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Rating: 
Summary: Damn creepy!
Review: A Group of tourists, eacg representing one of the seven deadly sins, spend a terror-filled evening in a castle previously owned by a man who made a pact with satan! SCARY!
Rating:
Summary: Very Atmospheric and Wonderful!!
Review: I bought this dvd last week. I had heard lots of good things about it, and I had to see for myself. Well, I was blown away. The print transfer is excellent, the audio superb, and the story has a lot of twists and turns with very little gore. The only bad thing I have to say about the dvd, was the stupid beginning with Eileen Daly, in which she refers to a totally different Redmption film. Why does Redemption need to subject us to this with every film? Now this is unneccesarily gory and very homo-annoying. Anyway, getting back to the movie. This tells the story of 6 tourists and a bus driver, finding shelter in an old castle owned by a Baron whose family has been cursed for centuries. During dinner the guests are joined by a beautiful woman (Erika Blanc) who may or may not be a succubus (a devil's handmaiden). Each of the tourists, including the bus driver represents the seven deadly sins, and each falling victim to that sin with the help of Blanc. I love the premise of good vs. evil. The director leads you into believing that you're in store for a usual stupid horror film, but, in essence, he's led us into a thinking man's film, full of contradictions, in which we're totally stunned at the end. I had to watch this movie more than once. Each time, I got a different clue. I love films like this. It looks like a cheap piece of Euro-sleaze, but it's not. The print transfer is great, the dubbing is very good, and the characters have a kind of humor, that makes you like them, even though they are greedy, gluttonous, angry, lustful....etc. Do yourself a favor, buy this dvd, skip the stupid introduction, and watch a great film!
Rating: 
Summary: Even for seasoned horror fans, a really scary film
Review: Lost in a dim forest, a group of seven tourists on a bus make their way to a lonely castle that is, by lucky chance, prepared to receive guests. Their host is the Baron von Rhoneberg, a successful alchemist and ex-Luftwaffe general with a past. The castle is also inhabited by two ticked-off servants and a beautiful and mysterious female who happens to be a nymph of Satan, a succubus. After dinner, the six of herd begin to make complete pigs out of themselves -- fornicating in the hallways, attempting to steal the Baron's gold and to eat him out of house and home. Not to worry, one by one each of the tourists meets gruesome death at the hands of the succubus that parallels the seven deadly sins -- lust, avarice, lust again, gluttony, and being a cranky jerk (wait, that's five, no three, never mind). Or do they? Although a common complaint about the Devil's Nightmare, the logical structure of the narrative is actually fairly sound (watch it again! -- maybe if the seminarian woke up with a shout?). Highly atmospheric with some cool lab scenes, this film really delivers the chills. The tameness of the murders -- poison, a pit of gold dust, guillotine, iron maiden, exfenestration -- is offset the over-the-top relish with which the succubus commits them. The eerie facial talents of the (no, I mean really) exquisite Erica Blanc as she morphs from seductress to succubus, sexbomb to slayer. Daniel Emilfork, one of Frederico Fellini's stock weirdoes, is the height of creepy as the Prince of Darkness in what is definitely an homage to Bergman's Death. Like Orson Welles in The Third Man, his screen appearances are brief but his presence remains palpable throughout. Veteran French actor Jean Servais is suitably distressing as the cursed scion of the von Rhoneberg family. Video quality is good overall with some scratches and color-flattening during the main titles and around the reel changes (check out the trailer at the end to see the quality Redemption had to work with). Audio quality ranges from good to excellent (especially during the "gluttony" scene) with a far-out musical score by Alessandro Alessandroni. DVD contains the original, somewhat more in-your-face, Italian soundtrack on the second audio channel. Print also contains the prolonged, heavy lesbian sequence excised from earlier releases. A real find; definitely suited to repeated viewing.
Rating: 
Summary: euro-trash horror lives up to minor cult classic reputation
Review: This is one of those rare European horror flicks from the 70's that has developed something of a following based on viewings of poor quality bootleg videos. Now available in an uncut, widescreen transfer, the Devil's Nightmare stands as a minor classic of 70's gothic. It's no Suspiria or Lisa and the Devil, but what is? Standard plot of tourists stranded in an eerie castle being done in, gruesomely, one by one is enlivened by interesting touches throughout. Each victim is made to symbolize one of the 7 deadly sins. There's a scarred, sinister butler who loves to tell stories about the castle's various victims, a baron who has a (atmospherically photographed) laboratory in the cellar, a nazi flashback, and last, but not least, Erika Blanc as a sexy succubus who fulfills the family curse. The devil pops up, played by Fellini fave Daniel Emilfork. Not as gory as one might expect, with photography that alternates between atmospheric and flat, occasionally intrusive music, and bland acting from all but Blanc and Emilfork. Nicely representative of a type of filmmaking no longer being done and a great way to pass a dark stormy evening...
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