Review: I Lunghi Capelli Della Morte ("The Long Hair Of Death", 1964)

The year is 1499. When a woman is falsely accused of witchcraft, and burnt at the stake, her two daughters watch in horror. In her last moments, she curses the people and the land, and while her younger daughter is taken into custody of a baron with some outrageous manners, her older daughter vows to restore justice beyond the grave...

Phew. Ok, the opening section of "I Lunghi Capelli Della Morte" is quite intense, but it's still only a fraction of what the movie has to offer.  It's Anthony M. Dawson aka Antonio Margheriti, it's Barbara Steele, it's Italian, it's witches, fire, castle, revenge...!

So this is a gothic horror movie, the very iconic vintage kind, set at the end of the Middle Ages. Traditional religion and folklore serve as a background for a nicely crafted story of injustice and guilt. There's not a huge amount of intellect here, as isn't too much graphic violence, but a heartfelt dark fairy-tale about morale and decency, which ends in tragedy and redemption. The visuals basically match the content: No fancy experiments, just the usual vocabulary of brick walls, spiderwebs, candles, dark hallways, secret passages, a damsel in distress, a gentleman at her side, and so on. It's not groundbreaking, but it looks and feels just perfect, moody, spooky, dark and fateful. 

On top of all of this are some details in "I Lunghi Capelli..." that really raise it above off-the-shelf material. It starts with quite a bang, and from there, it works its way through the storyline, with some very decent acting by Ms. Steele, some exceptionally beautiful black-and-white picture composition (The cross and the ashes... woah!), some amazingly dynamic camera sweeps and fluent editing, some scares and some suspense, to a bone-chillingly grim conclusion.

Especially the ending section is so dark, and so beautifully directed and filmed, it is the most obvious sign that actual thought and passion went into the production of the movie. Someone really cared for this, and it pays off. "I Lunghi Capelli..." has some lengths here and there, and, obviously, it's not meant to start endless debates about human existence (or... maybe?) (no, probably not), but even in its weakest moments it's still good enough to nicely carry on, and in its best moments it's pretty spectacular and scary.

It's one of those movies that completely delivers on its promise, easily as much as Mario Bava's even more iconic "La Maschera Del Demonio" ("Black Sunday", 1960). You want gothic? Fasten your seatbelt, "I Lunghi Capelli Della Morte" doesn't waste much time - it almost literally throws you directly into the hell of a burning at the stake!

Verdict: Dark and beautiful - as solid as a 500-year-old castle! 6.5/10

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058307

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Hair_of_Death

> Watch the full movie for free in "Streaming Kino"...

Trailer video:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5cL2lPbq18

 

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