''The Witch's Curse'' ( it, Maciste all'inferno, lit=Maciste in Hell) is a 1962 peplum- fantasy film, directed by

Riccardo Freda Riccardo Freda (24 February 1909 – 20 December 1999) was an Italian film director. He worked in a variety of genres, including sword-and-sandal, horror, ''giallo'' and spy films. Freda began directing '' I Vampiri'' in 1956. The film became ...

Plot

In the mid-1500s, a witch is burned in Scotland and places a curse on the inhabitants before she dies. One hundred years later, the tree she was chained to and burned still stands with no one daring to destroy it. The curse remains by forcing women to commit suicide. The witch's descendant, Martha Gunt, is sentenced to be burned for witchcraft. As she is placed in a prison cell, Maciste comes forth to fight evil. When he uproots the cursed tree, he finds an entrance to Hell where he attempts to track down the original witch to rescind her curse and attempts to help the damned from their plight.

Cast

* Kirk Morris as

Maciste Maciste () is one of the oldest recurring characters of cinema, created by Gabriele d'Annunzio and Giovanni Pastrone. He is featured throughout the history of the cinema of Italy from the 1910s to the mid-1960s. He is usually depicted as a Herc ...

Hélène Chanel Hélène Chanel (born Hélène Stoliaroff; 12 June 1941 in Deauville, Calvados, France) is a French actress of Russian heritage. She was active in the 1960s in a variety of European international co-productions of sword and sandal, Eurospy and ...

as Fania *

Vira Silenti Vira Silenti (16 April 1931 – 1 November 2014) was an Italian actress. Career Born in Naples as Elvira Giovene, Silenti debuted as child actress at ten years old in ''Una notte dopo l’opera'' (1942). She studied law at the university and ...

as Martha Gaunt * Andrea Bosic as Judge Parrish *

Charles Fernley Fawcett Charles Fernley Fawcett (2 December 1915 – 3 February 2008) was an American adventurer, soldier, film actor, and a co-founder of the International Medical Corps. He was a recipient of the French Croix de Guerre and the American Eisenhower ...

as the Doctor *

Remo De Angelis Remo De Angelis (30 July 1926 - 9 October 2014) was an Italian film actor, stunt man and painter. He appeared in ''Nel Segno di Roma'' (1959), by Guido Brignone, and he played Prometheus in '' Maciste all'inferno'' (1962), by Riccardo Freda. He wa ...

Prometheus In Greek mythology, Prometheus (; , , possibly meaning " forethought")Smith"Prometheus". is a Titan god of fire. Prometheus is best known for defying the gods by stealing fire from them and giving it to humanity in the form of technology, kn ...

John Karlsen John Karlsen, sometimes credited as Charles John Karlsen or John Karlson (20 October 1919 – 5 July 2017), was an actor from New Zealand who was active in cinema between 1958 and 2003. He is best known for ''Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure' ...

Gina Mascetti Gina Mascetti (1911-1995) was an Italian film actress. A character actress, she appeared in a number of comedy films notably as Alberto Sordi's wife in the ''The White Sheik'' (1952). The same year she also featured in the neorealist drama ''Two ...

Puccio Ceccarelli Puccio is both an Italian surname and a masculine Italian given name. Notable people with the name include: People with the surname *Alejandro Puccio (1958–2008), Argentine rugby union footballer and criminal *Alessio Puccio (born 1986), Italian ...

Production

The

Castellana caves The Castellana Caves (Italian: ''Grotte di Castellana'') are a karst cave system located in the municipality of Castellana Grotte, in the Metropolitan City of Bari, Apulia, southern Italy. Overview The caves, discovered in 1938 by the spele ...

which still serve as a tourist attraction, were used for the underground scenes. The sequences set in the Hell were entirely filmed in the

Castellana Caves The Castellana Caves (Italian: ''Grotte di Castellana'') are a karst cave system located in the municipality of Castellana Grotte, in the Metropolitan City of Bari, Apulia, southern Italy. Overview The caves, discovered in 1938 by the spele ...

, in the province of Bari.

, the leading character, was turned during the filming into an almost mute character as Freda was very unhappy with the acting skills of the main actor Kirk Morris. The film is referred as "an interpretation of mythology cum the gothic horror genre".

Release

''The Witch's Curse'' was released in Italy on April 11, 1962. It grossed a total of 277 million

Italian lire The lira (; plural lire) was the currency of Italy between 1861 and 2002. It was first introduced by the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy in 1807 at par with the French franc, and was subsequently adopted by the different states that would eventually f ...

domestically in Italy.

References

Footnotes

Sources

* * *

External links

* * 1960s fantasy films Italian fantasy films Peplum films Films directed by Riccardo Freda Films set in Scotland Films about curses Films about witchcraft Maciste films Remakes of Italian films Sound film remakes of silent films Sword and sandal films 1960s Italian films {{fantasy-film-stub