Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Good concept, poorly executed.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Thanks for remaking a film you made just six years earlier, Antonio. Seriously, as if I have got enough of these to watch already, we get Castle of Blood remade in colour, with no real differences at all, except that this time Klaus Kinski gets to play Edgar Allan Poe (and therefore 'do a Kinski' by only showing up for a fraction of the film's running time).To jog your memory, a friend of Poe's called Alan Foster takes up a bet that he can't stay the whole night in the haunted old castle of Lord Blackwood. Foster heads for the seemingly deserted castle, wanders around a bit, then realises that he's not quite alone as Lord Blackwood's sister turns up and starts putting the moves on him, but don't get excited though, it ain't that kind of film.Is there any point in describing the plot? It's the same as Castle of Blood - the dead come alive and replay the last moments of their lives and Foster is trapped in there with them. Foster even meets the doctor who tells the same speech as last time and kills another snake! Didn't need that then, don't need it now. I didn't think Castle of Blood was that great a film the first time around, but at least it had Barbara Steele in it. I've no idea what Margharetti was thinking by remaking it, but at least he could have brought the tone in line with the films that were emerging from Italy in the early seventies.

When Michèle Mercier appears in the sequence when she's still "alive" and puts on a necklace,it is obvious that the director was thinking of her "Angelique " character.The scene looks like an outtake of the Bernard Borderie's saga."Nella..." is certainly an underrated work:it does not rely on special effects or on gore and sex is kept to the minimum.Probably influenced by Bava,Margheriti creates fear with his camera ,using elements of the settings ,a mirror for instance.His lead is an earnest thespian,Anthony Franciosa, a former student of the Actor's Studio,not a mediocre amateur as we often meet in European horror movies.Supernatural is smartly introduced and the screenplay is much more elaborated than usually.Many people will disagree but Amenabar's style in "the others" is not that much different,even if that director is infinitely superior to Margheriti."Nella..." was also certainly influenced by Robert Wise's classic "the haunting " (1963!!!) as far as the conclusion is concerned.Poe's presence (Klaus Kinski) and the fact that the hero's first name is "Allan" do not bring much to the movie.In spite of the poor rating,I sincerely believe that fantasy and horror buffs won't waste their time if they watch "nella...."

The opening of this film treats us to Klaus Kinski in twice his usual state of delirium - thrashing about in a shadowy, cobweb-laden crypt. He's playing Edgar Allan Poe, and he looks the very embodiment of an absinthe-soaked poete maudit. His role, alas, turns out to be little more than a glorified cameo! Still, he sets the tone admirably for the next 90 minutes of flickering candelabra, ethereal vampire beauties and white muslin curtains billowing softly by moonlight.It would be easy to dismiss this movie as a compendium of Gothic horror cliches. Easy but unfair, I feel. Like any other highly stylised art form (Romantic ballet, bel canto opera...) a Gothic tale rests on a set of unreal and perhaps arbitrary conventions. Much of a fan's pleasure depends on how faithfully, how stylishly, these conventions are played out. In truest Gothic horror tradition, Nella Stretta Morsa del Ragno does very little that's new - but does it in grand style!In a nutshell, the fiendishly deranged Poe inveigles a young journalist (Anthony Franciosa) into spending a night in a creepy old mansion. The family who inhabit this mansion seem to spend all their time dying and coming back to life. The rest of the 'plot' is predictable enough, but Michele Mercier (as the most glamorous ghoul) looks stunning whether dead or undead. Her romantic agonies are offset by Ottavio Scotti's splendid Gothic art direction. If the editing and camerawork look a little choppy at times, I blame the ghastly pan-and-scan job on my video copy.

This is one of those terrible 70's films where every shot is a close-up.Terrible is the only way to describe it. Kinsky is a terrible Poe.The haunted house consists of people dancing.Avoid at all costs...really, I mean it!