(1964)***1/2While Edgar Allan Poe is visiting London, he is approached by journalist Alan Foster, who desperately wants to interview him. In exchange Foster agrees to a wager proposed by Poe's friend Sir Thomas Blackwood that he cannot spend an entire night in the Blackwood's haunted castle.
This particular night is all souls night and he is informed that anyone who has tried before has died. He accepts heartily finding the old man's warning laughable. Once he enters the abandoned castle, Foster discovers that he is not alone.
Through the night he is bewitched by a beautiful woman, witnesses murder and is terrorized by vampire like beings. He meets a doctor who explains they are all lost souls doomed to replay their own deaths over and over. He urgently needs to get out before he is forced to join them.
This is based on Poe's Danse Macabre and a fine job Italian director Antonio Margheriti did. It's all about tone in these old films. Mood set by shadows and light and a great creepy old place just seals the deal.
