[1]  

Okay, we have the two biggest classic movie horror legends going at it in this movie, providing you with much entertainment. While Karloff is awesome as satanic cult leader Poelzig, I had to take off a star for the horrible music that was played all throughout the movie. In some scenes, I had to turn the volume down on the TV so that I wouldn’t have to keep hearing that mess over and over again.

Anyway, we start this movie with another lame couple, Peter and Joan Alison, acting oh, so loving towards each other. Yes, they’re newlyweds, how did you guess? They’re on a train heading somewhere in Hungary, when they meet Vitus Werdegast (Lugosi), a psychiatrist who ends up sharing the compartment with them. He tells the Alisons that he left his wife 18 years ago to go to war, and now he’s going to visit an old friend.

Well, they all get off at the same stop, and ride with a guy who’s not paying attention to what he’s doing, and they run off the road in a bad storm. Too bad you couldn’t sue people back then. Anyway, fragile Joan is hurt, so everyone flock to the home of Poelzig (Karloff) who meets everyone looking evil as hell. Vitus tells him that the years have been kind to him. “Vitus, you must need glasses or something, because Poelzig looks like lightning struck him in the face, not once, but twice, so why are you lying to that man?”

I don’t know why Vitus is being so cordial with Poelzig, because he’s pretty pissed at him about now. When Vitus went to war, Poelzig left him and 10,000 other soldiers to die, while he ran off with Vitus’s wife. Vitus was taken prisoner for 15 years, and now he’s out for blood, so he tells Poelzig in so many words, to watch his step, and demands to know where his wife and daughter are. At this time, Peter comes in after attending to his wife who is now resting. So now the conversation, and mood in the room changes, as Peter introduces himself to Poelzig.

So now the three of them are having a lively chat with a couple of drinks, when a black cat strolls by, Vitus freaks out, and throws a knife at it, killing it. “Now Vitus, I know you are the hero in this movie, and you have an intense phobia of cats, but what makes you think you can come into someone’s house, and start killing off their pets, just because you have issues?”

Vitus says that the black cat is the living embodiment of evil, “Okay, so what’s going on Vitus? Do you have a fear of cats, or is it just black cats? Well, it doesn’t matter, you shouldn’t have killed the damn cat.” Poelzig assures us that the cat is not dead, he states that the black cat, like evil, never dies. “Well, how nice, now can one of you guys pour me a drink because I’m lovin’ all this action.” Now Peter’s wife Joan comes in the room, and starts talking dumb stuff, and Peter carries her back to the room to rest.

Vitus goes on and on about his wife and child, so Poelzig decides to take him to the basement of his home, and shows Vitus his wife’s body, stuffed and mounted. Poelzig also tells him that his daughter is dead, but Vitus isn’t buying none of this stuff, and pulls out a gun. However, the deathless black cat walks by, and once again Vitus freaks out, and ends up disoriented. Poelzig decides to take Vitus up on his game of death, but only after the Alisons are gone. “That’s crap Vitus. Don’t go for that, kill him now, and save yourself the pain and heartache that’s about to come later on.”

[2]

Well, everyone goes to bed now, including Poelzig, wait a minute, who’s that pretty young lady on the other side of the bed? It’s Karen, Vitus’s daughter. “Look Karen, please tell me you two just sleep next to each other and nothing else, right? At least tell me that if you two carry on like lovebirds, that you do it in the dark? This way, you can fantasize about men that you really want to be with, like Errol Flynn, Clark Gabel, Groucho Marx. What? Ok, so Groucho is not the best looking guy in town, but he’s better than what you have now!”

Anyway, Poelzig decides to use Joan as a sacrifice during his cult ceremony, so he’s not going to let them leave in the morning. Vitus plays chess with Poelzig so that if he wins, the Alison’s can leave, but he loses. The Alison’s try to leave anyway, but Peter get’s knocked out, and dumb Joan faints. Actually she faints not once, but twice in this movie, and I’ve had it with her, so I’m taking off another star!

Now, we’re gonna skip a whole bunch of stuff, and get to the part where Joan runs into Karen. Joan tells her that vitus is alive and well inside the house, and that’s he’s come for her. Now all the while, Poelzig is eavesdropping, and when they both go back to the bedroom, he kills her. “Wait a minute Poelzig, I remember you saying a few scenes back that she was the very core of your being, so why did you off her?” Vitus finds out about this, and its on now. Vitus skins him alive, but takes a bullet from Peter, who mistakenly thought Vitus was in cahoots with Poelzig.

The Alisons escape, and Vitus finds that famous kill-everybody-in-the-house switch which blows up the whole castle, and that’s it. Okay people, two down, and one more to go on this DVD!