Review: 'Danse Macabre' (aka: 'Castle of Blood')

Beloved it may be, but Italian horror cinema of the ‘60s is something of an acquired taste. More deliberately paced than Val Lewton’s decidedly deliberate films of the ‘40s, sometimes impenetrably dark, and tossed off-kilter by that weird method of dubbing all films regardless of language, Italian horror films often require multiple viewings to truly seep into the consciousness. Does that mean I should wait until a second viewing to offer an opinion of Antonio Margheriti’s 1964 film Danse Macabre (aka: Castle of Blood)? Perhaps, but that’s not going to stop me.