La vendetta di Lady Morgan, otherwise known as The Vengeance of Lady Morgan or Lady Morgan’s Vengeance is a beautifully shot gothic horror that sees a group of scoundrels worm their way into the life of Susan Blackwood.  Sir Harold Morgan, the leader of the bunch, sees her as a human jackpot and so he attempts to murder her beloved, marries her for her money and together, the four members of the group slowly drive her insane, hypnotize her and have her jump from the walls of the castle.  From that moment forward, the ghost of Lady Morgan intends to get her revenge upon them all, and thus the title of the movie.

The film starts off quite slow and while it does serve to introduce the characters and the situations, that first half of the film could have been trimmed down, or at least beefed up with the villains doing some more behind the scenes scheming or planning to make it just a little more suspenseful.  It was not boring per se, but there was a lot to get through to get to the real meat of the movie.  Once the second half of the film kicked in, more specifically when Lady Morgan died, things really began to pick up and become quite exciting.  The special effects of the film were fairly sub-par and simplistic, even for 1965, but they accomplish what it is they set out to do and on the whole, the film looks pretty fantastic.  In fact, it would be hard to find a gothic horror film that looks as beautiful as Massimo Pupillo’s movie does from cinematography to costumes.

Barbara Nelli, the star of the film and the woman who plays the titular character in question, puts in a very understated performance, at least for the first half of the film.  When Lady Morgan dies, we finally get to see what she is capable of and she puts on a show that steals the film from the other players.  Paul Muller plays Harold her husband, Erika Blanc stars as Lilian and Michel Forain is her lost love Pierre but it is Gordon Mitchell who plays Roger, who next to Nelli, is the person you will remember most about the picture.  The man seems so somber and laid back and yet out of all of them, when he loses his cool you are genuinely afraid for those around him, villain or not.

There are a couple of silly things in the film, and it is to be expected due to the age of the picture and such.  Things like how are ghosts able to drink the blood of a man and why are they afraid of fire?  In the end the story is a creation of the imagination and sometimes it is the imagination you must use to enjoy those things that seem illogical.  Does any of it take away from the film?  No, of course not and it is not hard to enjoy those things that might seem out of place as they add to the horror, what little of it there is in the movie.  The last and final gripe to be found is the fact that for a horror film, it is not all that frightening, though the mood and the atmosphere are there to propagate it.  What is most scary about this picture are the actions of these people against Lady Morgan and not necessarily her time as a ghost or anything that follows.  In all though, it is an enjoyable movie and is a fine example of what gothic horror was and is.

3 out of 5