Royalty at HorrorHound Weekend

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Ennio Morricone – Rest in Peace

Ennio Morricone - RIPWow. This one is a bitch to accept. Yes, the Maestro was 91, but for the hours and hours that I, as well as millions of other film lovers, have been entranced by his music, it still hurts. Even if we just talked about the scores he did for horror and giallo genres, from Dario Argento’s first trilogy of films, Fulci’s A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin, Mario Caiano’s Nightmare Castle, Aldo Lado’s Short Night of Glass Dolls, to even John Carpenter’s The Thing, his scores always made an impact. That is not even getting into what he did for the western. Even if people didn’t know Morricone’s name or what movies he scored, if you started to play the opening theme from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, they would know it.

So when we read of the news yesterday morning of his passing, I immediately had the opening music from his score for Argento’s Phantom of the Opera in my head. I’ve always thought it was a beautiful and sad piece of music so it just kind of fit today.

There really isn’t much more I could say, other than thank you, Maestro, for the countless musical memories and emotions that you’re work has given us fans. Rest in Peace, and know that your legacy will live on for as long as people are watching movies.

Nightmare Castle Comes to Blu-ray!

nightmare-castleAs horror fans, we all know that Barbara Steele made a few gothic horror flicks in her day. Some of the plots might even sound a bit similar….I mean, how many films can you make about ghosts coming back from the dead for revenge? Well…quite a few it seems. But the difference with these films is that they were made by talented filmmakers! So it didn’t matter if the plot had been used several times before, it was still a great movie. A prime example of that is Nightmare Castle

Sure, we all know and love Mario Bava’s Black Sunday, which was the film to catapult Steele into her path towards being a Queen of gothic horror, but I have to say that Nightmare Castle is one of my favorites of hers. The tale is about a deceitful wife and her lover who are tortured to death by her sadistic husband. But the story doesn’t end there, when they come back to haunt the husband and his new wife. With some incredible music by Ennio Morricone, and co-starring Paul Muller and the beautiful Helga Liné, I couldn’t recommend this film enough.

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