American, Mary Hunter (Rossana Podesta) is a newlywed. She travels to Germany with her husband Max (Georges Riviere) to his ancestral home, an immense castle. On her first night there a noise awakens her. Max is not beside her. Mary wanders downstairs looking for him. Max is not around but she sees the shadow of a hooded man. Mary ends up in a room of the castle that is used as a museum. In it are various torture devises. She walks up to an iron maiden that is displayed against a wall. She opens the device and sees a dead woman inside. She screams and faints. This is where Max finds her.
A doctor (Leonardo Severini) is called. Later Max and the doctor discuss Mary’s wild tale about the hooded man. Max chalks it up to the long trip and having given her a tour of the museum sparking Mary’s imagination. The castle legend is that 300 years ago Max’s relative was someone called The Punisher. He wore a hood and tortured women in the basement. Max tries to reassure his wife and shows her that there is nothing in the iron maiden. Mary isn’t stupid but she loves her husband and lets it go for now.
Erich (Christopher Lee) is one of the servants and the caretaker of the museum. His face is scarred from an incident from the war. Erich served with Max’s father and is devoted to the family. Max’s father had been a general.
Max has to go out on business and leave Mary alone. After Max leaves she begins snooping around. Wandering around the gardens she meets John Selby (Jim Dolen). He says he is an American that is interested in old German castles and was looking at the gardens. They are interrupted by the housekeeper Martha (Laura Nucci). Martha tells Mary not to trust strangers and gives her some kind of line about a 300 year old ghost. Mary’s not buying it. Mary snoops some more and ends up in the catacombs under the castle where she runs into the hooded man again. She escapes but he ends up coming after her. While trying to break into her room she stabs him in the arm. The man retreats.
Mary runs out of the house and ends up stuck in the catacombs again. She sees the hooded man torturing a young woman. Mary screams and the man runs away. She frees the trapped woman and hears a scream in next chamber. Running out she finds what she believes is the hooded man unconscious. She bends down and finds it is Max. Suddenly Erich runs into the room and Mary faints.
When she awakens she is in her room and Max is there. Max promises to tell her everything that is going on but he needs a little time. He tells her in the meantime to pack and go to a hotel. But the man in the hood has other plans and no one is getting out.
“The Virgin of Nuremberg” AKA “La vergine di Norimberga” AKA “Horror Castle” was released in 1963 and was directed by Antonio Margheriti. It is an Italian horror film. The title of the movie is a reference to the iron maiden torture device that plays a pivotal part in the movie. An iron maiden in Germany is referred to as “The Iron Virgin of Nuremberg”.
When the film was released in Germany all references to Nazis were eliminated and the scene of a Nazi experimental operation was cut. Even German names were changed to disguise their national origin.
The movie was pretty good but it did have a lot of annoying jump scares that weren’t necessary and didn’t really add anything to the film. The gothic atmosphere was good and whatever castle they used for the grounds was gorgeous. The movie ends up being a gothic horror with strange Nazi undertones. It’s a little different but not bad.
The movie was based on a pulp novel by Frank Bogart. There were a lot of these cheap novels printed in Italy. They were supposed to have been written by British authors and translated in Italian by Italian authors and published under the KKK banner. Margheriti changed some of the original plot and added the Nazi subplot.
Christopher Lee's voice was dubbed by another actor in the English version.