Castle of Evil, Maniac in Old Castle

As a lifelong horror fan and a lawyer (shhh, don't tell anyone), my favorite legal proceeding is the obligatory reading of the will.  Oh!  If conditions are attached, even better.  You know those conditions.  Some wills may stipulate the surviving heirs must spend the night in a haunted castle to collect.  Or even better, those same heirs must survive the night to collect.  Hence, 1966's "Castle of Evil."

After an opening scene filled with blackmail, betrayal, and murder, six schmucks land on a remote island.  These peeps were summoned to the island's Gothic castle to hear the reading of the will of Kovic (William Thourlby). Recently dead (or is he?), Kovic's will stipulates the six must stay in the castle overnight and...here's the best part...must figure out which one of them murdered him. Surprise! All had motives as Kovic ruined all of their lives. Matt (Scott Brady) takes the lead and immediately develops goo-goo eyes for the sultry Carrol (Lisa Gaye). Carroll is a beauty but pretty worthless to the plot as she will faint in horror and not emerge until the end of the film when a monster chases her around as she is clad only in a red negligee.

Okay, bad news.  Despite Kovic's corpse, with a very disfigured face (a lab accident) being in the coffin, Kovic seems to rise from the dead to begin killing the heirs.  Uh oh, Kovic's weird housekeeper, Lupe (Shelley Morrison) is up to something and spends most of her time in a laboratory monitoring the guests on CCTV. Sable (Virginia Mayo) is the most colorful of the guests, a former canteen singer and GF of Kovic.  Wronged big time by Kovic, could this beauty be the killer? Did I mention, if the guests identify Kovic's killer, they will share a larger chunk of the inheritance?  As Kovic...or his ghost...hunts down the guests, Matt spearheads an effort to figure out just what really is going on.

Is Kovic really dead?  If so, which one of these schmucks killed him?  Will anyone be left alive by the morning?  Perhaps a cryptic statement of inheritance and Trust and Estate laws, "Castle of Evil" is a nice film with a scary monster, an old cavernous castle, and damsels in much peril.  Before writing your will, think about having some fun with your surviving heirs, and watch "Castle of Evil."