The Whip and the Body Movie Review

The Whip and the Body is a 1963 horror movie directed by Mario Bava and starring Christopher Lee,
Daliah Lavi and Luciano Stella.

The movie begins with a woman whose daughter died when she killed herself over a man. His name was Kurt Menliff(Lee) and he was told never to return to his father's castle again. He comes back anyway. The locals wonder what he wants. His father, Count Menliff and his brother, Christian(Stella) don't want him back. It turns out that he seduced a servant girl and that she killed herself. The girl's mother swears revenge. The Count sees Kurt at night and he is frightened of him. Kurt visits his ex fiancee, Nevenka(Lavi) who has married Christian. He kisses her and whips her, but she likes it. They kiss..

Kurt gets killed by someone. A servant finds Nevenka, who is bleeding. He also finds Kurt's body.
He is buried. Christian asks his dad if he killed Kurt. Nevenka sees Kurt in visions. She gets very upset over it. Christian tells her that it is an hallucination, but she keeps seeing him. She visits his crypt and she sees ghostly footprints. The Count dies. Nevenka thinks that Kurt has come back for revenge and that he killed the dad. Nevenka is at Kurt's headstone. She is delirious. Christian thinks that maybe Kurt is still alive and hiding. 

Christan decides to open Kurt's coffin. They decide to burn his remains so Nevenka will realise that
he is not real.It turns out that she has been keeping Kurt alive in herself. She killed him and went crazy, pretending that he had come back. She killed the Count also. She is in the crypt and Christian realises what she has done. She runs away and sees Kurt and kills herself, hoping that this will kill Kurt also. End of movie.

This was an unusual movie with some twists and turns. It is a good one , though. Lee is good in the role of the nasty Kurt. He gets killed early on, but he is in the movie through the visions etc. I liked the creepy feel of this and the ending was a surprise.If you enjoy Bava movies, then you will enjoy this. There is the addition of a sadomasochistic scene with the whip, which was a little risque for the time!!All in all, this was a decent horror movie and one to watch. I will give a 6/10.