A team of photographers and models moves to an abandoned castle, to do a photo shooting for a horror novel. It turns out the castle is still inhabited, and the owner doesn't like his guests to roam around the catacombs. The long presumed dead Crimson Executioner returns to restore the rules of the house...
This is a review of the original Italian release of the movie with a runtime of ~87 minutes.
"The Crimson Executioner", also known as "Bloody Pit Of Horror" (in its shorter form), is a beautifully cheap and blunt Italian gothic horror movie. If you've ever seen some pages of legendary photonovel "Killing" (aka "Satanik" aka "Sadistik"), which happened to be first published roughly at the same time as "The Crimson Executioner", you have a good idea what to expect from this film.
Only in motion, and in color. In a nice medieval castle setting, with lots of beautiful women, and some pretty good looking men, we get an array of hardly very suspenseful situations, but the striking simplicity of it all is what makes it so enjoyable. There's little nuance in "The Crimson Executioner", everything notable happens center screen, in full lighting, with limited ambience. The visual finesse is roughly that of a porn movie, and it's the complete lack of artistic ambiguity that creates some powerful moments. This is most obvious is the color palette: Red, black, and white are very prominently used, giving the film an eye-popping high-contrast aesthetic that has a certain effect even if you're seeing only a still picture.
Add to that the shiny, artificial quality of 1960s movie make-up and fake blood, a little bit of wooden acting and action, some weirdly erotic (?) music that doesn't scare anyone, and the quite impressive selection of torture devices, and you get a nice, saucy fumetto nero, an Italian horror comic for adults.
It's not really an exciting movie - you probably wanna keep your remote control nearby, and maybe fast-forward a little, here and there. It's not really gory - if you're a gorehound, you will be disappointed. In fact, if you're looking for what is commonly known as a "good movie", then maybe just skip "The Crimson Executioner".
But if you're into 60s grindhouse, have a weak spot for horror comics (photonovels), and just enjoy watching reasonably bizarre movies, then this might be a gem for you - they sure don't make 'em like this anymore!
Verdict: Nice low-budget outrageousness for the connoisseur. 5/10
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058983/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Pit_of_Horror
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