Baron Blood

Peter Kleist, a young American, travels to Austria to learn about his ancestry and visits the castle of an ancestor, Baron Otto von Kleist, a sadistic nobleman remembered locally as "Baron Blood." According to legend, the baron was burned at the stake by a witch who cursed him to a violent death. Peter arrives with an old parchment containing an incantation meant to summon the baron's body and soul. In the castle he meets Eva, an architecture student, and his uncle, Dr. Karl Hummel, and one evening he reads the spell aloud as an experiment. The baron returns, and a series of violent killings follows.

Mario Bava directed this 1972 German-Italian horror film, which he also co-wrote with Vincent Fotre and Willibald Eser. It came after A Bay of Blood in his filmography, and its producer was Alfredo Leone. Joseph Cotten plays the dual role of the baron and Alfred Becker, with Elke Sommer, Massimo Girotti, Antonio Cantafora, Umberto Raho and Luciano Pigozzi in supporting parts.

Released in February 1972, the film runs 98 minutes. It holds a rating of 5.9/10 on IMDb from about 4,700 votes and 6.1/10 on TMDB from 152 votes, and a critics' rating of 4.5/10 from seven reviews, placing it below the audience scores.