Description
The beautiful and virginal Sylvia (Anita Ekberg) is delighted to discover that she's inherited not only the noble title of countess, but has also inherited a castle located in the country. She excitedly calls her fiance, Dr. Piero Luciani (Gianni Medici), to tell him that she's going to travel to view the castle. Once there, she stops at a local inn for a drink, where she announces her destination and relation to the castle's inhabitants; this horrifies the townspeople. Unswayed by their reactions, Sylvia arrives at the castle and meets her uncle, Count Walbrooke (Julián Ugarte), and beds down for the night. She is later awakened by the maidservant Blinka (Adriana Ambesi), who warns her that Walbrooke is a century-old vampire that means her harm. Blinka's attempts to draw Sylvia out of bed and out of the castle are interrupted by Walbrooke, who takes her into another room and whips her. Sylvia pleads with him to stop, only for Walbrooke to reveal that Blinka herself is also a vampire.
The next morning, Sylvia attempts to leave but is persuaded to stay after Walbrooke tells her about her aunt Malenka, who was burned at the stake for being a witch. He convinces Sylvia that the family is cursed, and that because of her strong resemblance to Malenka, paired with her ties to the family, Sylvia is also cursed. Furthermore, Sylvia must remain at the castle and stay unmarried, otherwise the curse will worsen and affect those around her. As a result, Sylvia breaks off her engagement with Piero, who decides to travel to the castle out of concern for Sylvia. When he arrives at the same inn that Sylvia visited earlier in the film, Piero is filled in on the events by Brugard (Juanita Ramírez), one of the inn's barmaids. Piero then travels to the castle, intending to stop Walbrooke from turning Sylvia into a vampire. He stabs Walbrooke with a stake through the heart.
In the original Spanish version of the film, the uncle's "vampire ploy" turns out to be a hoax he's using to drive his niece crazy. An alternative "supernatural" ending however was later filmed and added to the English-language version, in which the uncle actually disintegrates into a skeleton at the end, indicating that he really was a vampire and thereby contradicting the rest of the film.
