☆ ☆ ☆
Mill
of the Stone Women (1960) – G. Ferroni
One thing this film has going for it is an
extremely creepy mise-en-scene—it’s set primarily in a windmill in Holland
where a famous professor has set up a macabre museum featuring a carousel of
wax figures (depicting women who died gruesomely throughout history; e.g., Joan
of Arc, Anne Boleyn). When a student comes to stay to help the professor
document his work, he discovers the professor’s ill daughter who seems to be
locked away hidden from everyone else. After an illicit tryst, the student
spurns the daughter in favour of another girl but soon finds the daughter dead
and the guilt overwhelms him. Then
things become more confusing – the daughter is suddenly back alive and we learn
that her father and a deregistered doctor are using blood transfusions to bring
her back to life (time and again). Echoing “Eyes Without A Face” (also 1960,
but a better film), young women are kidnapped to donate their blood (and lives)
and, yes, they end up in the museum.
Perhaps it was the dubbing (a mainstay of Italian films), the wooden
acting, or the dream-like quality of the plot and images, but I kept nodding
off. A step removed from the production values of Hammer Horror but with a
different kind of weirdness that feels more decadent and depraved.
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