The Long Hair Of Death
Picture: C-
Sound: C- Extras: D Film: C
No, this is not an ultra Right-Wing propaganda film
against the dangers of being a hippie or a threat that they will kill you if
you become one. Instead, this is a 1964
early Barbara Steele film in which she is to be tried as a witch, be killed, be
captured forever, and also lands up in some Fantasy/Horror sequences with smoke
effects here and there. The Long
Hair Of Death (I Lunghi capelli della morte) is about 100 minutes of
people talking to each other in fake outfits from an independent production
company called Cinegay!
That and Miss Steele’s presence adds a camp quality to the
whole thing, but that is not enough to make it more than an interesting at best
series of black and white vignettes about if she will or will not survive,
which somehow sets the tone for her whole career. This was one of her first films, set in the late 15th
Century. Despite not going anywhere,
Steele fans will be happy and we have seen worse.
The letterboxed 1.85 X 1 image is muddy and off of an old
analog master down a few generations, but you get about the whole picture. I like the fake look of the film, for as
much as could be seen, as shot by cinematographer Riccardo Pallottini (as
Richard Thierry). The Dolby Digital 2.0
English-dubbed Mono (over the original Italian) has background hiss throughout
and Carlo Rustichelli’s score (under the name Evirust) uses as few chords as
today’s bubblegum hits. There are no
extras, but it is an interesting film just the same.
- Nicholas Sheffo
