The Witch's Curse

The Witch's Curse
The Witch's Curse
Directed by	Riccardo Freda
Screenplay by	Oreste Biancoli; Piero Pierotti;
Story by	Ennio De Concini
Produced by	Ermanno Donati; Luigi Carpentieri;
Starring	Kirk Morris; Hélène Chanel; Vira Silenti; Andrea Bosic; Charles Fernley Fawcett;
Cinematography	Riccardo Pallottini
Edited by	Ornella Micheli
Music by	Carlo Franci
Production; company	Panda Cinematografica
Distributed by	Regional
Release date	11 April 1962 (Italy);
Running time	91 minutes
Country	Italy
Box office	₤277 million

The Witch's Curse (Italian: Maciste all'inferno, lit. 'Maciste in Hell')^[2] is a 1962 Italian peplum-fantasy film, directed by Riccardo Freda.

Plot edit

In the mid-1500s, a witch is burned in Scotland and places a curse on the inhabitants before she dies. One hundred years later, the tree she was chained to and burned still stands with no one daring to destroy it. The curse remains by forcing women to commit suicide. The witch's descendant, Martha Gunt, is sentenced to be burned for witchcraft.

As she is placed in a prison cell, Maciste comes forth to fight evil. When he uproots the cursed tree, he finds an entrance to Hell where he attempts to track down the original witch to rescind her curse and attempts to help the damned from their plight.

Cast edit

Production edit

The Castellana caves which still serve as a tourist attraction, were used for the underground scenes.^[3] The sequences set in the Hell were entirely filmed in the Castellana Caves, in the province of Bari.^[4] Maciste, the leading character, was turned during the filming into an almost mute character as Freda was very unhappy with the acting skills of the main actor Kirk Morris.^[4] The film is referred as "an interpretation of mythology cum the gothic horror genre".^[5]

Release edit

The Witch's Curse was released in Italy on April 11, 1962.^[1] It grossed a total of 277 million Italian lire domestically in Italy.^[1]

References edit

Footnotes edit

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k Curti 2017, p. 318.
^ Louis Paul (8 June 2015). Italian Horror Film Directors. McFarland & Co Inc. ISBN 978-0786487493.
^ Hughes 2011, p. 11.
^ ^a ^b Paolo Mereghetti. Il Mereghetti: dizionario dei film 2002. Baldini & Castoldi, 2001. ISBN 8884900875.
^ Louis Paul (2011). Italian Horror Film Directors. McFarland & Co Inc. ISBN 9780786461134.

Sources edit

Curti, Roberto (2017). Riccardo Freda: The Life and Works of a Born Filmmaker. McFarland. ISBN 978-1476628387.
Hughes, Howard (2011). Cinema Italiano - The Complete Guide From Classics To Cult. London - New York: I.B.Tauris. ISBN 978-1-84885-608-0.
Paul, Louis (2005). Italian Horror Film Directors. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-8749-3.