At the end of the fifteenth century, Adele Karnstein is accused of being a witch and is sentenced to be burned alive for murdering the brother of Count Humboldt (Giuliano Raffaelli).
Adele
has two daughters, the elder of whom, Helen (Barbara Steele), offers to
do anything to save her mother, as she swears her mother is innocent.
The sleazy count will "take it out in trade" (if you get what I mean),
and the immolation ritual cannot take place until he arrives after
"getting his." Unfortunately, his asshole son Kurt (Giorgio Ardisson)
orders the burning to proceed without his father, and he laughs the
whole while, because he is actually the murderer. While Helen endures
ravishment by the Count, she hears her mother's dying curse upon the
Count and his family, and she runs down to the pyre, too late. As all of
this goes on, Adele's younger daughter, Lisabeth (Halina Zalewska),
watches helplessly from the sidelines, accompanied by family maid
Grumalda (Laura Nucci). Lisabeth is adopted by the Count, but the maid
saves Adele's ashes, burying them at a secret grave so that Lisabeth can
go there to pray for her mother's soul. Meanwhile, Helen in murdered by
the Count so no one will know what transpired. Lisabeth then grows to
lush young womanhood and unfortunately catches the eye of Kurt, who
marries her against her will, but during the ceremony a woman who's a
dead ringer for Helen arrives and is taken into the noble house when the
Count perishes from a heart attack at the sight of her. Yes, it's
Helen, back from the grave and seeking retribution... Oh, and all of
this goes on while the black plague is in town.
If all of that sounds convoluted as hell, it is.
THE LONG HAIR OF DEATH is one of the many Italian shockers of the early 1960's that were heavily influenced by Mario Bava's 1960 classic THE MASK OF SATAN (aka BLACK SUNDAY), and it wears that influence with zero shame. It even cribs that film's star, and Barbara Steele lends the film an eerie presence that it sorely needs, as the movie is such an obvious knockoff, it's hard to take it on its own merits. Matters are also not helped by there being a lot of characters to keep track of, with the female leads being visually similar to a distracting degree. The film is by no means bad, and it's dripping with that signature Italian Gothic flavor, but if you have seen THE MASK OF SATAN, you have already seen the better film. Worth a look for witchcraft completists, but you miss little by skipping it.
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