite of the bad dubbing, you can kind of tell the acting was OK, but the story is kind of so-so. Some good sets help, but not enough. Not bad, but not something to seek out, either. See more Read all reviews

Mill of the Stone Women

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