Castle of Blood (Italian title: Danza Macabra) is a 1964 Italian horror film directed by Antonio Margheriti, using the pseudonym Anthony M. Dawson. This film is also known as Coffin of Terror, Danse macabre, Dimensions in Death, La Lunga notte de terrore, Terrore, The Castle of Terror, The Long Night of Terror, Tombs of Horror, and Tombs of Terror.
Cast
Barbara Steele — Elisabeth Blackwood
Georges Rivière — Alan Foster
Margarete Robsahm — Julia
Arturo Dominici — Dr. Carmus
Silvano Tranquilli — Edgar Allan Poe
Sylvia Sorrente — Elsi
The story
A journalist challenges Edgar Allan Poe on the authenticity of his stories, which leads to him accepting a bet from Lord Blackwood to spend the night in a haunted castle on All Soul's Eve. Ghosts of the murdered inhabitants appear to him throughout the night, re-enacting the events that lead to their deaths. It transpires that they need his blood in order to maintain their existence. Barbara Steele plays a ghost who attempts to help the journalist escape.
Poe
Silvano Tranquilli plays Edgar Allan Poe in this movie, and the credits claim that the movie is based on a short story by Poe. In reality no such story exists, although in the opening scene Poe (Tranquilli) is seen recounting the end of Poe's story "Berenice."
Castle of Blood was remade by the same director in 1971 as Web of the Spider. In this version Poe was played by Klaus Kinski, and the movie claimed to be based on a different non-existent Poe story called "Night of the Living Dead."
Release date: July 29, 1964 (US)
The ghost of Edgar Allan Poe is often referred to in Robert Rankin's The Brentford Trilogy books.
The Brentford Trilogy
The Brentford Trilogy is a series of eight novels by writer Robert Rankin. They humorously chronicle the lives of a couple of drunken middle-aged layabouts, Jim Pooley and John Omally, who confront the forces of darkness in the environs of West London, usually with the assistance of large quantities of beer from their favourite public house, The Flying Swan.
Recurring characters
John Vincent Omally and Jim Pooley - an Irishman living in Brentford and his best friend. The 'heroes' of the series.
Neville - the part-time barman (who is actually full-time since nobody knows where the real one is) who holds down the Flying Swan in Brentford.
Norman Hartnell - Brentford shopkeeper and inventor of various bizarre gadgets, including a means of transporting the Great Pyramid from Egypt to Brentford. Not to be confused with the other Norman Hartnell.
Old Pete and Chips - Old Pete (Age unconfirmed, although he seems to be over a hundred) always appears in the Flying Swan, and Chips is his scraggly dog.
Professor Slocombe - aged, wise magician who often supplies much of the exposition about the various enemies present in the series (Was apparently Merlin in the distant past). Is once described as bearing a resemblance to Peter Cushing. Has a butler named Gammon.
Marchant - John Omally's bicycle, whose anthropomorphic qualities may be a reference to Flann O'Brien's novel The Third Policeman.
Soap Distant -last of a long line of Distants who have spent their lives searching for the denizens of the inner Earth. Soap is an ordinary man when first seen but returns as a cowled and robed albino after five years 'below.'
Small Dave - Brentford's dwarf postman, known to all as a 'vindictive, grudge bearing wee bastard.' Raised the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe.
Hugo Artemis Solon Saturnicus Reginald Arthur Rune - mystic, charlatan and confidence trickster and self declared 'most amazing man who ever lived'. Has an acolyte named Rizla.
Hairy Dave and Jungle John - these two brothers are local jobbing builders who are known for their wild coiffure.
Archroy - former worker at the rubber factory who became a globe trotting master of the martial arts.
Jennifer Naylor - Brentford's sexy lady librarian, later elevated to the town council.
Young Master Robert - the brewery owner's son, and the bane of Neville's existence.
Leo Felix - white Rastafarian who drives a tow truck.
Novels in the series
The novels in this series are as follows:
1.The Antipope (1981) - Pooley and Omally take on the resurrected Pope Alexander VI the last Borgia pope.
2.The Brentford Triangle (1982) - Pooley and Omally thwart an alien invasion of Earth when the natives of Ceres (the fifth planet in the solar system before it exploded and became the asteroid belt) come back to the system and seek a new home.
3.East of Ealing (1984) - Pooley and Omally are forced to deal with a high-tech Satanic takeover of Earth by way of barcoding the entire population, aided by a temporally-relocated version of Sherlock Holmes.
4.The Sprouts of Wrath (1988) - the unlikely decision to site the next Olympic Games in Brentford threatens to disrupt Pooley and Omally's way of life, as the evil Kaleton threatens to turn the stadium into a monster to destroy humanity.
5.The Brentford Chainstore Massacre (1997) - as the millennium comes early for Brentford, Dr. Steven Malone finds a way to clone Jesus from the Turin Shroud, as the man called Fred (who sold his soul for ultimate power) attempts to blackmail Pooley into arranging a ceremony that will give his Master power over all the world.
6.Sex and Drugs and Sausage Rolls (2000) - Omally manages a rock group, the lead singer of whom has the power to heal the sick. This book also sees the return of Soap Distant and Small Dave. In this book, Pooley suffers a brutal, but not long-term death.[clarification needed]
7.Knees Up Mother Earth (2004) - there's big trouble in little Brentford. Property developers are planning to destroy Griffin Park, the borough's beloved football ground, intending to dig up the creature buried underneath it - namely, the serpent that tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden; the source of original sin. As well as being the seventh book in The Brentford Trilogy, it is also the second book in The Witches of Chiswick Trilogy.
8.The Brightonomicon (2005) - Hugo Rune and his amnesiac assistant Rizla work to stop Count Otto Black from finding the Chronovision. Unlike the other novels in the series, it is set in Brighton and Omally only makes an appearance in the final chapter. It is revealed that Rizla on this occasion (Rune's many acolytes are always called Rizla), is actually Pooley.
9.Retromancer (2009) - the sequel to The Brightonomicon again pairs the young Jim Pooley with Hugo Rune in another series of adventures only set partially in Brentford. This book also forms a prequel to The Antipope, and brings the series full circle.
Several of Rankin's other novels feature Pooley and Omally, but are not part of The Brentford Trilogy:
They Came And Ate Us (Armageddon II: The B-Movie) (1991) - Pooley and Omally make a brief appearance as one of a number of "trick endings".
The Most Amazing Man Who Ever Lived (1995) - Pooley and Omally make a brief appearance, offering their help to Tuppe as he plans to free the book's lead character, Cornelius Murphy, from prison. Before they can put their plan into action Cornelius reveals he has already escaped without their help.
Nostradamus Ate My Hamster (1996) - a movie prop-house worker finds a way to put old stars back on the silver screen. Over the course of the book, he learns of the legends of Pooley and Omally and sets out in search of The Flying Swan, culminating in a desperate race to stop the return of Adolf Hitler.
Web Site Story (2002) - set in the year 2022, Pooley and Omally have long since passed into the myths and legends of Brentford lore. As people start vanishing into thin air in Brentford, the staff of the Brentford Mercury investigate.
Although the books theoretically form a series, actually there is little continuity between volumes. World-changing events that take place in one book are usually ignored in following volumes, and it is very rare for the events of a previous book to be referred to. For example the character of shopkeeper Norman Hartnell (not that one) is abandoned by his wife yet is inexplicably reunited with her in later books. Soap Distant also appears in later books as a Brentford resident despite being declared dead, becoming an albino and dwelling beneath the earth.
Robert Fleming Rankin (born 27 July 1949) is a prolific British humorous novelist. Born in Parsons Green, London, he started writing in the late 1970s, and first entered the bestsellers lists with Snuff Fiction in 1999. His books are a mix of science fiction, fantasy, the occult, urban legends, running gags, metafiction, steampunk and outrageous characters. According to the (largely fictional) biography printed in some Corgi editions of his books, Rankin refers to his style as 'Far Fetched Fiction' in the hope that bookshops will let him have a section to himself. Many of Rankin's books are bestsellers.
Most of Rankin's books are set in Brentford, a suburb of London where the author grew up, and which, in his novels, is usually infested with ancient evil and/or alien conspiracies.
In addition to his novels, Rankin held a position as the Writer in Residence of Brentford's Watermans Arts Centre during the 1980s, and organised a regular poetry event there which he claims was the largest in Britain. He also has performed on stage with a variety of bands.
Named after Rankin's fixation with the vegetable, there is a fan club called The Order of the Golden Sprout who maintain a web site and arrange events, many around Brentford. In 2009 he was created the first Fellow of The Victorian Steampunk Society in recognition of his unique contribution to the genre. He lives in Brighton with his wife.
The Poe Shadow is a novel by Matthew Pearl published by Random House. It tells the story of one young lawyer's quest to solve the mystery of Edgar Allan Poe's death in 1849. It is a work of historical and literary fiction, where some previously unpublished details about the last days of Poe are conveyed through the thoughts and the actions of the main character, along with the generally shared ideas on Poe's death as of the publication date.
Plot summary
Baltimore lawyer Quentin Hobson Clark witnesses a somber, simple funeral on October 8, 1849. He learns it was for author Edgar Allan Poe, with whom he had previously exchanged letters about providing legal support for a new publication, The Stylus. Clark feels obliged to look into the mysterious circumstances surrounding Poe's death, despite protests from his fiancee Hattie Blum and his friend Peter. Clark's journey takes him to Paris to seek out the real-life inspiration for Poe's character C. Auguste Dupin, a man of intellect who could help unravel the mystery. After investigating many possibilities of the inspiration of Poe's detective. A Baron C.A. Dupin, a famed lawyer in Paris, and a lone detective with a similar name: Auguste Duponte. After a confrontational encounter with the Baron Dupin and his aid, Bonjour, Clark realizes that the Baron is not quite the character as described in the detective stories of Poe and that Auguste Duponte, with his approach to problem-solving with Ratiocination, was the real inspired character in the stories. They journey back to Baltimore to investigate the final days of Poe before his death, only to find that the Baron and Bonjour have been on the same track, if not ahead, of solving the same investigation. Evidence is uncovered from interviews of the funeral attendants, witnesses, and secret rummaging of Henry Reynolds, a funeral attendant, who obtained a written letter from Poe the day he was found in the streets of Baltimore. What other mysteries that unfold through the odyssey of Clark to clear Poe's name from infamy continue on to a shocking and sorrowful conclusion of the death of the most important Gothic Fiction writer of American Literature.
The Pit and the Pendulum (2009)- Directed by David DeCoteau, the horror movie bears little resemblance to the original story but, like the 1961 version, utilizes the large swinging pendulum in the penultimate scene. The film follows a group of university students who visit a hypnotherapy institute lorded over by a sinister hypnotist who wants to use the students to experiment with the possibility of breaking the pain threshold.
The Pit and the Pendulum (released on DVD in the United States as The Inquisitor) is a 1991 horror film directed by Stuart Gordon and based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe.
The film is an amalgamation of several Edgar Allan Poe tales, including "The Pit and the Pendulum" and "The Cask of Amontillado." The film also appropriates the anecdote of "The Sword of Damocles," re-assigning it to Torquemada.
Plot
Set in Spain, 1492, Grand Inquisitor Torquemada leads a bloody reign of terror, torturing and killing in the name of religion. Upset with the way the Church is practicing torture, Maria speaks out during a public burning and whipping of a title-stripped family. Maria's own beauty leads Torquemada into temptation and brutal atonement. Confused over his desires, he accuses Maria of being a witch and to be tortured until confession. During Maria's interrogation, Torquemada cannot help but to stare at her naked body leading him to order her put in the prison. Imprisoned, Maria is befriended by Esmerelda, a confessed witch. Together they struggle to save themselves from the sinister Torquemada.
Outside the castle walls, Maria's husband Antonio breaks into the castle to rescue his innocent wife. After a failed escape, Antonio is imprisoned for his actions and Torquemada decides to test his new machine of pain on him; The Pit and the Pendulum.
Production
Peter O'Toole was originally slated to play Torquemada and Billy Dee Williams was originally slated to play a character named Abdul. Sherilyn Fenn was originally slated to play Maria.
Release
The film was given quick runs at many film festivals until its home video release in the summer of 1991. In 2000, Full Moon released a DVD of the film, but the DVD has now been discontinued for copyright reasons. Since then it has been released on DVD as part of the Stuart Gordon boxset, which also includes Castle Freak, Deathbed and a bonus disc.
Cast
Lance Henriksen - Torquemada
Stephen Lee - Gomez
William J. Norris - Dr. Huesos
Mark Margolis - Mendoza
Carolyn Purdy-Gordon - Contessa D'Alba Molina
Barbara Bocci - Contessa's Son
Benito Stefanelli - Executioner
Jeffrey Combs - Francisco
Tom Towles - Don Carlos
Rona De Ricci - Maria
Jonathan Fuller - Antonio
Oliver Reed - Cardinal
Larry Dolgin - Sergeant of the Guards
Frances Bay - Esmeralda
Fabio Carfora - Beggar
