The Story:
In the shadowy late 19th-century Italian village of Montebruno, a drought unearths a 200-year-old statue from the depths of a cursed lake, and Count Montebruno (Claudio Gora) summons sculptor Roberto Merigi (Anthony Steffen) to restore its eerie beauty, despite the superstitious locals’ dire warnings; soon, the Count’s niece and heiress Harriet (Barbara Steele) returns from England after fifteen years, her striking resemblance to the statue—modeled after her ancestor Maddalena—igniting whispers of ancient evil.
As restoration unfolds, tragedy strikes with the drowning of fishermen, and Harriet’s gentle soul fractures during blackouts, unleashing a cruel, seductive alter ego named Belinda—the vengeful cousin who once doomed the statue—manipulating the village men into madness: seducing the unstable gardener Vittorio to a murderous frenzy, luring teacher Dario to suicide, and driving brute Carlo to incinerate his own family in insanity, all while Roberto falls deeply in love with the innocent Harriet.
But beware the double twist in this gothic nightmare of possession and deceit, where hypnotism unveils a conspiracy for inheritance, yet the Count’s spectral demise hints at the curse’s unholy grip, leaving audiences haunted by the blurred line between rational horror and supernatural seduction in this Barbara Steele shocker!
