The Bloodstained Shadow: The murder under the hill

The film opens on a cruel murder: a girl is strangled and abandoned at the foot of a hill, on which stands a sanctuary that appears fortified. It is the Sanctuary of Madonna del Sorbo, a few kilometres from Campagnano, near Rome. The building is always framed by the same point, from which we can see the bell tower.

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Plot:
Stefano D'Arcangeli, a young university lecturer in mathematics, in order to cure himself of the nervous breakdown from which he suffers, resulting in nightmares, reaches an island in the Venetian lagoon where his brother Don Paolo is the parish priest. The latter has long been the object of a series of threatening letters, as well as the victim of strong hostility on the part of Count Mariani, Dr Aloisi and the midwife Nardi, a group of people who usually gather at a sorceress' house for séances. Stefano, who in the meantime becomes the lover of the young decorator Sandra Sellani, tries in vain to uncover the mysteries surrounding him. The death of a young girl left unsolved seems to be linked to the murders that soon occur: the sorceress, Count Mariani, Sandra's mother, Dr Aloisi and Nardi die without either the police or the willing D'Arcangeli discovering the culprit. However, the discovery of the typing machine used to write the threatening letters and the study of a painting reproducing the old crime of the young Andreani, killed in a meadow, lead Stefano to the truth. The murderer of the girl was Don Paolo who, blackmailed by Nardi, shared the series of subsequent murders with her. Discovered by his brother, Don Paolo throws himself off the bell tower.