Baron Blood (film)
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Italian film poster for Baron Blood
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| Directed by | Mario Bava |
| Produced by | Alfredo Leone |
| Screenplay by | Vincent Fotre |
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| Music by | Stelvio Cipriani |
| Cinematography | Mario Bava |
| Edited by | Carlo Reali |
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Baron Blood (original title: Gli orrori del castello di Norimberga) is a 1972 Italian horror film directed by Mario Bava. It is one of Bava's least critically popular films.
Peter Kleist (Antonio Cantafore) is an American who arrives in Austria to take a break from his college studies and to look up his family's history. At the airport, he is greeted by his uncle, Karl Hummel (Massimo Girott), who invites him to stay at his house. Peter asks Karl about his great-grandfather, Baron Otto Von Kleist. Karl explains that the Baron's name still spreads fear among the local people for he was a notorious sadist who tortured and murdered over 100 of the villagers, for which he earned the nickname "Baron Blood". Legend has it that he burned a witch named Elizabeth Holly at the stake, who cursed him with a spell that would allow him to rise from the dead so that she could take her revenge on him again and again. Karl also tells Peter that the Baron's old castle and former residence is being remodeled into a hotel for tourists. Peter persuades his uncle to take him to the castle.
After a long drive through the countryside, they arrive at the ominous castle on a hill, where they meet with Herr Dortmund (Dieter Tressler) the entrepreneur responsible for the current hotel project. Peter is particularly interested in Dortmundt's beautiful assistant Eva (Elke Sommer), a former college student of Karl's whose job is to ensure that Dortmundt does not make any lasting changes to the castle's architectures. After a brief tour of the castle, Karl invites Eva to his house for dinner.
During the course of the meal at Karl's house, Peter brings up the subject of Baron Von Kleist, much to the consternation of his aunt (Valeria Sabel). Gretchen (Nicoletta Elmi), Karl's young daughter, claims to have actually seen the Baron in the woods near the castle, but nobody listens to her. Peter then produces an ancient document he claims to have found at his grandfather's house back in America. It is an incantation which, if read in the castle bell tower at midnight, will supposedly bring the Baron back to life. Karl warns him off of trying the ritual for a man's obsession with the occult could lead to danger.
Despite this warning, Peter and Eva go to the castle and read the incantation inside the bell tower. Although it is midnight, the bell tolls two o'clock, the same time Baron Von Kleist was murdered by his victims. Heavy footsteps approach from the outside. A terrified Eva tries to convince Peter to recant the incantation, using the alternate spell on the same document. But before Peter can do so, the doors fling open, and the wind blows the parchment out of his hands and into a fireplace. Peter goes outside to investigate, but there is no one there. Eva knows the consequences of what they have done.
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