From the early 1980s, The Mysterious Castle In The Carpathians is a Czech film that blends pulp adventure, proto-steampunk, wacky Sci-fi, light gothic horror, and comedy- be it slapstick, parody, or the surreally edged.  The 1897 set picture regards a pompous-yet-heroic Baron, who goes to investigate a castle, where the devil is meant to live, but instead of finding the horned one, or a vampire. He finds a diabolical bad guy with a long-permed beard, and a crazed/ constantly inventing professor. Here from Deaf Crocodile is a region A Blu-ray release of the film, taking in a new scan, new commentary track, and a selection of new/ archive extras.

The Mysterious Castle In The Carpathians (aka Tajemství Hradu V Karpatech) was made in the year 1981.  It was directed Pelhrimov, Czech Republic-born Oldrich Lipský.  Between the early 1950s and mid-1980s, he had twenty-three feature credits to his name. These went from Circus set comedy Cirkus Bude (1954), running backwards black comedy Happy End (1967), pulp parody/ proto steampunk meets man-eating plant horror Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet (1978 ), and satirical fairy tale fantasy The Three Veterans (1986).

The film was based on Jules Verne’s 1892 gothic novel The Carpathian Castle( aka Le Château des Carpathes), a possible influence on Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

The film's hero come glass glass-breaking opera singer, is Count Teleke of Tölökö( Michal Docolomanský) who we see setting off on a journey to a castle high in the Carpathians. Initially, for the first ten or twenty minutes, the film somewhat follows the plot of Dracula, as the Count stops off at a village near the castle, to be warned off because the devil himself resides there. But by the time he, and accident-prone/ large moustached woodsman Lensi(Jan Hartl) have made their way to the castle, we’ve very much switched to a blend of pulp adventure, wacky sci-fi, and parody.

Residing in the castle is Baron Gorc z Gorcu(Milos Kopecký), a baddie with a permed beard & a penchant for opera. Also living there is a crazed/ one robot armed professor Vynálezce orfanik(Rudolf Hrusínský) who has invented CCTV, Video, and a few other things many, many years before we thought they were invented.

The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians is often a very silly and pulp-heavy affair, with the genre elements of steampunk, adventure, sci-fi, and gothic horror blended in a playful/ wacky manner.

The cast, many of them reappearing from Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet, nicely ham and camp things up. I’d say it’s another worth and wacky romp of a film from  Lipský, with the runtime of one hour and thirty-eight minutes shifting by nicely.

Moving onto this region A Blu Ray,  and we get a new restored print from Deaf Crocodile – this looks nice and clean, with well-defined colours/ good clarity throughout. Unfortunately, I’m not quite sure what happened with the English subs, as fairly often letters are dropped off words, and on a few occasions, I even noticed spelling mistakes.

On the extras side, we get a good enough selection of new and archive extras. First, we have a commentary from Czech film expert Irena Kovarova of Comeback Company, and Czech film critic and screenwriter Tereza Brdečková- who is the daughter of one of the film's screenwriters. This is fine/ fairly interesting, though it’s a little dry/ clunky in places. They begin by talking about at its time of release, the film was seen as visionary, but today it’s amusing if a little stilted in its presentation. They chat about how the writers added more humour to  Verne’s story, as well as the opera element.  They discuss the American/Western culture-focused trilogy of films Lipský made, Lemonade Joe (1964), Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet ( 1978), and, of course, the film at hand.  Following on from this, they talk about how  Lipský didn’t like the word parody- when relating to these three films, as he said to do a proper parody, you need to be familiar with the source material- which, of course he nor the rest of Czechoslovakia was at this time, as they were behind the iron curtain.  They touch on some of the changes between the original novel and the film. Later on, they talk about how Lipský got into filmmaking and discuss his work in particular in comedy. They chat about the score, the film's songs, and a few other things.

Otherwise, on the new side, we have a filmed interview with Czech film critic and screenwriter Tereza Brdečková on her father, Jiří Brdečka, writer of The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians (37.38) this is in English, and is certainly interesting/ worth a play- though it does cover a fair bit of same ground as the commentary track.

On the archive side, we get the following: Universum Brdecka (1 hour & 28 mins) a 2017 documentary on the life and career of filmmaker, animator, screenwriter and illustrator Jiří Brdečka, covering his childhood, his work as a screenwriter with Jiří Trnka, Karel Zeman. Two of Jiří Brdečka animated short films: 1948's Vzducholoď a láska (Love and the Dirigible) (8.45.) and from 1980 Třináctá komnata prince Měděnce (Prince Copperslick aka Prince Měděnec’s Thirteenth Chamber) (9.38).

The release is topped off with a glossy sixteen-page inlay booklet- this takes in a new essay by film historian and expert on Eastern European cinema Jonathan Owen, as well as a few colour stills from the film.

I’ve now seen two of  Lipský’s American trilogy Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet, and the film to hand- I’d say of the two I most enjoyed the former more, as it was a little more varied in its location settings/ wackness, but there no doubt it, The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians is an entertaining/ bizarre ride.