A young artist named Roberto (Anthony Steffen) arrives at an isolated village beside a lake and he is welcomed into the house of Count Montebruno (Claudio Gora). His job is to restore a statue, which had been pulled from the water in a state of some decay, so he sets about his work with conviction. The only distraction is the lovely Harriet (Barbara Steele, fabulous as ever), the Count's daughter, who has also just arrived from the city.

He begins to have strange dreams in which he hears her erotically calling his name (steady on mate - get a grip on yourself!) and follows the cries to the attic. Here he finds a portrait of a lady who bears some resemblance to an older Harriet and seems to tell him her story. After being caught in an adulterous liaison she killed herself by clutching the statue and pushing it into the lake, where it dragged her to a watery doom.

Harriet begins to behave rather strangely; consumed by bizarre mood swings (huh, she is a woman) she spends a worrying amount of time looking at herself in the mirror (as I said, she is a woman). Things get more drastic when she flaunts herself in front of the somewhat backward gardener before maliciously whipping him. Before too long she's managing to seduce her way through the entire village and, even more worryingly, a young lady is found murdered. The locals, believing that she may be a witch, suspect that she is the culprit and start to shun her (the females, that is - the blokes are all still trying to get into her pants).

As the statue is finally repaired and returned to it's original setting by the waterfront; it begins to look more and more as though history may be about to repeat itself. But why do her transformations seem to be triggered by the chimes of a clock striking midnight?

There's lots of lightning and thunder in this, which makes it entirely appropriate viewing for an English summer's evening. There's also some eye-catching impressionistic camerawork, a good and subdued soundtrack from De Masi and more dry ice than a Sisters Of Mercy gig (that show's my age!). Interestingly, Steffen again plays a sculptor in this (as he also did in 1958's Aphrodite). Those of an uncharitable bent may be tempted to observe that he'd be better suited to playing a sculpture.

Beyond that, An Angel for Satan is drenched with an all-purveyingly somnolent atmosphere. Everyone seems to spend a great deal of time sitting around smoking, playing chess or lying in bed. It is as though the characters are busily waiting for something to happen - something that never actually does. Now this is no bad thing in my book, I'm quite a fan of slim narratives that flesh out the running time with cool photography and pure ambience. If, however, you're looking for a rip-roaring melodrama, I'm afraid this isn't it (I would try out Caiano's Nightmare Castle or Pupillo's Bloody Pit of Horror instead). Instead it bears a remarkable similarity in feel to Mastrocinque's other gothic tale of the time, Crypt of Horror - lackadaisically paced and slightly poetic.

An exceedingly distinguished director, this was just about his last film - which may not have been a bad thing. I can't imagine his stately filmmaking transferring too well to the future cinematic world of secret agents, masked killers and gun toting cowboys.

Matt B