I lunghi capelli della morte

Digitmovies presents the complete edition OST by Carlo Rustichelli from the 1964 cult movie “I lunghi capelli della morte” (aka” La sorcière sanglante”,“The Long Hair of Death”) directed by the specialist Antonio Margheriti (aka Anthony M. Dawson) starring the Queen of the Macabre Barbara Steele in the double role of Helen Karnstein and Mary Karnstein, George Ardisson as Kurt Humboldt, Halina Zalewska as Elizabeth Karnstein and Umberto Raho as Von Klage. The movie placed in a 15th-century feudal village, where a woman is accused of witchcraft and put to death. Her beautiful older daughter knows the real reason of the execution, as a result of the lies of the lord who had sexual desire for her mother. After confronting the lord on the matter, she is killed, too. A much younger daughter is spared and taken in by her mother's killers. Once she is of age, as a horrible, deadly plague sweeps the land, she marries Kurt, the lord's worthless son. Then, during a brutal thunderstorm, the older daughter mysteriously reappears and begins to avenge her mother's death until justice triumphs over the guilty ones. This gloomy atmosphere is well given by the orchestral music by Carlo Rustichelli, whose mono master tapes – well kept for more than four decades in the Historic Archives of C.A.M. –has given us one more time the opportunity to realize another important rescue. At that time C.A.M. (on December 1964) only released a 45 rpm single (CDR. 45-14) with the two tracks “Allucinanti visioni” and “Verso il rogo” (here tracks 24 & 25). The score opens with “Titoli di testa” (Tr.1), introduced by drum rolls and bell tolls to develop a dramatic theme that contains all the elements of the musical style of the author already evident in his scores for Mario Bava movies like “La frusta e il corpo”. This motif is reprised in the form of a slow requiem in Tr.4, Tr.5, Tr.6. Carlo Rustichelli has created a whole series of tension atmospheres rotating around the main theme with a recurrent use of an instrument similar to the Theremin (Tr.7, Tr.10, Tr.12,Tr.13). The composer wrote a slow and mystical Requiem for orchestra and male choir that accompanies the evil Lord’s funeral (Tr.16). For the whole final sequence of the flames that brings to death Kurt, Carlo Rustichelli wrote an ancient dance, a kind of diabolical tarantella that brings back to the ancient pagan rites closing then with a glorious reprise of the Main theme (Tr.23). As bonus tracks (Tr.24 & Tr.25) we enclose the two rare tracks of the original single record: the alternate take of the single version (Tr.12) and the edit purposely created for the record of the Tr.4 e Tr.5. Another great rescue of the Italian Silver Age.