With the original title, "Der Würger von Schloß Blackmoor", this movie was released in 1963 and was filmed in Germany and directed by Harald Reinl. IMDB has the following description of the plot:
"A strangler is loose on a British estate, and he not only strangles his victims but brands an "M" onto their foreheads before he decapitates them."
Has anyone seen this movie? I doubt that Dave Arneson drew any inspiration from this movie, but you never know! Also, the DA modules includes the NPC Skandros the Strangler. Could he have been based on the character from the movie?
-Havard
I've always been curious about whether or not the film had any influence on DA in the creation of Blackmoor Castle. Some of the notes about the various hauntings and tragedies within Blackmoor Castle in The First Fantasy Campaign make me wonder if the answer is 'yes.'
ReplyDeleteHuh. Interesting. I wonder if it ever got a release in English speaking countries?
ReplyDeleteLimpey: Yeah me too. Dave Arneson did go through that weekend of watching bad horror movies before coooking up Blackmoor. Could this film have been one of those he watched? Till now, I always assumed that the name Blackmoor was a play on Brownstone/Braunstein.
ReplyDeleteTrey: IMDB lists "The Strangler of Blackmoor Castle" as the US title for the movie, but doesnt list a release date for it.
ReplyDeleteHavard - complete unrelated topic: Do you know of a single Mystara Reference Document? What I am thinking of is something like the Known World overview from page 3 of the Isle of Dread adventure - but more more elaborate in scope. Something that would give a a couple of paragraphs of flavor about each region, maybe the high level stats about the nations, details about a couple of the cities, maybe about ~1 page per geographic/political entry. I'm thinking of running my next campaign in Mystara and I've been pouring through the Vaults of Pandius and finding some really great stuff/maps/etc... but I couldn't find anything in the way of an overview document. I know there are the Gazeteer series but these are way expensive and maybe too detailed for what I am looking for.
ReplyDelete