The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism (1967)

 "The blood is the life..."

This is a cheap German film which, like many of its ilk, happens to star Christopher Lee who, while phoning it in by his standards, cannot help but ooze charisma. It is, I must observe, a splendidly lurid translation in English, despite being essentially a version of Poe's The Pit and the Pendlum, as becomes quite obvious at the end... with said pendulum clearly positioned at crotch level. Ouch.

I don't know any of the other actors; Lex Barker is apparently a former Tarzan. But this is a well made little film, with locations and sets evoking nineteenth century Germany superbly, if less expensively than Roger Corman. Karin Dor is extremely attractive. 

Yet let us not pretend this is anything other than a B movie cashing in on Lee's name. It is corniness itself, splendidly soo. The "priest" character is very silly. Lee only gets moderate amounts of screen time. The plot is risible. The butler is hilariously violent. The opening seqence with the Count's execution is not so lurid as promised, what with his supposedly being quartered by four horses, which it appears we are going to graphically see untilthe camera cuts to what os undoubtedly a lurid shot, but equally undoubtedly a shot of a painting. This film is not one for torture rubberneckers. Nor is it unmissable for Christopher Lee fans. It's nothing special. But it's a fun little B movie.

And we love those, don't we?