Jean Duprey and his wife Danielle are famous journalists with a special interest in unsolved mysteries. They receive a request of help by an old noble friend of Jean, Guillaume de Saint Lambert, who is about to die by an unknown illness. He lives, obviously, in ancient castle with his wife and the servants. Soon Duprey discover that his friend's wife is a witch (originally burnt in the 18th century) and that Guillaume is under her wicked influence. She practices the art of black magic and by making die slowly all members of the Saint Lambert family she gains eternal beauty. When Duprey breaks the marble casket containing the ashes of the witch she shows her real aspect before dying.
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We start off with amateur sleuth Jean (or something) settling down for a cigarette and some wine while his woman cleans the house when he receives a letter from one of his long lost friends: a certain Guillaume de Saint Lambert. At first it sounds like Guillaume has consumed large amounts of LSD before writing the letter, but then Jean uncovers some ridiculously complex clue: "If we take the first letter from each word it refers to the works of Buadilliare, and the date is wrong so if we add that together " These days that letter would have been thrown in the recycling while we all slope off to check if anyone has liked a picture we uploaded of a shoe.Clue uncovered, the duo head off for the standard creepy old castle! Yeah! It's Gothic horror time again, but this film is set in the seventies, so how are we going to get that 'gothic' feel? Easy! Guillaume de Saint Lambert has gone insane and thinks he's living three hundred years in the past and has gotten rid of anything electrical, but kept those old suits of armour, all the cobwebs, and of course, many,many candles. At least that's what his creepy wife whose definitely not a witch tells Jean when he arrives. Saint Lambert tells a different story, saying he's uncovered the truth and there's a curse on the family and he's a bit tired so he'll tell the rest of that story tomorrow morning before selfishly dying without revealing his wife is a witch. Meanwhile Jean's wife is getting obsessed with a picture in their guest room that depicts a witch being burned. Now and again some real flames start appearing and freaking her out – sometimes on the picture, and one time in the glass of booze she was drinking – I think that might be the local grappa, love. Turns out the witch is killing off all the Saint Lamberts, including his female cousins, whom she has brought to her naked of course by other naked women so she can claw at their boobs and then dump their bodies elsewhere. There's also a zombie involved and a bit of Sapphic love involving Jean's missus while he's off trying to solve the mystery of how to kill off an immortal witch (she actually tells him how, psychically, I think, which was rather unwise). You all know from watching Hammer Horror films that when some immortal creature is defeated they then go through a quick stop-motion aging process before turning into a skeleton, but here the witch goes through the hilarious aging process, then explodes! Then something else explodes that the budget couldn't show so we just get Jean looking at it! If you like bad movies this one is worth seeking out, or not, as I've just told you the whole plot.
Amateur detective Jean Dupris(Pierre Brice)is summoned to the home of his friend Gil.Not long after Dupris and his wife(Patrizia Viotti) arrive Gil dies in his sleep.Gil's companion turns out to be a witch who kidnaps women,engages them in sex orgies and then kills them when she's through.Dupris decides to hang around and help solve these range murders.Unfortunately he doesn't notice that his wife has fallen under the control of the lesbian witch,who enjoys scratching female breasts."Night of the Damned" is a pretty sleazy Italian Gothic horror with beautiful women and a good amount of nudity.The action is pretty slow and there is not much suspense,but if you are into Italian horror give this one a chance.7 out of 10.
The other comment here could not be serious. This title deserves all the attention a cult movie should. It has all the elements proper to the genre it represents. A witch, a castle, a malediction, an 'investigator of the occult', some morbid sexual themes, a rich and grainy photography focused on warm and thick colors like red and orange so that it resemble that of another great movie: 1962's Riccardo Freda's masterpiece "L'orribile segreto del dottor Hichcock". The plot could not be so original but this is not the main thing to appreciate in a product like this. Remember: it was filmed in 1971 on a low budget. If you're into Jess Franco or Mario Bava don't hesitate to search for this movie, it will worth the time and money. To me it's an 8/10.
Having been a long term fan of Pierre Brice originating from "The Mill of the Stone Women", I went to great lengths to get a copy of this film, finally procuring a French print entitled "Les Nuites Sexuelles" which is more appropriate. Despite an intriguing and promising plot the film is merely an excuse for interminable nude and unerotic lesbian sex scenes between the various starlets cast in it. Brice appears only briefly and has not nearly enough to do in the film to come anywhere near saving it. This is not a horror film so much as a borer film...one would wind up damning oneself on any night when 90 minutes was wasted watching it. Cutting by 70 minutes or more would be a definite improvement. To be avoided at all costs.
