The Castle of the Living Dead is a 1964 Italian Gothic Horror film starring Christopher Lee and introducing Donald Sutherland.
Right after The Napoleonic Wars, a theatrical troupe are touring the French countryside. After being invited to perform for one Count Drago, the performers are warned by a fortune teller that some will not survive the night. As it turns out, Drago is a madman obsessed with perfecting an embalming fluid that works immediately, and he intends to use the performers as test subjects.
This film contains examples of:
- Bar Brawl: Bruno and Dart get in a tavern brawl over the latter's pay, which leads to him being expelled from the troupe.
- Big Bad: Count Drago, a nobleman obsessed with killing and embalming people.
- Big Bad Wannabe: Dart, a former member of the theatre troupe, wants to kill them all in vengeance, but doesn't do anything worse than some stalking before Drago has him killed.
- Bury Your Disabled: Averted. Nick has dwarfism and survives the movie.
- Cat Scare: Double Subverted. Laura is frightened by a door slowly opening and nobody on the other side responding, only for a cat to pop out. Then the cat drinks some brandy Drago gave her and is promptly embalmed, and she realizes something is very wrong.
- Circus Brat: Laura has spent her whole life in a traveling theatre troupe, and wishes she could find a single place to live.
- Doorstop Baby: Bruno was found by Laura's father as an infant and inducted into the troupe.
- Eye Scream: Sandro kills Gianni by shooting an arrow into his eye.
- Fortune Teller: Our heroes run into one, who warns them to not go to Count Drago's castle. Naturally, they don't listen.
- From Camouflage to Criminal: The opening narration notes that many of Napoleon's former troops became highaymen after the war.
- Glad I Thought of It: In the end, Sgt. Paul claims he was suspicious of Drago's insanity the whole time and chose not to reveal it, despite clearly being a bumbling dolt the whole movie.
- The Highwayman: Lots of Napoleon's former soldiers became highwaymen after the war. The opening scene shows some of them in action.
- I Shall Taunt You: Nick is able to taunt Sandro a lot due to his dwarfism allowing him to hide in small spaces, which pisses Sandro off enough that Marc can shoot him.
- It's Quiet… Too Quiet: Marc expresses concern that he hasn't heard a single animal in hours. As it turns out, Drago already depopulated the area for his taxidermy.
- Karmic Death: Drago is killed with his own embalming formula, by a disfigured test subject of his, no less.
- Mad Artist: Drago sees his murders the way a regular taxidermist sees their animal creations, even comparing it to theatre in one scene.
- Not the Fall That Kills You…: Nick is thrown off a giant tower by Sandro, but survives relatively unhurt because he lands in a pile of hay.
- Mad Scientist: Count Drago experiments with early forms of embalming so he can preserve his victims perfectly.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: The play the protagonists are introduced performing features a highwayman pretending to not know how to get his head in the noose, so he can hang the executioner who shows him how to in exasperation.
- One-Hit Kill: Drago's serum kills and perfectly preserves its victims with one dose. However, larger animals and humans take longer to actually die.
- Only in It for the Money: Bruno's first and only priority is keeping his theatre troupe profitable.
- The Place
- Predecessor Villain: All the carnage happens soon after Napoléon Bonaparte is stopped from conquering Europe.
- Public Execution: A common punishment for highwaymen.
- Show Within a Show: The protagonists are introduced putting on a play about a highwayman escaping execution.
- Taxidermy Is Creepy: All the horror happens because of Count Drago's monomaniacal obsession with taxidermy. After getting bored with doing it to animals, he started doing it to people, and experiments on ways to preserve them better.
- The Teetotaler: Drago pretends to be one to convince Bruno to drink some poison. It is never specified if he truly is one or not.
- Title of the Dead
- Walking the Earth: The protagonists are a wandering theatre troupe.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: The film opens with a highwayman pretending to be an injured traveller to get a victim's guard down.
- The X of Y
