In the 17th century, Princess Asa Vajda (Barbara Steele) and her brother Prince Igor Javutich (Arturo Dominici) are going to burn at the stake for the crimes of practicing witchcraft and vampirism. Doomed Asa places a curse, before her death, in which she promises to come back from the grave. She promises to kill the descendants of her own family; for they are the ones who condemned her to her terrible fate.

    Dr. Andre Gorobec (Jon Richardson) and Dr. Thomas Kruvajan (Andrea Checci) are on their way to Moscow when their carriage breaks down. The ruined castle of the Vajda family is nearby, so they decide to take a break and explore its grounds. They stumble upon an old crypt; ancient spider webs, skulls and stone sarcophagi fill its space. Quite unwittingly, they unleash the ancient curse that was supposed to keep Asa in the grave. This event threatens the very existence of Asa’s descendants, which include Princess Katia Vajda (Barbara Steele), Prince Vajda (Ivo Garrani), and Prince Constatine Vajda (Enrico Oliviera). Asa wants to use the life force of Katia, her exact double, in order to gain back the strength of her physical body. With the help of a resurrected Igor, she is determined to get her revenge and become alive once more.

    This was the first film that Italian horror master Mario Bava directed completely on his own . You can tell that he was directly influenced by the Hammer studio films that came out during that period, but he took gothic horror a step further. For a movie that was shot in 1960 it was quite a graphic piece of horror cinema. Maggots writhing in eye sockets, tight shots of ample cleavage, and a rib cage with bits of flesh still hanging from its ribs are just some of the exploitation type scenes that you get to watch throughout the film. He used very unusual camera angles, and slow motion sequences were executed quite effectively. There was a great scene which was a prime example of this unusual style of film making; it is when Kruvajan was being driven in a carriage by the evil Igor. Bava could have just filmed the carriage going along at a fast speed, but instead he shot in slow motion in order to raise our fear to another level. Bava went on to direct such classic films as The Body And The Whip, Blood And Black Lace, and Baron Blood.

    This film was based upon a tale by Ukranian author Nikolai Gogol, and it was called ‘The Vij’. Bava picked the story out himself, but later added elements suggested by different screen writers. What could have turned into a disaster, instead turned into a great screenplay and gorgeous film. The story of evil, vampiric witches coming back from the dead isn’t that unusual; however, he made it his own by adding gore and sexual tension.