Mill of the Stone Women

Production: Giampaolo Bigazzi (Producer) — Charles Kornel (Producer)

Screenplay: Remigio Del Grosso (Writer) — Giorgio Ferroni (Writer) — Ugo Liberatore (Writer) — Pieter van Weigen (Story) — Giorgio Stegani (Writer)

Music: Carlo Innocenzi (Original Music Composer)

Cinematography: Pier Ludovico Pavoni (Director of Photography)

A Dutch sculptor has created incredibly realistic statues, depicting the most famous heroines in history, and displays them inside a mill. A young scholar, who falls in love with the sculptor's sick daughter, discovers the terrible secret that those statues hide. The first of Ferroni's two horror films, the other being the remarkable "La Notte dei Diavoli", which he will no longer direct genre films, leaving disappointed the many admirers acquired with these two excellent films. High-level actors, as well as the screenplay, although the story takes more from the 1933 film "La Maschera di Cera" by Curtiz. Some terrifying scenes of the film are memorable, such as the final one of the purifying fire or the one of the parade of statues in front of the enchanted protagonist to the rhythm of an unsettling music box, enhanced by the splendid photography of which this film avails itself. Unfortunately, it is very hard to find, practically never broadcast on television and not available on VHS (nor on DVD...).

Pretty weird Italian horror film that reminded me a bit of Frankenstein. Not great and I kind of lost interest halfway through but it does pick up in the finale and all in all found it to be entertaining enough. 3.5/5

What’s going on inside the spooky old windmill?

In 1890’s Holland, a writer (Pierre Brice) visits a mill where a reclusive sculptor lives (Herbert Böhme). One of the attractions is the artist’s odd carrousel that displays ghastly statues of women. Then there’s his striking daughter (Scilla Gabel) whom he won’t allow out of the mill for some reason. What’s going on? Wolfgang Preiss is on hand as the sculptor’s in-house doctor.

An Italian/French production, “Mill of the Stone Women” (1960) is colorful and atmospheric Hammer-esque horror that combines the basic set-up of the Dracula story whereupon a young man visits a strange, Victorian abode hosted by an eccentric old man mixed with bits of the Frankenstein story and “House of Wax.”

Redhead Liana Orfei (Annelore) is a highlight on the female front, but so is Dany Carrel (Liselotte) and the aforenoted Scilla Gabel.

“Mill” is quaint entertainment in a macabre, Grand Guignol way. The drug-addled portion in the middle gets tedious, but the last act makes up for it; and you can’t beat the unique setting of the massive windmill in the flat countryside of the Netherlands. It was the first Italian horror production shot in color.

The flick runs 1 hour, 35 minutes, and was filmed in Holland and Belgium with studio scenes done in Rome.

GRADE: B

65/100

A man doing research on a Professor's macabre carousel of historical figures, stumbles into a terrible secret concerning the Prof's daughter. This early horror film is definitely a product of its time with completely rote acting and dialog and our protagonist providing lots of padding through his confusion and hallucinatory wanderings. However, there's some very interesting stuff here as it became more intriguing and bizarre morphing into a morbid cross between "Re-Animator" and "A Bucket of Blood". Far more entertaining that I expected it would be. -- DrNostromo.com

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MILL OF THE STONE WOMEN