Baron Blood
Sometime around 1997, there emerged a massive Internet hoax which claimed that a Siberian borehole had penetrated the Earth's crust into Hell itself, with "proof" being an audio recording of the screaming souls of the damned. This urban legend (variously known as the "Siberian Sounds of Hell" or "The Well to Hell" hoax) featured in many tabloids, and was even cited by some Christian groups as hard proof of a real Hell. The sound effects supposedly recorded within the borehole were actually a combination of story elements from a radio broadcast "Quiet Please - The Thing on the Fourble Board", and audio lifted from this film.,While being chased through the streets by Baron Blood, Eva runs into the same alley twice (with the same advertisement plastered against the building).,Italian version runs 98 minutes; USA version, titled Baron Blood (1972) removes about eight minutes of footage for pacing.,Edited into Baron Blood: Die Burg des Teufels - Locationtour (2017),Mario Bava is one of the greats of horror cinema, but I wouldn't judge his importance by 'Baron Blood'. It isn't close to his best work. While stylishly directed (to be expected being Bava) and with plenty of atmosphere, it is low on both suspense and gore, and sets up a potentially dynamite premise (the resurrection of an evil Vlad The Impaler-like maniac hell bent on revenge), then goes nowhere much with it. One or two sequences are outstanding, but overall it's a major disappointment, and the usually excellent Joseph Cotton (who did some strong genre work in movies like 'The Abominable Dr Phibes' and 'Soylent Green') is a bit of a let down in the title role. Even so, no Mario Bava movie can be dismissed entirely, and for all its flaws it's still worth watching more than almost all of Hollywood's recent puerile and uninspired horror output.,