For today’s horror on the lens, we present, for your viewing pleasure, a 1965 Italian thriller called The Embalmer.  It’s also known as the Monster of Venice.

This film tells the story of a madman who lives in the catacombs in Venice, where he wanders around in a skull mask and embalms dead bodies.  Why does he embalm dead bodies?  Because he loves eternal beauty, of course!

Occasionally, he comes up to the surface and he wanders around Venice while wearing scuba gear.  Nobody finds that to be strange but then again, that’s Venice for you.

(As I’m sure I’ve mentioned a few times in the past, I spent the summer after high school in Italy.  I loved Venice!)

Anyway, as far as Venice-set thrillers are concerned, The Embalmer is no Don’t Look Now.  But it still has a few atmospheric scenes and the whole thing is filmed on location and in beautiful black-and-white.  It’s also fairly tame for an Italian horror film, so it might be good for those viewers who are looking for a thriller that doesn’t necessarily feature a lot of blood.