"You haven't changed, I see. You've always loved violence."

It's a real bitch when you're denied your birthright. You get promised all kinds of things your whole life and you make one little slip up, like, say, starting an insurrection and leading an army of rebellious angels in a war against Yahweh to conquer Heaven and rule over all creation, and you get banished from paradise and cast into the lake of fire for all eternity. 

C'est la vie, right? It reminds me of this movie I watched on Shudder last night. 

This week's Thursday Thriller is The Whip and the Body, directed by Mario Bava.

Christopher Lee does not play Dracula in this 1963 Gothic romance. Instead, he plays a domineering prick named Kurt who wears a black cape. He returns to his family's castle to wish his little brother Christian (Tony Kendall)  well on his engagement to Kurt's own former fiancée Nevenka (Daliah Lavi), a stunning brunette who wears a lot of eye shadow.

If that sounds over your head, don't fret. I'm cramming a lot of info in a small space. The dialogue actually runs something like this:

 SERVANT:

Master! It's Kurt! He's returned!

KURT:

Yes, it is I, Kurt. I've returned.

Kurt's reception is a little chilly, though, because last time he was home he seduced a servant girl and abandoned her, so she killed herself with a special dagger that's since been enshrined in a bell jar. Since then, his dad Count Menliff (Gustavo De Nardo) cut him off from his inheritance and his presumably arranged marriage to Nevenka. So, while yes, Kurt did come home to congratulate his brother,  he also came back to try to get his money and his woman back.

Kurt and Nevenka later bump into each other on the beach, and, after a heated exchange, he throws his cape down on the white-sanded, Mediterranean shoreline, and horsewhips her until her shirt tears open. It turns out she's into that sort of thing, and they start making out with the surf splashing against the rocks in the background.

When Kurt retires for the night, his curtains attack him and he gets stabbed in the throat with the bell-jar dagger. He returns as a vengeful ghost and after that things get a little fucked up.

I ordinarily wouldn't mention where a movie was shot, but the scenery of Tor Caldara in Lazio, Italy, is noteworthy. It's so gorgeous it ranked 23rd in 1,001 Places to Debase Yourself At The Hands of A Sexual Sadist Before You Die.

The Whip and the Body isn't just a ghost story.  With its exotic location, themes of family drama and sadomasochism, and period costuming, it's more like a Harlequin romance gone horribly wrong, or Fifty Shades of Grey gone horribly right. It's fun to look at.