Monthly Film Bulletin

A number of murders in which the victims have turned to stone has terrified the village of Vandorf into a conspiracy of silence. When Bruno Heitz, artist lover of the latest victim, is found hanging from a tree, the coroner uses him as a convenient scapegoat for the whole series of crimes. Heitz's father arrives to clear his son's name. Neither Kanof, the police chief, nor Namaroff, a brain surgeon, welcome his investigations, and the villagers set fire to his lodgings. Heitz discovers that the nearby ruin of Castle Borski is infested by Megaera, the ancient Gorgon of myth. He sees her, begins to turn to stone, and spends his last moments summoning his son Paul and Paul's university tutor, Professor Meister. Namaroff refuses to see Paul, but Namaroff's assistant, Carla, falls in love with him, nursing him when his hair turns grey after seeing Megaera's reflection in a pool. Carla confides that Namaroff is jealous, and knows some sinister secret which he won't divulge. Meister disapproves of Paul's attachment to Carla. He accuses Namaroff of sending his assistant, Ratoff, to murder Paul. Moreover, having noticed that Ratoff is in the habit of spying on Carla when-ever there is a full moon, he goes for enlightenment to Namaroff's confidential files. There he learns that Carla is an ex-patient, an amnesiac. Hurrying to the Castle Borski where Paul has a date with Carla, he is in time to destroy both Namaroff and Megaera. He cuts off Megaera's head, whereupon her terrifying features change to those of the beautiful, luckless Carla within whose body the Gorgon's spirit had found a home.

The Gorgon myth does not fit happily into Transylvanian surroundings, and there are too many red-herrings indicative of the script's straining after horrific effect (the mad woman, the brain transplantation, etc.). The trouble is that one is never really in doubt as to who the Gorgon is. Also, as in Hammer's stablemate, The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb, the monster's appearance is belated, vague and insufficiently spectacular. Still, it makes a change from vampires, and though the film has little genuine flair for atmosphere it is quite well acted by Richard Pasco and an appropriately blank-eyed, statuesque Barbara Shelley.