` castle of blood ( aka ` castle of terror ) be a well craft and surprisingly spooky entry from italian director anthony dawson . exquisite black and white cinematography and flawless dubbing and superb casting and fairly logical scripting and deliberate pacing and a surprise ( though totally appropriate ) end set this one apart . only the film sometimes hokey music and the rather abrupt ` love at first sight between elizabeth ( barbara steele ) and alan ( george rivière ) mar an otherwise surprisingly entertaining movie . while visit england and edgar allan poe sits in a pub and tell one of his ghostly story to count blackwood . recognize the great writer and alan and a young news reporter and request an interview with poe . during the course of the conversation and poe reveals that all of his story be true . incredulous and alan express his skepticism about life after death . count blackwood offer to bet alan 100 pound that he can not survive this night in blackwood castle and a night follow halloween when the dead walk . alan can not afford the bet and so he bet his life for a 10 pound wager . unlike mario bava overpraise ` black sunday and ( aka ` the mask of satan ) and ` castle of blood be fairly restrain and make the few moment of violence even more dreadful and especially surprising from a director usually associate with those terrible italian space movie from the 60 . it a pity the only version of this film i have find be badly deteriorate ( and record ) pan and scan version . even so and it be well worth see and and cry out for a modern remake and perhaps with christina ricci or jennifer love hewitt in the role of elizabeth . watch it and enjoy a film that compare well with robert wise ` the haunting .