page_title: The Blood Demon
section_title: Critical reception
hierarchical_section_title: The Blood Demon / Release / Critical reception
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Gesamtansicht Externsteine aus Nordost
context_page_description: The Blood Demon, also known as The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism, The Snake Pit and the Pendulum, and Castle of the Walking Dead, is a 1967 West German horror film directed by Harald Reinl and starring Christopher Lee, Karin Dor, and Lex Barker.
  The film, written by Manfred R. Köhler, is based on Edgar Allan Poe's 1842 short story The Pit and the Pendulum and concerns the saga of Count Regula who, after being drawn and quartered for murdering 12 maidens, returns to life seeking revenge. The film was advertised in Rhode Island newspapers as Crimson Demon, due to a practice at the time of deleting the word "Blood" from film titles.
  It was shot at the Bavaria Studios in Munich. The film's sets were designed by the art directors Gabriel Pellon and Rolf Zehetbauer.
context_section_description: TLA Video & DVD Guide describes the film as "an effective bit of Grand Guignol". European Nightmares: Horror Cinema in Europe Since 1945 describes it as "a more traditional Gothic Horror film".
  Halloween calls it a "delight for hardcore adult fans", and the Katholisches Institut für Medieninformationen includes the description of the film as a "German attempt at a horror film by Edgar Allan Poe, more laughable than creepy".
  Fright Night on Channel 9 calls it "a really great double feature" when seen as a double bill with Mad Doctor from Blood Island. The review goes on to mention that the film "dripped with a rich and evocative Euro-atmosphere" and that "this flick defines the term" and calls it a "Wizard of Oz-like journey into horror". The review also calls the film a "skillful blend of horror and adventure" and a picture which offers "creepy delights" such a "forest of hanging corpses", "a castle full of torture traps" and a "sinister one-legged messenger on a cobbled village street".
  According to TV Guide, the plot was weak but the film had "fascinating visuals" including an "eerie forest of the dead". Monsters & Vampires mentioned that "the movie had some good chilled moments, particularly a ghostly ride through a literally dead forest, with branches filled with severed limbs and torsos." Film critic Leonard Maltin described the film as "atmospheric".
caption: The Externsteine in the Teutoburg Forest appear in the film.[15]
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