At one point, early in this video in a moment from Mario Caiano's 'Nightmare Castle' (also known as 'Amanti d'oltretomba', 'The Faceless Monster' and 'Lovers from Beyond the Tomb'), Barbara Steele looks, with something like horror and something like fascination, directly at us. It is as if she is inviting us to stare into her hypnotic wide eyes. It's a look which haunted me and many others who grew up reading film books and magazines where, in a still photograph from 'The Mask of Satan' (also known as 'Black Sunday' for reasons I will never completely understand), she faces us, her face full of holes, with a look that seems to be cursing all existence for making her like this. I can't think of any other image from a horror film still which unnerved me so much. Moments from horror films but not a still photograph.
There is something endlessly bewitching about Barbara Steele's face that can fill us either with horror or desire. We can look at her beauty and in one moment feel her vulnerability and beauty and in another sense that she has seen beyond the beyond, like someone who has witnessed the hideous realities that HP Lovecraft describes. The shadows dance illuminating her wide eyed beauty (accentuated by impossible lashes) or catching her cheekbones and making her look quite different. She is, perhaps (with apologies to so many others) the most iconic of female horror stars. Not like Ingrid Pitt, who seems to be someone in complete control of her destiny, but more living in a world of deep psychological horrors, constantly changing from one persona to another. She didn't set out to be a horror star. She was, at one point, another Rank starlet. A beautiful young actress who might have played in routine British melodramas. But whether she wanted it or not, her destiny was in those gothic horrors. There was a time when she was dismissive of these early Italian films but, I feel that she has now learned to embrace just how deep they went into psychological complexity despite their surface and poster imagery. The stories may have been more gothic than horror and she became their principal special effect. Not a scream queen in the modern sense but the one who has been to the far side of the psyche and come back to chill us with what she found there. What's amazing is that, at times, she can be deeply sexy, or fashionably light and full of joy. But Barbara Steele could change in a second from playful, desirable to vengeful and terrifying. Never was this more obvious than in Camillo Mastrocinque's 'An Angel for Satan', a film that should have a better reputation. When she is in front of a mirror going silently insane as she is overtaken by another personality or when she seems consumed with her own desirability and is almost making love to herself. These moments are a tour de force unrivalled by anyone. She changes not in cuts but right in front of our eyes.
'The Long Hair of Death', also a fine film directed by Antonio Margheriti, is more routine than 'Nightmare Castle' and 'An Angel for Satan'. It has some wonderful moments but doesn't use her skills as well as the others. People love saying that this or that was ahead of its time. I tend to think this is a fake compliment. I feel Barbara Steele is of her time. There are truly wonderful actresses still working in horror films but I don't think we will ever know another actress who could be as iconic in her very appearance as Barbara Steele.
With many Italian horror films of the 60s the gifts given to us by the directors are not in the narratives but in moments, in the ways the cameras weave through ancient castles or old houses, the way that the film-maker allows us to look into the darkest corners without, necessarily, throwing a bucket full of red goo in our faces. These film-makers had great crews who relished the joy of film-making, making something beautiful and amazing. It is a joy to be able to go back and look at these films again and again. Or even just watch moments from them. I hope this video can act as a small reminder or an introduction.
Contents
0:00 - Nightmare Castle Insomnia and a Strange Plant
0:32 - Nightmare Castle Getting Undressed in a Lonely Place
1:25 - Nightmare Castle An Unusual Dream
1:54 - An Angel for Satan Introductions
1:57 - Nightmare Castle Lifting the Veil
2:01 - An Angel for Satan Looking in the Mirror
2:07 - Nightmare Castle Torture
2:21 - An Angel for Satan Mirror Madness
3:09 - The Long Hair of Death
3:24 - An Angel for Satan Come Here
4:04 - An Angel for Satan Take Off My Boots
5:10 - Nightmare Castle There's Something at the Door
Music: Owls by Lish Grooves
#barbarasteele #gothichorror #italianfilms #60scinema #60sgothic #horroricons
28 июл 2024
