Before Christopher Lee went on to such blockbuster fare as the Lord Of The Rings trilogy and the recent Star Wars films he was known to literally legions of fans for his work with England's Hammer Studios. Alongside that fine body of work, however, he also appeared in quite a few interesting Italian genre productions such as Hercules In The Haunted World and The Whip And The Body (both directed by the late, great Mario Bava), and this film, an Italian-Spanish co-production entitled The Crypt Of The Vampire (or as the title card on this print states, Terror In The Crypt, the title it played under for domestic television broadcast – though this is a full length widescreen print and not TV print which makes it all the more curious).

When the film begins, Count Von Karnstein (Christopher Lee) is starting to believe that his family is cursed when his daughter, Laura (Adriana Ambesi), becomes plagued by horrible dreams wherein she discovers various relatives with all of the blood sucked out of their bodies. The Count figures that since one of his distant relatives, Sira Von Karnstein, was executed for practicing witchcraft years ago, that they are prime candidates for supernatural highjinks.

To try and sort out the 'why' and 'how' of the curse that he presumes is upon them, the Count brings in a family history specialist (Jose Campos) to try and figure out what his late witchy relative may have looked like but unbeknownst to either one of them or to Laura – at least initially - the housekeeper is also into witchcraft and she manages to summon Sira's spirit back from the dead. When a woman roughly the same age as Laura named Lyuba (Ursula Davis) is dropped off at the castle by her mother for a while, Laura quickly beings to show a rather unhealthy obsession for the new guest. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Laura's dreams seem to be fast becoming a reality as one by one various people living in and around the castle start showing up dead with the blood drained out of their bodies by way of two fang sized holes in their necks. Could Laura really be possessed by the spirit of Sira all these years after her execution or something else at work here?

Stylishly directed by Camillo Mastrocinque (under the alias of Thomas Miller), Crypt Of The Vampire has got atmosphere to spare – this is a fantastic looking movie, almost as macabre looking as Caste Of Blood with the old castle making for a great location on which to base a horror film. The black and white cinematography makes excellent use of the eerie locations and really does a great job of capturing some of the emptiness and loneliness of the tombs and catacombs that make up much of the area where the movie takes place. Even if the story doesn't work for you, it's hard not to be impressed by some of the visuals and much of the imagery that has been conjured up for this film.

In terms of the story itself, it's not bad, but it's not all that original either. What it does do, however, is throw a few interesting twists into the family curse plot by way of some fairly suggestive sexual overtones involving Laura and one of the other characters and some kinky, trippy hallucination scenes that add a welcome dash of weirdness to the proceedings. The movie is far from graphic and it leaves much more to the imagination than it actually shows but it does definitely drop a few hints here and there that are fun to pick up on if you like paying attention and reading into things. The violence is also quite subdued here, with really only a few slightly bloody bite marks and a strange scene involving a hanging hunchback making up the entire body count of the film. It's obvious that the filmmakers wanted this one to succeed more on atmosphere than on exploitation.

The performances in the film are quite good with Lee cast against type as the hero in this film which makes for a nice change of pace. He's got charm and charisma aplenty and he does a fine job making the most out of his commanding screen presence. Adriana Ambesi makes for a sympathetic character and she does fine with the material here in addition to really looking the part.

Video:

The anamorphic 1.85.1 widescreen transfer has some serious contrast and white level problems resulting in an image that is far too washed out looking in some scenes. That being said, the print isn't in bad shape and it's nice to see the movie in its original aspect ratio. There's some heavy line shimmering in certain spots which can prove to be a little distracting but at the very least the transfer is quite watchable. Don't expect a reference quality disc here, but those who want a widescreen copy of the movie could certainly do worse.