AllMovie

This plodding, sadistic horror film from director Jesus Franco concerns an Austrian legend about a ghostly Baron who supposedly rises from the swamps and murders women. When real murders are discovered, Inspector Borowsky (Georges Rollin) is immediately suspicious of the Baron's descendant, Max von Klaus (Howard Vernon), who lives in a creepy castle with his nephew Ludwig (Hugo Blanco) and sister Elisa (Maria Frances). Ludwig whips a pretty woman named Margaret (Gogo Rojo) and burns her with a heated poker in the film's only remotely shocking sequence, which has been excised in several of the release prints. A slow-moving story based on Franco's novel La Main d'Une Homme Mort leaves Godofredo Pacheco's cinematography and a deft performance by Howard Vernon as the film's only attractions.