This film starts out pretty outrageously with a painted green Barbara Steele as the witch Lavania, who is trying to force all the descendants of those who burned her - the Mannings to sign her wicked little book. For her own evil unknown purpose..on hand are such things as a goat, and what look like dominatrix leather clad women and servants. Also when Robert Manning (Mark Eden) first visits the Morley house, he encounters a rather wild and almost orgy-like party.
This portion of the film comes in stark contrast to the later more refined sections with Christopher Lee as the head of the Morley estate and Boris Karloff as Professor John Marshe, refined expert on witchcraft and the occult whom Robert Manning questions to try and locate his missing brother Peter.
When Manning finally uncovers what really happened to his brother, he is confounded and so are we as the audience when we realize that many of the previous scenes were mere hallucinations. Still this film does have its moments early on with a real sense of uncertainty in the air..the ending which brings everything clearly back to Earth ultimately feels a less than satisfactory climax.
This portion of the film comes in stark contrast to the later more refined sections with Christopher Lee as the head of the Morley estate and Boris Karloff as Professor John Marshe, refined expert on witchcraft and the occult whom Robert Manning questions to try and locate his missing brother Peter.
When Manning finally uncovers what really happened to his brother, he is confounded and so are we as the audience when we realize that many of the previous scenes were mere hallucinations. Still this film does have its moments early on with a real sense of uncertainty in the air..the ending which brings everything clearly back to Earth ultimately feels a less than satisfactory climax.