
            In a horse-drawn carriage Hilda (Yvonne Mitchell) forces teenage girl Elizabeth (Gillian Hills) to have a drink. Elizabeth remembers back to running through the woods to a small hut where a young man Carl (Paul Jones) is chopping wood. He looks after her and sees her locket containing a picture of her brother. She goes on to remember the two of them in a rowing boat on a lake and sleeping and living together, but then she is kidnapped and taken away in the carriage. They arrive at Elizabeth's father's house, the widower Baron Zorn (Robert Hardy).Locked inside the house is Elizabeth's brother Emil (Shane Briant) but the Baron keeps them apart, explaining to Emil that they must do what he says until they are well again.A local peasant woman Magda (Deirdre Costello) is walking through the woods when she is attacked and strangled by an unseen assailant.From inside the house the Baron and his servant Klaus (Kenneth J. Warren) watch a bedraggled priest (Michael Hordern) walking out from the woods preaching to himself.In Elizabeth's bedroom, Hilda makes some incisions on Elizabeth's side and collects a glass of her blood. When she goes to Emil's room he is upset about what is happening to himself and Elizabeth but Hilda and the Baron convince him to be patient and to wait for Dr. Falkenberg (Patrick Magee).In their coach on their way to the Baron's that night, Dr. Falkenberg discusses demons of the mind with travelling companion Carl. The priest appears on the track in front of the carriage; the carriage nearly knocks him over but doesn't stop. However, it soon hits a log and crashes, injuring the driver and the horses escape.Through the window of a village tavern, Klaus sees the innkeeper in bed with village girl Inge (Virginia Wetherell). The horses from the carriage run up followed by Carl so Klaus hides. At first the innkeeper and the villagers are reluctant to go into the woods to help Carl because of superstitions about evil in the woods, but eventually they go watched secretly by Klaus. Klaus emerges when they have gone, kisses Inge and tells her they will need her soon. When Carl and the villagers reach the carriage, Falkenberg has disappeared.There is a scream from the woods and another local peasant woman is murdered.Falkenberg arrives at the Baron's house on foot. The Baron is upset that he didn't arrive earlier.The Baron and Klaus retrieve the body of the dead woman from the woods and the Baron dumps her body in the middle of a lake.Back at the house, Falkenberg sits the Baron in front of some apparatus he has brought, telling the Baron it will make him reveal his secrets and cleanse his mind from evil. The Baron reveals he has nightmares and violent sexual desires and that after he was married and his children were born, he became impotent and his wife went mad and committed suicide. Falkenberg says Zorn must be freed of the evil in his blood.Carl watches the villagers enact an ancient ritual to ward off death but Inge is frightened by the chanting. The priest arrives and one of the village women reveals her daughter is missing in the forest. The priest says there is evil in the forest but the villagers shun his words.At the Baron's house Emil finds a secret locked door between his room and Elizabeth's. He whispers to Elizabeth to take the keys from the sleeping Hilda and when she unlocks the door they embrace and kiss passionately. Before they can escape, Hilda wakens and shouts to alert Baron Zorn and Klaus so Emil and Elizabeth are recaptured.Meanwhile the villagers search the woods for the missing women.Carl arrives at the Baron's house and the Baron takes him to see Elizabeth. The Baron's explains his fears that Elizabeth will inherit the madness and sickness and Carl deduces that Elizabeth is being bled to keep her weak. Out of the Baron's earshot, Elizabeth whispers to Carl for help. Downstairs Carl confronts the Baron and Falkenberg, disagreeing with their approach to curing Elizabeth and discrediting Falkenberg's methods before leaving to go back to the village. However, the Baron insists Falkenberg continue with his cure.Hilda expresses her fears to the Baron that in-breeding has made the Zorn blood impure and that the pure village girls' blood should have been a help. Falkenberg explains to the Baron and Hilda that despite their best efforts to help, Elizabeth and Emil's attraction for each other is a result of their mother's death, and Elizabeth fell in love with Carl when she visited Falkenberg in Vienna, all of which is natural given they have been stifled of love and fed with fear. He says there is one extreme and dangerous method which may be the only way to save them.Klaus collects Inge from the village to take her to the Baron's. As Carl sees the priest trying to chop down a tree, the villagers arrive and talk of demons and superstitions, then they head towards the Baron's house which they consider to be the source of the evil. At the Baron's, Inge has some of her hair cut off by Hilda and is given a elegant dress to wear, being told that she is to act the part in a play with one of Falkenberg's patients. Zorn and Klaus see the villagers approaching the house but Inge is ready and Falkenberg says they should continue. They bring Emil to Inge telling him it is Elizabeth, given the similarity in looks between the two girls. Emil sees Inge as Elizabeth, however Inge runs off in fright chased by Emil into the woods. When Emil catches her and realises it is not Elizabeth he strangles her. Sleeping in her bedroom, Elizabeth feels the trauma. Emil runs off and Klaus collects Inge's body. Back at the house Falkenberg explains to the Baron that his dreams of blood and his guilt over his wife's suicide have influenced his children and they now share his fantasies. Klaus returns and says Emil is no longer at the place in the woods where Inge was killed. The Baron realises there must be no more bloodshed.Carl and the villagers watch the Baron dump Inge's body in the lake, giving them their proof that he is the evil one. Emil awakes in the woods and runs back to the house in fear for Elizabeth but Hilda stops him from seeing her. Realising he has blood on his hands, Emil grows more frantic about Elizabeth's safety, kills Hilda with her keys and breaks down Elizabeth's door. Carl arrives and sees Hilda's body and Emil attacks him but is stopped by Elizabeth before he can kill Carl.Falkenberg continues to implore upon the Baron that it is his entire fault that this has happened. Klaus tells them that Emil and Elizabeth have gone. The Baron loses control, slashes a painting of his wife, picks up a shotgun and shoots Falkenberg. He leaves the house in pursuit of Emil and Elizabeth.The villagers pull the bodies of the women from the lake. The priest appears with a burning cross and they march together to find the Baron, no longer afraid of demons in the woods. The baron pursues Emil and Elizabeth through the forest. He shoots Emil and kills him but as he aims at Elizabeth, Carl catches up with him and tries to wrestle the gun away but is overpowered by the Baron. The Baron aims again at Elizabeth but cannot bring himself to shoot. The villagers and priest arrive and overpower the Baron. The villagers hold him down while the priest chops off his hand and then drives the base of the burning cross through his heart. As the Baron dies, Elizabeth goes mad and attacks Carl scratching at his face.
    

Gillian Hills

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