Terror at Orgy Castle (1971)

What can one say about a movie like writer-director Zoltan G. Spencer’s Terror at Orgy Castle ? Well, it does contain an orgy, and it does contain a castle. Terror though is in rather short supply. Of course if your idea of terror is having beautiful naked witches constantly trying to have their way with you, then it is indeed pretty terrifying.

A young couple decide to spend a holiday at a remote German castle, mainly because the girlfriend (Lisa) has had sex everywhere except in a castle, and she thinks it’s about time she remedied that sad deficiency in her sexual curriculum vitae. Apart from a servant the only inhabitant appears to be the Countess Dominova (yes, you’d think that might have given them a clue what to expect). The castle looks fairly haunted, which makes her even more excited, and the stones really turn her on. After they’ve made love, Lisa goes to sleep and boyfriend goes off exploring the castle. He finds the countess naked and engaged in some kind of ritual involving two equally naked young ladies. The ritual turns the countess into a count, and he proceeds to pleasure his two lady friends. The boyfriend returns hurriedly to bed, but through a magic mirror the countess’s two playmates appear and have their wicked way with him after sending Lisa into a deep sleep.

The next day is apparently orgy day at the castle. I should mention at this stage that there’s no synchronised dialogue, just a cheesy but occasionally amusing voiceover narration by the boyfriend. Here we see the first hint of horror, but it isn’t very horrifying. A woman has a fearsome rat strapped to her body inside a metal bowl, and the ferocious rodent is supposedly eating his way out through her stomach. The problem is that the rodent in question is obviously an incredibly tame and extremely friendly pet rat, and it’s all a trick anyway. You’ll be relieved to hear that the rat survives the film unscathed, although I don’t think it did his career any good at all. He just didn’t have what it takes to be a successful horror movie rat, although his acting was no worse than that of the rest of the cast.

The couple’s terror, such as it is, culminates in a black mass, and they find themselves initiated into the castle’s nightmare world of horror (which really doesn’t seem like such a terribly bad life, consisting mostly of feasting and sex).

It’s the sort of movie that a European director could have done something with. It has obvious affinities with eurosleaze classics such as Nude for Satan and Satan’s Blood , but those movies combined equally copious quantities of sex with some genuine creepiness and some real horror. Terror at Orgy Castle just doesn’t deliver on the horror front, and it lacks the weirdness that characterises the better American sexploitation/horror movies of the period.

It’s included in a three-movie set from Something Weird, along with Hand of Pleasure (which I haven’t yet seen) and Evil Come Evil Go (which is delightfully bizarre and highly recommended).